posted on June 29, 2002 03:29:28 PM
Has anyone else noticed a decline in Half.com sales? I'm just a small-time seller, but my sales on half.com were steady and I was getting a deposit from them every 2 weeks. That is until June 1. I've only sold one book all month. I have noticed that on the Addall.com search engine, sometimes half.com books are not showing up.
posted on June 29, 2002 04:02:55 PM
Since Ebay took over half.com I have seen a decline in sales. I still get checks but they went from about 200-300 every 2 weeks to 30-50 every 2 weeks now. It was at first a slow decline then a fast drop. I do take notice that it picks up a little when new college classes are starting. It also is always slower to slow in the summer.
I don't think Ebay spreads the word as much about Half.com as the other owners did. I think that they mainly rely on traffic from there site. I used to see ads all the time before ebay took over now I see some but not near as many.
posted on June 29, 2002 08:14:47 PM
My half.com sales have really tanked in the last 3 months. I was just about to yank all my books off when I sold one the other day, first one in weeks. Very discouraging.
posted on June 30, 2002 07:28:44 AM
To me it seems like ever since 9-11 there has been a drastic decrease in book sales. I used to make my living selling books on Half.com it was rather substantial. I had two Half.com user accounts and both did well. It got to the point where I let one go when the eBay merger took place and now list approximately 4,800 books give or take. My sales are meager at best these days running in the mid hundreds every two weeks. When I say this is a substantial drop I do mean substantial but as mentioned to me I noticed the decrease starting right after 9-11 and not with the eBay merger.
Because of this dramatic lose of revenue I have concentrated my sales efforts elsewhere and took the plunge developing a web site for a product that used to sell very well on eBay for me. Thank goodness my site has taken off and sales are extremely brisk otherwise I’d be back to a “real” 9-5 job.
posted on June 30, 2002 07:41:12 AM
And it doesn't help that half.com books aren't showing up on the big book search engines like Addall & Bookfinder. When I'm looking for a particular book, I go to Addall, and I think lots of book dealers do too. It says on the site that half.com is one of the websites searched, BUT it isn't and hasn't been for several days. Maybe it's just a temporary glitch, I don't know.
posted on June 30, 2002 08:49:37 AM
My Half sales are up too. eBay now claims 50 million users and it is easier and easier to make Half purchases on eBay.
The key to the whole thing is to be the top dog or very near the top dog in price on your listings. To simply list a hundred items and ignore them and then hope for the best is a usually a total waste of time. The listings must be reviewed often and either price-adjusted or deleted from inventory.
With light weight items like music CDs or thin paperbacks many sellers add description phrases like "Free upgrade to First Class!" or "Pay Media Mail and I upgrade item to First Class for free!". These phrases give those sellers an advantage with no major increase in costs and they catch a lot of buyers wanting the item right away.
