Amazon Sales

[Esk247]

Has anyone noticed a complete dry up of Amazon Orders? We expected a drop in sales with the (secret event) happening and summer in general but this is silly now. Selling 20 products a day at the start of the year, the last few weeks its dried up completely, we haven't sold anything since Wednesday

Other channels are slow but selling daily, outselling Amazon for the first time ever.

Also is it me or is £25 amazon fee for every £125 sold working out at 20% in fees? Even though they've told us on the phone it should be 15% as our sales record is 'very high' :|

 

[Mister B]

Not us, we're still going strong with Amazon.

When sales do dip though we always cross reference with other channels in terms of both sales and traffic and normally it's a company/industry wide problem.

You should be able to check within the best seller charts as to the success of your listings. A crude barometer I know but still effective. Like everybody else we still suffer paranoia but a quick check of the best sellers keeps us calm

Mister B

 

[ChrisMono]

have you checked amazon for other listings of your product? I found when this happens Amazon just comes in and rapes the market by undercutting everyone but 25%

 

[quikshop]

We had a drop off in Amazon sales recently, but looking back at previous years sales always tail away from mid-July only to shoot up again start of September.

 

[Deleted member 135299]

Hi,

What with summer holidays just starting, the sunshine for a few day, and I think the rain has made everyone think about booking holidays, so they need money for this, a lot of people need to pay for childcare during the holidays, it all adds up to a drop in sales for everyone, of course it depends what you sell, so role on the bad weather and the end of the holidays.

James
personalised-jewellery.co.uk

 

[Esk247]

I'm hoping it's just that time of year again. The drop off is substantial but there is a drop off across all platforms, i guess we just have more competitors on Amazon at the moment.

It's that never knowing when the slipper slope will end, makes it hard to budget for the following month e.g. stock buying.

 

[Jayser100]

Your sales at any one time really depend on what you are offering. I sell sunglasses and there is always a dip in June, after that initial spring surge and before the holiday period. Then at this time of year, we do well again as people buy sunnies for their hols. In august we'll go quieter again.

Don't panic - check your products are as visible as they ever were, and that nobody has been pi**ing on your Mr Chips in any way. If not, then you can only really presume it's a temporary Amazon trend.

With regard to comparing sales to your other platforms, I find my own sales do vary between Amazon and my website. I think this is because Amazon customers tend to be more fickle when it comes to the weather, i.e. they'll all buy sunglasses on a day it's sunny but not if it's dull. More serious and dedicated sportsmen and women tend to buy my eyewear more consistently through our website because they will be out there doing their thing in all conditions.

 

[gtellier]

I would have to agree. I have been in biz for many years and summer is always slow. Things always pick up after the kids go back to school. Maybe you want to work on a fall sale while things are slow and be ready for fall.

 

[Lcharm]

I was doing really well on Amazon then it's dropped a bit in the last few days.

I noticed a competitor came in and undercut me on a product but is actually selling it at exactly the same price including delivery as I offer delviery FOC on some products! There's no proper regulation on Amazon P&P.

I've seen someone undercut people by £10 just to get themselves as the primary seller then compensate by increasing his postage by £10!

 

[SamStones]

I was doing really well on Amazon then it's dropped a bit in the last few days.

I noticed a competitor came in and undercut me on a product but is actually selling it at exactly the same price including delivery as I offer delviery FOC on some products! There's no proper regulation on Amazon P&P.

I've seen someone undercut people by £10 just to get themselves as the primary seller then compensate by increasing his postage by £10!

Amazon orders the sellers in order of total price (item plus delivery) so it doesn't matter how you charge p&p

 

[Lcharm]

Amazon orders the sellers in order of total price (item plus delivery) so it doesn't matter how you charge p&p

I'm currently behind a seller who charges 19.90 +£2 P&P who has the main page while I charge £18.90 + £2.50

The company that came in on another product recently and charges £47.85 + £2.15 P&P is now on the main page even though I charge £50 + Free postage

It's apparently also to do with sales and feedback too according to some 'experts' if you can call them that!

