posted on August 30, 2001 01:52:28 AM new
I hear a lot of people discussing the "slow time of the year". I have been doing quite well right now and am wondering, does traffic usually gain momentum in September? What is the best month for auctions? Just curious...
posted on August 30, 2001 07:07:02 AM new
Everyone has their own opinion on what time-of-year to sell... some people (like me) have distinct peaks and valleys in sales, and other folks sell just fine all year long.
What's being sold is obviously a key factor-- seasonal items like Christmas ornaments are more likely to sell in October than in July, whereas certain hot collectables are "hot" sales all year long.
I'm primarily a specialty book seller, and my peak sales periods are March, April, May, October, November, and December. July/August are pretty much dead months for me.
Here's a link to my sales statistics, if you're interested in seeing graphs of sales by month, by day, and by time-of-day (scroll down to the bottom of the page): http://www.kenzy.com/ebay/stats.htm
Remember that this information is for a fairly specialized auction category... results will likely differ based on what's being auctioned.
[edited by kenzy to correct klutzaholic typing... *whimper*]
[ edited by kenzy on Aug 30, 2001 07:08 AM ]
posted on August 30, 2001 09:16:26 AM new
Holy cow Kenzy--do you have too much time on your hands? Geez, I can hardly manage to get my inventory put into some form of order, LOL.
I agree with Kenzy, it depends a lot on the type of items you sell.
While bidding on most of my stuff was slow the summer of 2000, my sister did a bang-up job with her more valuable items. Well, she didn't know they were more valuable when she listed them, but as it turned out they were pretty good pieces, LOL.
It seems like a person such as myself who either doesn't have an unlimited amount of cash or whatever tends to spend more time away from the computer in the summer time but it seems like the true die-hard collectibles are there 12 months out of the year looking for stuff.
The type of items I usually sell don't go worth beans after Thanksgiving. Seems no one wants to buy Aunt Martha used 'junk'. So, last year I took a different route for December and the sales were hopping.
The best sale months for unique old collectibles for me has been generally from the middle of September to the end of November, then from the middle of January through the middle to end of April.
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posted on August 30, 2001 10:30:23 PM new
??? regarding statistics, all that I do is track auctions using an EXCEL spreadsheet, and then those stats are easy to compute and plot. Yes, I spent a couple of days setting up the formats and the macros once a couple of years ago, but nowadays everything's pretty much automatically generated.
Regarding time-of-year to sell-- I suspect (but have no proof) that consumables/commodities (stuff like supplies, clothing, appliances) have completely different monthly profiles than non-fad collectables (stuff like fine art, rare baseball cards) which are completely different than seasonal items (stuff like Christmas ornaments) which are completely different than fad items (furbies, beanies).
posted on August 17, 2002 11:40:24 AM new
Slow time at online auctions, the cavemen also said the same exact thing about giant mamoth season. Very timely.
