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Very slow in sales
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PrettyPelican



Posts: 35

PostPosted: Fri Dec 22, 2017 7:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've been trying to add items each day and with 80 hats as well as other listings, I keep thinking even 1 sale would at least tell me that I have everything listed correctly. But I guess I'll just have to assume that I have everything right.
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PrettyPelican



Posts: 35

PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 1:31 pm    Post subject: So what happened approx. 4 yrs. ago? Reply with quote

I was checking my sales and it seems everything was running smoothly with a fair amount of paid sales until about 4 yrs. ago and then the bottom fell out. Was something changed I don't know about?
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VandysVarietyShoppe



Posts: 61

PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 2:39 pm    Post subject: sales or rather lack there of... Reply with quote

my eBay sales were going great until June of this year and have been rather sporadic ever since...my Etsy sales were going ok until late 2016 (closed up shop there), a few years ago, had given Zibbet a go = what a joke that was! 0 interest, 0 sales(closed account there)...about a year ago, gave ArtYah a go = another joke of a site with 0 interest,0 sales (closed account there)...
My Bonanza sales have picked up again after being basically non-existent for the past 3 years... and eCrater...well eCrater has been another useless venture for me= 0 interest, 0 sales , 1 inquiry in 7 months = I am currently in the process of closing up shop here.
I guess it's back to eBay and Bonanza for me.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 3:07 pm    Post subject: Re: So what happened approx. 4 yrs. ago? Reply with quote

PrettyPelican wrote:
I was checking my sales and it seems everything was running smoothly with a fair amount of paid sales until about 4 yrs. ago and then the bottom fell out. Was something changed I don't know about?
21010 and 2011 were my absolute best years here and then about April/May 2012 Google made some changes and we were instantly no longer 'loved' by them. They called it Panda or Caffeine or something like that. Then the next year another change and my sales have never recovered. In February 2012 I sold more on eCRATER, than I have during January through November of this year!

So yep, the bottom fell out. I need what money we can make and have added on another selling venue and have made a few stabs at ebay. Sold thing for the opening bid, not a single counterbid. Currently our sales help keep the utilities on and the groceries on the table, especially after three years of essentially no COLA raises from SS. This years 2% was a joke, I went up $27 and $25 of them went to my new MC premium so I got an extra $2. That is not what I call a raise -- 50 cents extra a week. What can you buy with 50 cents?
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gettysburghobbyshop



Posts: 4

PostPosted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 6:36 am    Post subject: Re: sales or rather lack there of... Reply with quote

VandysVarietyShoppe wrote:
my eBay sales were going great until June of this year and have been rather sporadic ever since....


I've been with eCrater maybe ten years or so. Sales for me generally tank annually during June summer until school gets away. Then picks up steam more so in October until the cycle repeats itself the following summer.

This (past) year, the November-December cycle was the worst in a decade, and now January is proving even worse than that.

Been sitting here thinking about going back to the "old way" and just selling on my own web site again.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 11:34 am    Post subject: Re: sales or rather lack there of... Reply with quote

gettysburghobbyshop wrote:
VandysVarietyShoppe wrote:
my eBay sales were going great until June of this year and have been rather sporadic ever since....



Quote:
Been sitting here thinking about going back to the "old way" and just selling on my own web site again.


My husband talks about us having our own website and all I can think about is trying to upload well over 12K items of inventory into our own site. If I thought it would help bring in lots of sales I would be jumping on it, but I don't know. Sounds like an immense lot of work.
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elpereles



Posts: 3427

PostPosted: Tue Jan 23, 2018 8:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

joystarr, did you make the changes? Are you promoting using the free tools?
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elpereles



Posts: 3427

PostPosted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 7:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

joystarr, are you still here?
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PrettyPelican



Posts: 35

PostPosted: Mon Jun 04, 2018 4:49 pm    Post subject: Changing my path Reply with quote

Due to such low (nil) sales, I've deleted most of my store. I gave 7-8 boxes of my stuff to my 2 daughters to put in their yard/garage sale. They got rid of a lot of it at very low prices, but it's gone out of my house and I'm happy! The money didn't matter so much as they're getting it anyway, but time to move on to something different. one of granddaughters is starting to crochet so she'll have all my stash of yarn and one of my daughters is thinking of starting to sew a little, since she can't work anymore, so she'll have all my fabrics. Then I can fill my house with beads, lol, as I've discovered I like playing around with making jewelry, who'd have thought!
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VandysVarietyShoppe



Posts: 9

PostPosted: Mon Jun 11, 2018 3:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

after listing hundreds of items on eCRATER, and after many months of 0 sales, very few views, no inquiries, it was evident that not only were my items going no where, there was no traffic being drawn to this site and any market for my items was non-existent, so I deleted all my listings and returned to my previous selling venues and as yet I have not seen any evidence that there is much of a market here for the majority of categories. Yes eCRATER has its cheerleaders like any selling venue, but there is little evidence that eCRATER is even sought out by would be buyers...eCRATER had great potential years ago but even that has dwindled and unless the rest of the buying world knows that eCRATER exists, this site will remain in its current state of oblivion. Although sellers here need to do 100% promotion and advertising of their wares, eCRATER needs to do their part to see that their site is presented to the buying and selling world, but I just don't see that happening. I would like to see progress on eCRATER, updates to the site, at least something positive that would give me reason to return and list here, as well as a reason for buyers to visit and buy here. For a site that has been around for nearly 14 years, this place should be bustling with action, have a competitive spirit rivaling the likes of Etsy or at least Bonanza...both of those sites saw huge growth over the years but then unfortunately greed took over and destroyed the greatness they once had, but at least those sites have an existence... instead I see eCRATER as something in a black hole that no one ever sees or visits, and on about the same level as any of the new sites that have popped up in the past 2-3 years...going nowhere fast.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 8:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
instead I see eCRATER as something in a black hole that no one ever sees or visits,


Not actually true. I have been seeing complaints at any ecommerce site I go to that sales are down for many folks. Part of it can be explained by many more sellers to the mix. When I first started selling sewing patterns on ebay years ago, I was one of a very few and one of the biggest sellers. Now you can barely go anywhere without tripping over someone selling a sewing pattern, not that they know anything at all about sewing patterns. So the buyers have many more places just for that one type of item alone to check.

