Maybe this isn’t the best time of year to be selling women’s clothing. Or maybe it’s just a bad time to be on eBay. So far this month, we’ve been making slightly less than November. While one would expect more sales of womens lingerie and clothing in the holiday season, we haven’t seen it. Why?
The Facebook Barometer
Today (12/21/09), the eBay “fan page” on Facebook said alot about the sentiments that have been dragging down the site. On a fan page, you kind of expect fans. The comments that these folks were leaving were scathing, caustic, sarcastic. It’s like football’s Raider fans bringing shotguns to express their love in the direction of their “favorite” players’ kneecaps. With fans like these, who needs opponents? Looking beyond the throwaway “eBay sucks” comments, the most tangible complaints were fees charged to sellers and problems encountered by buyers.
The bigger question for us and thousands of other sellers is: Will eBay experience a continuing decline? While advertising has helped its brand image to improve, AuctionBytes reports that actual site visits have been declining in recent months. Dang. It’s almost enough to make us try selling in an actual brick and mortar store.
But not really.
When you add it all up, eBay still provides the best value for a business to hang their shingle – virtual or otherwise. While eBay charges fees both to list an item and when it sells, it’s nothing compared to the costs of running a store. And while 100 million people regularly surf eBay, I can’t think of many places in Los Angeles where we’d find enough foot traffic to equal that. Not even Hollywood Boulevard. I just hope eBay’s advertising efforts continue to improve the brand and draw visitors to the site.
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