Slow sales?

[rocketscollectibles]

I know this is something everyone complaint about on a regular basis.  But i just wondered if everyone experiencing slow sales right now?

I listed more than ever in january and instead of growing, my eBay turned totally dead. There is some suspicious tendancies in here. Without 2 auctions i did ending last sunday and that i started at 50% my BIN price, i sold for $10 total since january 23. I list 3 to 4 items per day everyday and i have over 200 listings, i just don't understand. It's always been sales in waves for me but now i'm really pushed deep at the bottom of the ocean

My last positive feedback was on the 18th and i received like 2 on my last 20 sales. Things just not rolling

I subsribed to a basic store to experiment. I started promotions: dead.  Not sure to understand what's going on it's like i'm invisible right now

Just needed to vent a bit eBay and its algorythm is depressing sometimes. I did set up a week away (that i stopped after 3 days), is this something costing?

[marnotom!]

When I worked in brick and mortar retail, I found that January and February were our slowest months.

Because you started almost a year ago, you don’t have a January to compare and not much of a February either.

I’m not sure what to suggest, but I suspect there’s no magic pill you can take for your sales to make them higher than what you experienced during the holiday rush.

Buyers have bills to pay, and the cost of living is rising in an unprecedented manner. I don’t think you can easily combat that. I predict your sales for March will be an increase over what you had in March 2021, if that’s any consolation.

[darak10]

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inflation is maxing us all out even more (I havent spent more than $10 on discretionary items for myself since New Years) along with economic issues / uncertainties slowing sales.  My Q4 was fantastic but I'm mostly in the tank now as well, down around 40% from december.   Overall, ecommerce sales over the holiday season apparently were below expectations so it seems broader macroeconomic issues are the culprit, but I dont have the ability to see same numbers ebay staff are seeing.

As for the increased listings = zero sales, i've noticed this too over the last three weeks and spoke with another seller on here recently about this and he's experiencing the same thing - despite consistently creating new listings daily, he's seeing tumbleweeds in the sales dept.  

[rocketscollectibles]

As for the increased listings = zero sales, i've noticed this too over the last three weeks and spoke with another seller on here recently about this and he's experiencing the same thing - despite consistently creating new listings daily, he's seeing tumbleweeds in the sales dept

Everyone around the net have always suggested to list new items on daily basis and not listing one shot, that it boost in search and keep a rollment but sometimes i have doubts about it. I wonder if it's not better to list our items as fast as possible instead? When i have new items i personally schedule all them to be listed every few hours around 3 per day, i wonder if i should not list every thing in a shorter period. I wonder if not listing new items really hurt or it's just a myth, i mean is it really better to schedule 3 items/day over 2 weeks or 42 items in a day or two and none for the next 12-13 days? At the end you give that extra 12-13 more days to those 42 items to be sold so i'm not sure anymore about this daily listing strategy. I never seen any boost in anything by scheduling them slowly and consistantly , and i always feel like i'm holding items ''backstore''

[ricarmic]

You'll get all kinds of advice on these boards, folks will share what works for them, but you'll have to figure out what works best for you.

Experimenting is one of the most important things to do! Why not try listing 42 items in a day, see if that works better for you than a constant number over each day. In the worst case if it doesn't work, it's a one time batch of items in and you can go back to listing a few each day.

I looked at the category you have at least one of your cards in, the category had 3,982,499 items running! I checked one of your cards and there were 100s of others out there too. You will have a challenge trying to make yourself visible to buyers in such a large category, this is why experimenting will be important.

It also will mean that advice someone gives you from a category with 500,000 items running may not work for you as it works for them.

[byto253]

Also perhaps try expermenting with some listings on .com as most of you buyers are likely US and there is a good number who will go to alternatives when a different currency comes up, unless it is basically super cheap.    Canadian buyers will love free Canadian shipping and CAN$ of course.   

It is a tough competitive category.  I did a general search for completed and sold Pokemon cards from Canada  on .com in auction format and it showed 21,709 complete auctions with 8,050 have sales, so the sell through rate is about 38% overall.  That is likely skewed much lower for more common cards as well.   

Some of the listings will take a long time to sell, so it takes a lot of patience and is a numbers game with getting up as many listings as possible.   I see this when I have a batch of video games, with the best going pretty quick and the rest grinding it out over several months.

[edubb101]

Hello,

A good piece of advice that I picked up in the forums is that you need to be always "working" your store.  This means updating your current inventory which could mean adjusting prices, improving photos and/or descriptions.  You can also look at taking some pieces down for a bit then listing them later.  This has worked when I've had a piece with lots of watchers on it.  I take it down for a month or so and then relist it.  Often times the piece moves very quickly on the relist.

Part of working your store also includes listing new merchandise as well but for me it needs to be done in conjunction with the points above.  I never dwell on slow sales because I am always working my store and keep a positive attitude always even in the tough times.  This has worked for me.

I wish you all the best.

[rocketscollectibles]

Thanks for the feedbacks guys. Actually i'm working everything said a lot, this is what makes the dead run painful to take. It's probably the worst run i have since i sell here. I did put way too much time past months and especially last month to end seeing what i'm seeing right now. I do not expect the moon with 200 listings but at least an acceptable pace. Not $10 sales in 2 weeks with a $2k store. I do a lot of researchs and i'm back to the point i was when i started to see quite often some sellers selling worse quality items at higher prices. Its like i did something wrong at some point, i'm punished by the algorythm or something

I experiment a lot but the problem with eBay is that the sales (at least mine) always comes in waves, so conclusions are tough to be accurate. Sometimes you do a change and it works (or not) and it's just the algorythm, or the luck of the right buyer at the right moment. I feel like on eBay it's not because you sold something than you did right, and it's not because you do not sell than you do wrong , it can be confusing sometimes

I took a monthly store subscription and i'll try to exploit that, we'll see but at the moment i don't see any difference