Slow sales, sometimes it pays to listen to your own advice.

[ricarmic]

Frequent readers here will remember that a few times I've responded to the slow sales threads with the suggestion to use the not shipping time to review what other sellers are doing, how well your items search vs other sellers, compare differences with others that are selling more, experiment with various sales, promotional styles etc.

A few weeks ago I had VERY slow sales, 10% of what I'd normally expect that was ongoing for weeks.

My normal process for these is to review whether it is "me" or the "market" by checking my normal "watchees" list and sold items. I was consoling myself that my "watchees" were doing as poorly as me and that it was probably "market" related and to enjoy the spring weather moreso for a change!

However I eventually noticed some discrepancies in what I'd normally expect to see in my own results, so I did a deeper dig of mine vs other results beyond my normal review and decided that my "bag of tricks" which has been very successful for likely a couple years at least wasn't cutting it anymore. My standard review process had gap(s) and those gaps told me I should be doing better.

So I began experimenting. One of the experiments almost immediately brought me back up to almost my normal sales levels, and generally better than my "watchee" list, so my deduction that my problem was market/experienced by everyone else was wrong.

Now because I had the lull, I've drifted off my normal work time/dedication level likely for the summer now, I know that there are further experiement refinements I need to make, but I'll resume that "later".

The bag of tricks remains top secret of course, but the moral of the story is that experimentation is very important. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but in either case it is necessary to do, especially if there's a change in your results.

[38e_avenue]

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@ricarmic wrote:

The bag of tricks remains top secret of course

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Why "of course"? 😄 we do not sell stamps, we are not your competitors, so please share 😄

[darak10]

thanks to never knowing what exactly the reason why sales slow down or disappear - I am firmly convinced ockham's razor answers this question appropriately (cost of living crisis) - but it needs to be said regarding fiddling around under the hood on an engine we cant see to ever understand how it operates is that correlation does not mean causation.  The platform never discloses any information to this regard, it keep us folks guessing and wondering why, which is why this system is essentially voodoo.  Chant away, beat your drums, supplicate to the gods and maybe they'll toss a nickel or two your way for exercising your protestant ethic.  Bottom line we are effectively rats in a maze trying to get the cheese - maybe we'll get it today, maybe we wont, we just dont know either way.  Seems BF Skinner knew something the folks behind the scenes here dont know - after awhile, if theres no consistent reward to a behavior, something called learned helplessness comes into play and folks check out and give up.  Whatever people's moral judgements about others decisions regarding throwing in the towel here or not, sellers checking out and going somewhere else does not serve the platforms bottom line well at all.  

I think luck plays a much bigger role than most folks will admit.  These self described experts on youtube - auction professor is the only guy on there who in my estimation knows what hes talking about - dont know much of anything, they just pretend like they do because they get a giant narcissistic ego feed out of throngs of strangers giving them attention.  Complete waste of time listening to 95% of these people.  

IMO folks just need to come to terms that there is no one answer or one explanation apart from a significant percentage of the population is not doing well financially and this is going to negatively affect their individual bottom lines, and to make plans accordingly.  Do you want to continue to fiddle around under the hood on the unseen engine or not, is it worth it to folks or not?  I have developed a tweak system too, but its likely different than others.  Different responses for different people.   

[femmefan1946]

Younger Canadians, especially the 25-35 age group, not only have different interests than we Boomers and Gen X, but also have more debt as they leave university school.

While 24% of Canadians have post secondary education, fully 73% of those 25-34 do. And four years of postsecondary tuition will run about $100K-$120K, not counting living costs.

Canadian student loans are less predatory than those in the USA, but it's still a lot of debt to start a career with.

So at a time when we older folk were setting up our households, and all the expenses that entails, our children and grandchildren are paying interest.

Fortunately, in spite of the whining of the rightwing, unemployment is low enough (5%) that wages are slowly rising.