Anybody else experiencing slow sales

[the_canadian_thrifter]

Business has been really slow this past month for me. I sell on 2 accounts and so far have only sold a total of 5 items this month. I usually sell around 5 items per week. I sell expensive collectable junk, usually making around $300-$500 a week and now I’m making nothing. I depend on eBay for my income and this is just frustrating. Anyone else experiencing slow sales?

[momcqueen]

What percentage of your buyers are American? The government shutdown down south is impacting people’s ability to spend at the moment.

[momcqueen]

But, yes, my sales are not keeping pace with year-to-year numbers either.

[rose-dee]

If a large portion of your sales are usually to Americans (as mine are), you'll likely find that your sales will remain depressed until the political situation in the U.S. stabilizes. 

The immediate problem of course is the government shut-down, but there are so many other secondary crises going on as well (not to mention Trump's trade wars and insistence on "America first" which could be affecting Americans' perceptions about buying outside their borders).  All of it can't help but affect people's confidence in continued prosperity and stability, which in turn has to have an effect on purchasing, especially from outside the U.S. 

So those of us who have traditionally sold mostly to the U.S. and have done well may have a long dry spell ahead.  My best advice would be to try to appeal to any Canadian buyers you can get (with such things as free domestic shipping, special offers, etc.).

[the_canadian_thrifter]

I didn’t even take the government shut down into account. Anyways I’d say about 60-70 percent of my sales are from US buyers because it’s cheap (I use USPS through Chit Chat Express) My inventories overstocked and nothing’s selling. hopefully sales are better in February.

[rose-dee]

As I said, even if the government shutdown in the U.S. is resolved, I think there are many other crises, real or perceived, that are likely going to continue to affect U.S. buyers' willingness to purchase from outside the U.S. for quite some time.  

I'm really not optimistic that my U.S. sales are going to recover any time soon.  I think most of us who sell largely to the U.S. need to be prepared for quite a long dry spell.  

[reallynicestamps]

Is it allowable for a Canadian seller who ships via chitchat/USPS to give his location as USA?

[retroman_studios]

I do, as eBay US won't accept my postal code.

However I specifically use the ZIP provided by Chit Chats for parcel return service. As that is where the parcels are inducted.

[ichopshop]

A couple of things.  You only have 37 items listed so that's not a whole lot of selection.  Also, I find the best way to drive sales is to add more items regularly, every day if possible.  I suspect the algorithms favours active sellers.  If most of your sales are going to the US, you might consider targeting them directly by listing on .com site.  I know that makes selling to Canadians a little tougher but the way I look at it I can only sell an item once, so I want to sell it quickly.    In any event make sure your handling times are sufficient to avoid late shipping strikes.

Ian

[ricarmic]

When sales slow for me, this is what I do:

I check my peers selling similar stuff to see what their sales are like. If their sales are slow then it is more likely a market thing as opposed to a "me" thing.

In either case, I begin experimenting selling things a different way than I have in the past.

This can include:

-using promoted listings

-using sales etc promotions

-using Auctions in addition to BIN

-timing of listing and/or ending listings

-area(s)/categories I'm listing stuff

-seeing what my competitors are doing and if something they are doing might work for me

-other things that don't come to mind at the moment.

My current "system" was derived using the above process, and it at the moment continues to perform well. When the day comes that it ceases to perform well, which will eventually happen*, I'll resume the experimentation process to identify the next "system" I use.

*Just as you can look at what your competitors do, they can look at you too. Eventually enough others may do enough similar things to you to reduce your advantage, hence you have to reinvent your "system" again.....

[hlmacdon]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

Is it allowable for a Canadian seller who ships via chitchat/USPS to give his location as USA?

---

Use the zip of the post office it will ship from. You'll need to adjust your handling time to reflect the time it will take you to get the product to the forwarder and the forwarder to the post office. If you don't have this set right your estimated delivery will be artificially low relative to the actual delivery speed and you'll get upset US customers. Most services also include some sort of forwarding arrangement for returns, so if you want to do things properly and not have upset customers the listed item location and zip (you don't want the item location in the US but they have to return to Canada) should be the same for shipping as well as returns.

If you want to crack the US market you will really want to leverage calculated shipping based on that zip code otherwise the best match algorithm will bury you.

[canadiancommodityllc]

This is what we do 

we use an eBay function call promoted listing. Below is a .com or .ca link for your perusal

https://pages.ebay.ca/seller-centre/selling/promoted-listings.html

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/listing-and-marketing/promoted-listings.html

Don't know if you sell on amazon or so but just like how you have to pay for advertisement per click on amazon or google, here eBay does it  perfectly, you only get to pay when your item sell. sick right. so basically l will give eBay additionally like 1% to 7 %  from my item revenue on top of sellers fee(final value fee) you can also choose how much you want to pay. this is not really bad giving l also have an eBay store and get final value fee discount. say normal eBay listings pay 10%, eBay store owns only pay like 6% or so as final value fee. Yes it's true this may be very tied for some product with low margins. what l do is l add $1 to $5 to my price and set this at the amount to pay for promoted listing if it actually sells. so if it sell under promoted listing eBay get's their cut. so time l will list 2 listing 1 with promoted listing and one without with slightly different in the title so ebay do flag as same item.

