Ebay: Its oh so quiet

anne211981

Having read the boards on ebay i know im not the only one saying this but sales are down..... its so quiet out there. things that used to sell well arnt and thing that would sell even on the lowest auction price just arnt selling at the moment.

Ive been selling on ebay avidly for 2 years now and never known it this quiet.

anyone any ideas other than credit crunch, recession :mad:

I sell baby clothing. ive been thinking maybe pep's are going round more car boots rather than buying on ebay but even accounting for that....

Any help ive tried everything and ebay boards some people just like bragging or telling you your rubbish ect ect need some really advice please

Oliver14

I must admit my sales are about the same as this time last year in. But i'm in a totally different sector. My experience with Baby clothes and clothes in General is that it's a really tight Market with a lot of sellers. There also seem to be a lot of Sellers who believe their items are worth alot more than they are (I know you get that in most sectors but Clothing and Childrens clothing seems to have a proliferation)

The problem I see is that there are so many cheap supplies of Baby clothes etc on the high street. Just look at the sort of stuff Asda offer. So it's really tough to compete with that.

I also don't think the mass of Free listing days is helping a lot of people (another one this weekend. ... Sigh!!) It means a lot of people are having clearouts and there is a glut of products in some categories.

It's worth looking around and see what other areas are selling and be willing to drop lines if they are unprofitable. I dropped something last year that I had been successful in for years as the Market dried up. It's worth constantly looking for different avenues as the selling Markets are never static.

Crestfallen

Bank holidays are generally poor times to sell due to people being away or enjoying themselves rather than sitting online shopping. Couple that with the dire financial state of the nation and the fact that you're in such a competitive market and it's not surprising that your sales are suffering.

Only the other day I noticed that Asda had a 2-page spread on baby clothes in a newspaper, with most things being £2. Advertising like that does have an impact - I'm as interested in baby clothes as I am in yak farming, yet it stuck in my head.

Keep calm and carry on, it'll pass. In the meantime you could experiment with items from different sectors, or have a clearout of the house for some pin money.

pinkshoes

I buy lots of baby clothes online, but ONLY in bundles, and generally only "branded" items like Next, M&S etc... as individual items are too expensive due to postage, and they're relatively cheap brand new in supermarkets!

I find baby items on ebay expensive i.e. those inflatable ring things sell for about £6 with £5 postage, yet you can buy them from a car boot for around £3!!

Myyrrddyn

Give over I am rushed off my feet. Well that's put the mockers on it now.

FattyBettyBoo

I've been selling childrens clothes and find that my items are selling for more than they ever have, but everytime to buyers overseas.

Hammyman

anne211981 wrote: »

Having read the boards on ebay i know im not the only one saying this but sales are down..... its so quiet out there. things that used to sell well arnt and thing that would sell even on the lowest auction price just arnt selling at the moment.

Ive been selling on ebay avidly for 2 years now and never known it this quiet.

anyone any ideas other than credit crunch, recession :mad:

I sell baby clothing. ive been thinking maybe pep's are going round more car boots rather than buying on ebay but even accounting for that....

Any help ive tried everything and ebay boards some people just like bragging or telling you your rubbish ect ect need some really advice please

You're kidding aren't you? This weekend alone I sold 6 laptops and its looking like a total of 10 for the week which would make it one of my busiest weeks ever on Ebay and also they're going for a decent amount too. I have had my busiest week ever despite Currys flogging new laptops for not much more than I'm selling used ones for however I post to the whole of the EU and whilst Currys are having a sale in the UK, I can guarantee they're not in Austria. 3/4 of my laptop sales have been to outside of the UK. Doesn't bother me - their money is as good as anyones and because their countries aren't in the economic mess ours is, they have the money to spend.

Looking at my sales, out of the last 90 day the last month has generated more than 50% of that - most of that increase being directly attributable to starting to post stuff to the whole of the EU..

Hammyman

Crestfallen wrote: »

Bank holidays are generally poor times to sell due to people being away or enjoying themselves rather than sitting online shopping. Couple that with the dire financial state of the nation and the fact that you're in such a competitive market and it's not surprising that your sales are suffering.

Only the other day I noticed that Asda had a 2-page spread on baby clothes in a newspaper, with most things being £2.
.

The easiest way to counter that is sell internationally.

soolin

Came back from holiday first thing this morning and have already made sales and my prices seem as high, if not a little higher than usual.

No complaints here at present.

Crestfallen

International sales have become an increasingly large part of my trade, and the past 2 weeks has been well above-average for me, but the bank holiday weekend was relatively flat and sales still haven't picked up, despite adding more stock.

It's been the same, for me and other local traders I've spoken to, over previous bank holidays.

dmet

The new ebay layout is not helping as things like the watch list is on a seperate page and buying and selling have been split up making things more complicated. One thought for the reason for splitting them up is ebay get more revenue from the ad traffic if you relaod 3 pages everytime you use ebay.

I am going to open an Ebid account to test the water to try to break out of Ebays shackles.