Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Dear Diary....the Streak Broken..

Dear Diary, today my no sales streak for over a week ended! Yay! I had two sales. I was getting pretty jumpy since I don't usually go that long without a sale, so I feel better. And, it frees me up a little, with no sales comes no cash and no new inventory! I'm not a fan of relisting just to get views, so if an item hasn't expired I don't usually relist. Anyway how do I know if I want to relist an item or not? I mean if it has been on the "shelf" so to speak for 3 months with no movement, well is it a good item? is the price too high? is the picture bad?

How do you move your aging inventory? This last time I relisted items I lowered the prices of them by 50%. I felt they were all fab items like the earrings pictured. I sold one of the half a dozen or so I reduced. I asked her how she found the item and she said through google, she was looking for a sterling silver picture frame and the bangle bracelet showed up in the search results, imagine that! So she wasn't looking for it, she didn't find the price a reason to buy, I don't know.....

At any rate, at the end of this listing period these items won't be renewed. I liquidate my unsold items in lots, sometimes through craigslist, sometimes on ebay, sometimes if they are sweet and small things I'll give them away as gifts with purchases. But it is a problem all of us face, what to do with dead inventory? If you have a creative solution for either handmade or vintage items, leave it in the comments, I'd love to hear! Until tomorrow, Jamie.

1 comment:

  1. Great post, Jamie! I actually must admit that I find relisting VERY helpful. I used to be a hardcore anti-relister, but I started doing it a few months ago. Believe it or not, my sales went up pretty drastically as I relisted. Not to mention, I strategically relist items right before treasuries open up, upping the chance of my items being featured in treasuries, thus more exposure. I've actually had several buyers purchase custom items from me due to my relisting an item. On several occasions I've asked the buyer how they found me and they were just doing a search and happened to find the item I had JUST relisted. While I don't enjoy paying all the fees to relist, I do think it's helped business for me, personally. Although I do try to be somewhat strategic about it (i.e. if I *know* I have a busy day, I will not relist. However, if I *know* Etsy is planning a specific merchandising theme I will relist those specific items). It's quite a double-edged sword, and I think it just depends on what works for everyone as individuals!

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