Hope this make sense as it work.

[canadiancommodityllc]

Actually l hear chitchat will be hit very bad as USPS is increasing their rates this January 27th and with the increasing fall in our CAD, it may turn to be very difficult to ship with USPS options as it’s may not be price sensitive.

i was in an amazon forum a few weeks back and l heard lots of sellers talking of shipvista.com as a better alternative with better discounted rates from FedEx, Canada post and CanPar, and how they offer up to $200 free to new customer as bonus.  I Sign up already and it seems to be working Excellently 

Anyway let us know your experience with them

[momcqueen]

“...so time l will list 2 listing 1 with promoted listing and one without with slightly different in the title so ebay do flag as same item.”

You may want to rethink that tactic; it’s entering duplicate listing territory and violations can result in account suspension.

[retroman_studios]

Well, it depends. If you list in USD, although there is a fee to convert $ to CAD, the market value of one currency will offset another. Plus, with increased rates it's not like you are the only one, every seller deals with it.

Where I see an issue is if you list in CDN and ship with Chit Chats it might hurt. But I tend to overprice some of my flat rate and I've never had complaints. I ship twice a week, Monday & Friday. I'm listing more on .COM these days and it seems to work good. Granted I typically have smaller items that go First Class, so a rate hike won't be as drastic as say someone who is shipping heavy boxes.

[tryubik-useonlyasdirected]

@hlmacdon "If you want to crack the US market you will really want to leverage calculated shipping based on that zip code otherwise the best match algorithm will bury you."

Any tips for creating a Zone Rate Table when one sells items with a high postage variability?

Many of our items are large and many small. We have 6 different size classes and one wild-card for oversized post. The only solution we've found is flat-rate because we can't get rate tables to accept our item variability. If the hideous "Best Match" search factors in rate tables I don't understand what sellers are supposed to do that don't sell hordes of similar items?

[tryubik-useonlyasdirected]

The more I list, and the more I list regularly, the better the sales.

A couple things each day (even if they are a sell similar type re-list) seems to work better than a whole bunch of relists once a week with a one or two items tacked on.

Sales, discounts, promo's seem to favour depressed sales prices and only occasionally provide increased sales numbers. I find they work better for seasonal slumps (a sale at Christmas or over the Black Friday weekend etc.).

eBay seems to favour incremental momentum or sell-outs. Selling out isn't good for your bottom line and favours a lowered bar so list frequently and regularly with a stable stock. And take a look at what sells and what gets views.

I rarely check my direct competitors lest it affect my emotional state.

[canadiancommodityllc]

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@momcqueen wrote:
“...so time l will list 2 listing 1 with promoted listing and one without with slightly different in the title so ebay do flag as same item.”

You may want to rethink that tactic; it’s entering duplicate listing territory and violations can result in account suspension.

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Yes this is very true but this  doesn't fall as a duplicate listing as there are lots of modification and most times the prices will be different for example one will be listed as free and another as paid shipping and so on. 

This is eBay's definition for duplicate listing ""Duplicate listings are two or more listings for items that have no significant difference between them".  So price, picture and title will definitely create a significant difference. 

But yes @momcqueen is very correct about the duplicate listing. So please watch-out for that.

Below is a link to eBay policy with respect to that  

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-policies/duplicate-listings-policy?id=4255

Above link will also show you a work around. Read it

[sakic92710]

Unfortunately, eBay is frustrating...…..period.   I had a very good Jan. (during the first 3 weeks) after a disappointing Dec.  Sales here are a roller coaster ride.  On. Jan. 16, I sold $135 US.  After that, nothing for about 7+ days.  My next sale was in the evening of the 23rd.  From then, I sold ok for 6 more days.  On Tues, I sold $145 US.  Since then, 1 sale for $5.  Completely inconsistent & annoying!  lol  Just when I want to give it up here, I do well.  Sometimes, I make more $ in 1 flea market day than I do for 2 weeks on eBay.  It doesn't make sense at all.   Hope things improve for all of us.   Good luck to all.     🙂

[reallynicestamps]

@tryubik-useonlyasdirected 

If you are able to ship from a US zipcode (ie through chitchat or similar or by driving across the border yourself) then it makes sense to list on dotCOM in US dollars using that zipcode as your location.

The point of the location is to tell the buyer that he won't have border delays, import fees, or long delivery times.

If you are on dotCOM and using a US address you can then use Calculated Shipping which will work out how much postage you are going to charge the buyer automatically.

The only solution we've found is flat-rate because we can't get rate tables to accept our item variability.

Be careful about weight and measurements, of course, and be sure the service you choose fits those measures.

Most sellers of collectibles have no problems with Calculated Shipping even if every box they use is a different size, not just six different.