Lull in Overnight Sales/ Offers

[AtomicStar]

After the summer “slow down” (which wasn’t all that slow for me), I started back at the normal waking up and seeing offers/sales in the early morning. This started in September and was pretty regular through mid October. And then around October 18th, all my overnight sales and offers vanished. This time of year I’m used to waking up to at least 6-10 offers/sales that would typically happen overnight. Since mid-October this has ceased. It is SO odd for this time of year. Anyone else going through this? I have 2,400 items in my store and do about 1,500-2,000 per week, but right now it’s oddly slow.

[IndySales]

Through Oct 1st to the 18th my sales dropped something like 60%/70%. I chalked it up to a lack of consistent listing in the latter weeks of September, the surprisingly good weather of early October, fall break, etc, etc. Things are OK now.

Trying to figure out why sales are slow just ends up with me wasting a bunch of brain power on something I ultimately can’t control. A true grin and bear it situation.

Look on the bright side – less stuff to ship means more time to list. More listings = more sales (presumably.) Eventually it all works itself out.

[Jay]

I wouldn’t read much into sales cycles.
–Often its just the fickle tastes and habits of buyers. I think you sell mainly clothes, so maybe it was “back to school” buyers shopping at night for school. Now they all have their outfits.

–Or what if it is the tricky eBay elves changing the gears and search? Not much any of us can do about it. The eyes of prosperity will shine on you again. Keep listing!

[AtomicStar]

I need the eyes of prosperity to shine sooner. Mom has college tuition payments due for her kid, lol.

But seriously, I have been listing heavily the past week which hopefully will help. I wish I could move out of clothing but it constantly ropes me back in.

Jay, you were talking about moving towards higher value items and that’s my desire too. My problem is that I work with a DC area auction house that doesn’t take clothing from the estates they work with. They call me in to get the clothes and I cannot walk away from those items even though I only make $15-$20 on the lower value items because my cost is like .25 an item. It’s the St John and Akris that makes it all worth while, but like I said, it’s hard to walk away from profit with items like Chico’s, LOFT and other ok brands that will sell eventually for ok roi.

[Jay]

Im right there with you. There’s no reason to stop selling bread and butter items ($20-$30) especially if you get them cheap. All we want to do is have a better mix. Just means changing our scavenging patterns.

For the size store you have, you make good money IMHO. The only way to make more is to have a lager inventory of current items, or sell items that raise your selling price.

[Inglewood]

Bread and butter items are a great learning tool as well – I think everyone should use them, especially when starting off, to build there own systems, learn how to list, learn the nuances of shipping, and dealing with customers.

They are great to make mistakes with (either items that don’t sell, or are a pain to ship) as the lessons learned will prevent you from making mistakes as your business grows and you go after items with a higher initial investment.

I love a couple of my bread and butter items – I’ve found a few niches where I can find them easily (every thrift store seems to have a few), they are only a few dollars to buy, they are very easy to list and ship.

I also hate a few items that use to be bread and butter items – I use to sell a lot of T-Shirts and Coffee Mugs – however, now I avoid them. T-Shirts were slow sellers, and hard to photograph/measure/list, and coffee mugs take up too much space and are painful to ship (always need a box, protection, may break in storage/shipping, etc).

It’s about finding the right mix, and stumbling upon some easy to source items others ignore that have an easy process from listing through shipping.

My sales have been weird lately as well – no sales from Monday to Thursday, 1 sale Friday, 11 sales Saturday (I only have 200 listings – crazy!), and no sales since…

[Amatino]

I’ve had the worst October since I first started selling. A friend commented to me that sales generally drop around election time – the bigger the election, the bigger the drop. Made sense to me. I’m going to wait until next week and see if it picks up.

[simplicio]

You can go crazy seeing patterns in sales. I say just list and hope that your items are pleasing to Huitzilopochtli.

[AtomicStar]

Usually I’m a super positive person and always say list list list during slow times, but I am definitely feeling deflated lately with the sluggish sales. Usually I can’t keep up with shipping in November. I have 5 going out today. Horrendous. It’s affecting my productivity and general outlook. The crappy weather isn’t helping either because photos look blah.

[simplicio]

Ebay sales have the exact same structure as gambling payouts from say a slot machine – random positive reinforcement. It’s easy to let them hack you to the point where the lack of them seriously affects your mood, even when things are going well over a larger timescale.

I don’t really have a solution. Maybe look at your numbers for the trailing year. If they’re good, don’t worry – if not, you may have a real sales problem and not an ephemeral one.

[Retro Treasures WV]

If you have a large, extremely cheap supply of mall brand clothing you should sell in lots. You get the satisfaction of larger sales prices, and they tend to sell much quicker than individual items. You could even use auctions if you want.

[Author]

Posts