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So I went from consistently selling several things a day to 5 days between sales all of a sudden last week. Did a one day sale and got a few sales. Nothing since. I don’t know what happened and I’m sure it’s just a valley, but man…it’s SCARY!!!!!
Anyone else see a huge slowdown in the last 10 days or so? -
yes we’ve seen a slowdown in volume. though some of our sale prices have been high, but the volume has been low. and a couple high dollar returns also got started today. d’oh!!
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Good morning:
guess this fits the bill about something Jay said a year or two ago. Selling higher dollar items equals less work. Taken to the far fetched, sell one $5,000 item per month times 12 mos. = $60,000 per year and you only have to ship 12 items per year. SO.. HOW SLOW IS SLOOOOW!!! Seems like that term is relative doesn’t it.Certainly satisfies my concept, of use my mind and not my back.
We took Jay’s comment to heart as we pulled all our inventory out of those 6 antique booths two years ago. We pulled about 3,000 items. At about that same time Jay mentioned not working so hard on selling very low cost items. So we took a long hard look at 600 sq. feet of piled up inventory and started weeding out. We donated almost a thousand items that were all priced at the booths less than $10, we then sent about 1,000 to a local auction house everything that was too large to store, box and ship [furniture type things], then we took the last thousand all over $10 and up and we started to list.
Proud to say as of the end of 2017 all death piles are gone, only about a dozen items left from the booths to list. Currently, we have 921 items in our store, have sold 475 items for approx. $15,000 during 2017 = an avg. Selling price of $31.00 per item. This avg. to approx. $1,250 per month with an avg. of approx. 40 items sold per month or approx. 10 per week.
Much easier to look at the overall period this way. Smooths out the highs and lows. By using WonderLister and Quicken for business we do pull a P&L [profit and loss] statement every month quaretly, year to date and year end. This way we can keep tabs on everything but not every week like others here on SL.
Doing weekly numbers to me is like investing in the stock market then watching the Dow Jones and Ticket Tape every day. Then why not every hour. That can drive you bonkers. Yes we all have slow thing, but pulling a P&L monthly and quarterly smooths those wild swings out, as well as the anxiety it causes by watching the financials “too” closely.
So, back to my opening statement. Buy low as you can, sell high as you can, make those the highest items you can find and sell to target that goal of a targeted number. In other words, use your brain and not your back. AND REALLY HOW SLOW IS SLOOOWWW! It depends on the time frame. If you compare minute by minute, or weekly. Short time frames are going to produce wide spikes and deep valleys. But, look at your financials quarterly and things will look a little rosier. If you see growth quarterly and then certainly yearly, then you are on an upswing overall. Now just get that upwards trend, moving at a sharper upwards incline. That is one of our longer, annual goals.
Our next goal is to open up all the art portfolios we have and start to list all of the signed, fine art prints we have. We have hundreds of them and most are all over $50 and up each and we have multiples of some that I was commissioned to do for other artists.
Then, on to listing the original paintings we have and most of those will all list for over $100 each.
At auctions, we are doing early preview of each item we are targeting to buy, researching while we go to lunch prior to auction and targeting only those items that we think we can list for over $50 and creating a “we will pay up to this much” list for each item. We use that as a cut off point of when to drop out of the bidding. The goal again, buy less for more money that will sell for more, then in turn we will sell less quantity of items for higher dollar amounts.
Then of course cross list all of this on 4 or 5 various platforms all managed by WonderLister as our main centralized listing, tracking and managing software program.
Final Goal…. Use our brains and not our backs. Sell less for more to make more.
Just our approach. It can change.Mike at MDC Concepts, Inc.
MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
SmartParts Home Decor -
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I’ve been consistently listing (thanks to the Twins Challenge) and have never gone through a consistent listing period without sales…until now. I’m about to hit 500 in my store and have had only one sale in the last 10 days.
Thanks for posting ice_queen. I was beginning to think it was only me. I’ll keep listing and wait it out.
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Me too
Jan 2018 was slowest in 18 months -
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January was pretty good for me – about $350. I’m still building up my store; I have about 270 items now. I heard the caller on the podcast mention his sales jumped after he bought a high priced golf club. I wonder what effect buying items has on your selling. I have been buying more items in the past month or so and I have seen increased sales and offers.
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For us, this was our best January ever.
Total sales were $10,024, an 86% increase over January 2017, and (barely) keeps us at four straight months of Total Sales being over $10k.
I track our Page View data (every day) from the Traffic Page, and have saved that data in a spreadsheet. I created a line graph so that we can see the visual of how our shoppers are looking at our items. Every year since 2014 has the same curves.
From a high in early to mid-December, we drop until mid to late January. Increase again until around mid-March, then a slow drop into mid-August, then the large upswing to mid-December again.
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I started out thinking January would be a fantastic month and that we were finally on our way to consistent sales/income. But we periodically hit slow periods that make me question my whole business model. It’s an emotional roller coaster as we try to build this into a real business. The hardest part for me is when I get a week of consistent /multiple sales per day and then a day or 2 with next to nothing. I’m taking Jay and Ryanne’s good advice to use those slow times for listing but nonetheless it can be depressing and make it hard to stay motivated. The more we sell, the more energy I have to list. Makes me feel better that these ups and downs are normal for most people here though, and that it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m failing!
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CTVintage: the best advice I could give is to try and ignore the daily cycles. And that is hard, as we still get bothered too. Focus on what you can control: list a lot, find quality items that people want, buy low.
We have had a $100 sales day and a $400 sales day back to back. Can’t predict when things will sell, but if you are doing the right things, they will.
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@CTVintage – I’m not selling on eBay full time at the moment, but when I’ve been unemployed or under-employed, we always used eBay income to get by week to week in those time periods.
When we would have a “bad” week, we would adjust our budget the next week on items we could control – things like groceries and any other luxuries. We would also limit buying more inventory unless it was an easy sale until we had a “good” week where we had some extra money to spend.
It’s a difficult balancing act – but once you have a few “bad” weeks where you need to budget, and then have some amazing weeks where you feel you hit the jackpot, you’ll get use to the ups and downs, learn to plan days that are not that great, and learn from any mistakes you made.
As time goes on, you will see an income pattern – for us, it was a good income when times were tough and it paid the bills, but we ended up going back to working for others for consistent income and still sell on eBay more as a hobby.
It’s going to be emotional, and challenging, but over an extended time period you will see the amount of income you average for your efforts and be able to decide to continue, or seek other options for income.
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@inglewood – thanks for your advice and encouragement — it really helps! It will probably end up being one of several income sources for me too
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CTVintage,
Yes, not getting sales when you have been working hard listing can be frustrating especially when expected monies earned are allotted for in your budget. I would like to offer to you to change your focus from sales to your business plan (if one has been put into place) and/or your life plan. Instead of focusing on sales, try to focus on what you want to achieve with your store (a certain way of doing things, a certain number of listings, a certain and/or quality of item), how you run your store, the finer aspects of your store (pictures, organization, keeping abreast of eBay and market changes and understanding how they impact your store and business), and what you want to achieve in your life. Have your plan or plans visible with something indicating what in the plan you are working on at one time. I would also offer that you find someone or something that is motivational and turn it on or spend time doing it every day. If you shift your focus away from sales and onto the larger picture of you, your business, and your overall goals, as you are moving along making overall progress, you will notice sales coming in. And when they don’t, you won’t be so effected by it because you will know that they are just a piece in the larger plan/outlook for you and your business.
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