THE HARMONY COLLECTION

'What to do When Times are Tough on eBay'
by Lynn A. Dralle, 'The Queen of Auctions'

Every now and then we all experience a slow month on eBay. My April slowdown could be attributed to many things. Tax time, rising gas prices, and a lot of folks on Spring Break could be the reason.

So mid-month when I saw that my sales weren't on track to hit the $10,000 mark, I made some adjustments.

The first thing I tried was Markdown Manager. I put 4 to 6 different categories on sale each week. I set the markdown amount from 25 to 50%. I ended up selling a ton of stuff, but keep in mind that by selling things on sale, my ultimate sales ending prices were 25 to 50% less. Because of this, my total sales for the month are about 30% off. So that definitely relates to the markdown prices.

Watch for my Markdown Manager special report coming out by the end of May that will be a free download for everyone who owns my eBay Store Report. I am waiting to write it until I have done enough research and have some good results. One issue I have, that I mentioned on the eBay Radio Show with Griff, is that once the sale ends with Markdown Manager, the regular prices show up on the auction pages, even for items which sold at the sale price. It is very confusing and I hope that they fix it soon.

The next thing I did was to try and list 125 to 150 items per week. By increasing the number of auctions, it usually helps my sales.

My final trick for saving a month is to list as many things as I can on the 7th day before month end. So, on Monday night, April 23rd, I listed 80 extra items to end on April 30th and hopefully bring the month up to my goals. Well, a $7,000 month is not necessarily a terrible month, but it is not a $10,000 month either.

On Tuesday morning, I couldn't wait to check my auctions and see how many bids I had garnered overnight. Unfortunately, no one had bid on those extra items. I am a little disappointed because it really seems as if no one is bidding on anything this month.

However, there are still a few days left in the month and I will let you know how it all turns out. I haven't had many surprises this month either with things selling for big bucks but I did have a 75-cent purchase sell for quite a bit. It was a strange little canoe from Pottery Barn that was really cute but I couldn't believe that over 134 people looked at the auction and it ended up selling for a very nice return.

Just remember that we all have tough months--it is a fact of eBay. Don't get discouraged. There are plenty of things that you can do if you think offensively. As soon as you see a downturn in sales, start strategizing about what you can do to turn it all around in your favor.