Anyone Experiencing Decline in Sales?

confusedmonky13

I'm just curious if anyone else has seen business slow down to a crawl? I just started my new business in January and have seen growth by doubling my numbers every month and now it has slowed to virtually no sales. Is anyone else seeing this decline?

bevsey123

Is it eBay sales or another avenue?

Not the end of the world, Christmas soon

fudjj

We supply a lot of sellers with liquidated stock and our sales have come down over the past two months, so if the sellers are slowing down, it's a pretty good indication that the retail end is as well.

confusedmonky13

Ok I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't just something that I am doing, but I cant even advertise to equal out make money off of it, but have not been able to

fudjj

Just have to buckle up and ride this storm out, at least you don't have all the over heads of rent and such to be concerned about. The economy has a little way to go yet before consumers will start gaining some serious confidence to start spending up again.

bevsey123

I have noticed an increase over here, mainly europeans taking advantage of the Euro.

fudjj

That's pretty good news for my ears, we're about to start shipping a few liquidated stock lines we have managed to dig up in Europe, so will hopefully find some cashed up local buyers ready to snap up the bargains : )

grboutique

You got that right. Sales are slow this past couple of months. I use to sell over $12K a month on ebay and now it's down to $5K a month in sales. I'm just riding the storm like fudjj said and hope that it will pick up soon.

raiderjake

christmas is coming, i may be new to online sales but i have years of experience in retail. things will get better soon.

planes

This is a common slowdown at summer start every year. I hear this same time every year.

It will pickup as soon as the summer novelty wears off and the college students stop partying and summer vacations become less and less.

confusedmonky13

Ya its tough because usually I would go with advertising more, but now its to the point where that doesnt even matter really, because its just people shopping and not buying.

userexists

So, it's summer that's causing a slump in sales? What's the excuse for us then now that it's winter here? Sales have been down for us also, however a slight diversification in product type has generated enough sales to weather the storm till the great turnaround! Just going out to the shopping centre, I've also noticed huge Sales going on. Bigger markdowns than I've ever been aware of before. I purchased 12 items for ten bucks apiece and have so far sold all but two for $34 each. If you keep your eyes peeled when you go out, there are bargains all around you at this time of year due to big stocktaking sales. There are some huge markdowns on quality cookware (thanks to Jimmy for making me aware of the potetial of this kind of product) LOL. Not everybody in the nation lives near the kinds of shops that have these huge markdown sales so flogging them off online is lucrative.

dreamcatcher

ive actually gotten the more sales in the last 6 mths than i got all of 08. i sell gold paydirt. unique huh? thats how to make it work.

dwmgoods35

wow this economy is killing me. I went from having at least 5 sales per day down to nothing for the past 4 days now. I am not sure whats going on out there but it seems that each day more and more people are tightening their belts.

Within the last week or two how has everyones sales been??

designerthriftshop

I've been doing pretty well. I introduced a new product & have had great resuts & feedback.

dwmgoods35

Glad to hear your doing well designerthriftshop. Hey if you or anyone else wouldn't mind checking out my listings on ebay because I can't figure out what happened all of a sudden. Ebay id: DWMGOODS35 . Thanks in advance!

fudjj

I'll swing by a little later and take a look for you don.

dwmgoods35

Thanks Marc,

I'd appreciate it!

fudjj

Have you noticed a drop in traffic don, or the numbers are about the same?

I did notice something regarding you payment options. At the moment the way you have it set out with the icons, you are displaying that anyone who wants to pay with a credit card should choose PayPal by listing all the card icons with the PayPal icon.

What you are doing is bleeding your Paymate option completely dry because you are directing credit card payers to PayPal, and not providing any payment options that Paymate offers.

I would suggest just using a PayPal icon, no cards included at all, then include the two card icons for beside the Paymate icon, and make a note to inform people that they do not need a Paymate account to use the option.

At the moment I would imagine most of your customers have never heard of it, all they see if they can pay by PayPal, or if they want to choose a card, they can pay by PayPal.

Lessen the PayPal promotion, pump up the Paymate option, and that includes positioning it on top, not underneath PayPal, that sends a signal that it is your number two option.

dwmgoods35

Excellent advice as always, Thanks Marc!

I realized after you gave some advice on the paymate in an earlier post that I needed to make some major changes to the payment section and boost up the Paymate option. Im not sure if that is what is turning customers off of my items because that template has been setup for a while now, but I am sure it is catching the eyes of some and probably scaring them away. At this time I am noticing a slight decrease in traffic numbers especially to my ebay store but the bigger picture is I have had no sales now going on my 5th day. Wondering if its just the time of year or the economy is turning more and more people to spend less.

Thanks again Marc!

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