Today I had a sale here to a lady that has bought from me here 5 times between 2006 and today. I currently have about 5200 sales here and many of those were multiple item orders. Do I wish that eCRATER was busier? You bet! But I'm not giving up on this site. It is the only seller-centric site on the internet. Amazon and eBay sure aren't in the least. I don't mind doing my promoting as I can send promos to sites that it would be welcome to see. In the last 4 + years, I have gotten 90+ orders via Pinterest. Without me promoting using Pinterest, that would be zero. Same with direct orders.

Sorry that you didn't succeed here. I wish everyone could. But it depends on the seller and what they choose to sell. Ran into a guy today that wanted to sell school back packs on Amazon but couldn't even find the category! I found it and it is already swamped with over 300,000 items! How well will one lone guy do that has trouble even finding where to list them in the first place?


Last edited by MoonwishesStore on Sun Oct 21, 2018 9:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
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elpereles



Posts: 3427

PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 7:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello everybody.

Agree with MoonwishesStore. The competition is harder. There is a lot of sellers in the Internet. You need to promote and adapt your business.

Now about eCrater. As far I can tell. I start working outside my hometown like 2 years ago. Since that moment I stop promoting my store or adding new stuff. Even with that, at least something or a little card sell each month. Now the difference is that all the sales are from the marketplace.

The fact and the sad. The "great" moment of Alternatives to eBay died time ago. No more just list, sit, and wait. eCrater is not "partner" of Google. eCrater is not eBay or Amazon. If you want sales, you need to work for them.
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elpereles



Posts: 3427

PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 8:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No offense or nothing against joystarr.

A great example of sellers arguing about low sales, but they continue doing the same thing over over. Many of the sales are coming from search engines. You must be specific and the same way interesting to their bots. joystarr is still writing the same tittle and same description.

Another thing. If you sell in various sites. Check your inventory. Update.

In the past 2 years by my experience, many of the buyers prefer to receive a message that you can not ship on time against you do not have available the item.
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pickychicky



Posts: 1552

PostPosted: Sat Jul 14, 2018 4:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

VandysVarietyShoppe wrote:
Etsy or at least Bonanza...both of those sites saw huge growth over the years but then unfortunately greed took over and destroyed the greatness they once had, but at least those sites have an existence... instead I see eCRATER as something in a black hole that no one ever sees or visits, and on about the same level as any of the new sites that have popped up in the past 2-3 years...going nowhere fast.

The reason Etsy and Bonanza did so well was because they caved, selling out their sellers, and accepted an injection of funds from investors, which is what ruined both sites for sellers. So I commend eCrater for sticking it out on their own to avoid the same mistakes these other "great" sites made. I left Bonanza years ago, as a result, and am now rethinking my decision to sell on Etsy for the very same reasons. It's truly like deja vu. There's a huge campaign going on against Etsy as we speak for losing sight of its core values, but that's not going to change anything because corporate greed isn't going anywhere any time soon.

At this point, I'm actually thinking of selling on eBay, something I said I would never do, just to get rid of my stock so I can focus on moving forward with my other business plans. However, my eCrater shop will remain and I am working to spend more time on promoting, which I haven't done a very good job of in the past. So, that's on me. The good news is that I'm starting to see my custom domain in Google organic and my items are ranking well in Google Shopping under the eCrater umbrella and I haven't even really gotten too far with promoting, yet.

No matter where I'm selling, though, I never make any final decisions during the summer months as they're known to be slower months. Once school gets underway in the fall, things start picking up again. It's been that way every single year I've sold online for the past 10 years. In all that time, eCrater is the ONLY site I've stuck with, sales or no sales, solely due to the fact that they aren't doing what everybody else is doing -- taking on investors, going public, and being bullied by investors to increase their bottom line at the expense of sellers.

Etsy's founder fought against it and he was voted out of his own company. Then they turned around and did the same thing to the other original member of the team who became CEO for a while. Now it's being run by a CEO the investors wanted -- somebody who used to work for eBay who they knew would give them what they wanted. Talk about a hostile takeover. Now look what's happening to Etsy and who's benefiting? It's certainly not their small sellers. Even many of their successful million-dollar sellers have been forced to leave. Now they want to significantly raise fees for a lesser service and offer ridiculously priced subscriptions that don't even come close to matching the value of that price?

So I don't blame eCrater one bit for sticking to their guns. It's never easy to grow when you don't have gobs of your own money to invest. We small business owners should know that better than anyone. After 14 years, I would think it's obvious that they aren't here to become ridiculously wealthy on the backs of their sellers. They are truly here FOR the sellers. Hence the reason they have their own group of cheerleaders.
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MoonwishesStore
moderator


Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 7:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It started with a slow month, but things have picked up steam here for me. From the 17th to the 19th, I picked up 4 ecrater orders. Not bad!
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