Question For Veteran eBayers:

NewJerseyMeatHook

Is the summer always slow for card sales?

I'm practically giving away some very nice cards!

Please tell me the action picks up in the fall.

itzagoner

<< <i>Is the summer always slow for card sales?

I'm practically giving away some very nice cards!

Please tell me the action picks up in the fall. >>




sign o' the times....more competition = fewer sales

1966CUDA

I think it's hit and miss sometimes. The last couple monts for me have been pretty good.

storm888

My card enterprises are dying, too.

The slow sales are NOT across all categories.
Common trading-cards seems to be the worst.

Garage sale sites, used-clothing sites are still
kicking-butt. Stamps are doing bad, but better
than cards. Currency is retreating and coins
seem about the same as last month.

Prices on most collectibles are tanking on eBay.
Great time to get some bargains, I guess.

There are some weird dynamics in play right now
that are amplifying the "summer doldrums." MANY
sellers are uncertain about what their future is
going to be on eBay and they have stopped bidding/
buying during the past week. Most sellers are also
buyers.

Also, there are allegations that some changes have
been made in the way searches display store inventory
in both regular and Xpress venue queries. By the end
of August, it is planned that stores will be even less
favored in searches than they are now. This will likely
be most noticeable in searches made within eBay Xpress.

There has been a net-loss - according to eBay page counts -
of about 1,000 stores per day for the past 9-days. This will
probably hold steady with a good uptick in bailers in the
third-week of August. By the third-week of September, eBay
will most likely be a whole new - and smaller - game.

Folks who stick around might do REAL well.

(Folks can monitor the increase/decrease in stores-open by
the "page count" that displays when you do a "search for
stores" query. Mark the number on the first day, and watch
the number rise/fall on successive days. This will NOT tell
you how many stores have closed/open ; it just shows net
gain/loss in the number of stores currently open.)

I could be way wrong, but I am going to keep opening stores
as fast as I can find junk to put in them. Even a small exodus
of sellers out will create some good opportunities to find some
new and loyal customers. The trick is to find stuff to sell that costs
you as close to ZERO as possible.

The bad news is that good departing sellers will come back and
we may end up with a real glut. The good news is that - by
some estimates - 90% of the folks who bought get-rich-quick
schemes from the TV-infomercials will soon leave and never
return. Those folks have been largely responsible for the
"imbalance" that eBay has complained about. (These sellers
have been dumping the entire catalogs of HUGE drop-shippers
into eBay stores; it was cheap to do it, now it will not be cheap.)

Also, now is a good time to open a free-standing online store.
You can get a REALLY nice one for less than $200 a year. You
can then use your eBay presence to drive customers to your
own web-site. (There are perfectly "eBay legal" ways to do this
and eBay is very unlikely to change the current rules.)

There is now a list of about six-dozen "eBay alternatives" that
is being distributed on the internet - for free. I have explored
almost all of them, and they will NOT help US. They just do not
have the buyers - plenty of sellers, though.

Auctions do not seem to be working well this week either. There
ARE LOTS of exceptions to that, I am sure. A lot of buyers are
aware of the "troubles" at eBay and they are only interested
in buying at distressed prices. If you put good stuff up there b4
the smoke settles on the current round of changes, you will
probably not be real happy about prices realized. (Since eBay
wants everbody to switch to auctions, this CANNOT be a good
thing for those who do so.)

I think it is time to work fast and work hard at finding new junk
to peddle, building solid customer lists, and expanding both on
eBay and into free-standing and self-directed sites.

You might also think about going "partners" with some of your
hometown collector friends; take their inventory in and the
desirability of your own may increase.

Xmas season is approaching. Sales will be good, I think.

Lots of opportunities on the horizon. Do not give up!!!!!

storm

Boopotts

I think that when it comes to sportscards we're just moving through the decades. in 2003-2004 PSA customers flooded the market with '60's and '70's cards, and as we've seen the market has never really caught up (anyone really like the prospects for '70's commons in PSA 8 or 9?). Then it was discovered that there was this latent demand for certain PSA 10 cards from the '80's, and everyone submitted a ton of these. And, as we've seen, the prices keep falling.

I don't think collecting PSA slabs is really getting all that much more popular. Whenever I look at the players sets on the registry it looks to me like there's the same # of people doing any given player now as there were two years ago. And unless more people start emerging who want to pay 100x book price for a card that has no corner wear the market should just keep getting softer and softer IMO. When we look back on this three year period or so I think we'll look at it as a pretty fun few years where you could break a semi-vintage box and if things went well actually scrape out a couple bucks profit. I don't think we'll look back and see this time as the birth of whole new cottage industry for collectors.