 

[SamStones]

I'm currently behind a seller who charges 19.90 +£2 P&P who has the main page while I charge £18.90 + £2.50

The company that came in on another product recently and charges £47.85 + £2.15 P&P is now on the main page even though I charge £50 + Free postage

It's apparently also to do with sales and feedback too according to some 'experts' if you can call them that!

Apologies , you're referring to the "Buy Box" rather than who's the cheapest - the two don't always go hand in hand. The winner of the buy box is picked from all the eligible sellers when a customer views the page; with different weighting given to price, lead time, availability and seller rating / performance as well as previous sales history for that product (as your 'experts' have pointed out). We could both be looking at the same product detail page at the same time and both see different sellers in the buy box. We could then both refresh the page and see the same different sellers (as amazon remembers the seller you have been shown in case you go back to that page).

 

[Lcharm]

That explains a lot, many thanks!

 

[Esk247]

Update to this. We did OK over Christmas although sales well down on previous year, probably due to all different stock, higher priced items and not the fast selling stuff we had last year.

Sales since December..zilch..zero..nada.

Same across all our platforms. Never seen it like this before. We've sold a few low priced items but have done just over £50 in sales since 1st January on Amazon and eBay same products listed on both, all products have the buy box or are second behind amazon in the listings for price, several product lines are among the top 100 sellers on Amazon and still nada.

Is it possible they've switched us off? Because we were doing a steady £60 a day in sales even when things were dreadful. This is now alarm bells bad. We have postage to pay at £1200 and have £1600 of stock just sat there, we normally sell that in 6 weeks just through Amazon in January and February but this year...its all still there..all of it...everything.

 

[WolfStores]

Hi There,

Both Amazon and eBay are great platforms to sell products on but unfortunately you do run this risk of your sales suddenly drying up and you are not left with many options open on how to react.

Do you have an online shop? This could be a solution so that you do not have all of your eggs in one basket. With your own online shop you can control your sales better than on Amazon and eBay. you can advertise, for example, on Facebook and with Google Adwords to drive more, relevant traffic to your website. You save Amazon & eBay fees and commissions which would allow you to have a bit more competitive prices.

If you are interested this I would recommend to have a look at Prestashop which is a very professional open license - free to use ecommerce platform that would enable you to build your online shop quickly, easily and cheaply

Please feel free to PM me if you need more help or free advice with this.

Cheers

Tim

 

[SamStones]

Update to this. We did OK over Christmas although sales well down on previous year, probably due to all different stock, higher priced items and not the fast selling stuff we had last year.

Sales since December..zilch..zero..nada.

Same across all our platforms. Never seen it like this before. We've sold a few low priced items but have done just over £50 in sales since 1st January on Amazon and eBay same products listed on both, all products have the buy box or are second behind amazon in the listings for price, several product lines are among the top 100 sellers on Amazon and still nada.

Is it possible they've switched us off? Because we were doing a steady £60 a day in sales even when things were dreadful. This is now alarm bells bad. We have postage to pay at £1200 and have £1600 of stock just sat there, we normally sell that in 6 weeks just through Amazon in January and February but this year...its all still there..all of it...everything.

January is notoriously poor for sales, which I'm sure you're aware. Do you have figures from last January to compare?

You've already said you're not selling the fast selling products this year, so imagine fast selling products in December sell 100 a day, and only 10% of that trade in January = 10 products / day. Slow selling products sell 10 products a day in December and only 10% of that trade in January = 1 / day.

January is also an awful month for cash flow with all of Decembers courier bills falling due when cash in is at a minimum. I've still never got it right! I thought I was doing well this year, then when you add it all up it's still tight!

The other thing to check is the metrics and reports available in amazon - check your feedback, customer performance metrics, short term order defect rate etc etc and see if there's any clues there .

HTH

 

[Esk247]

January is notoriously poor for sales, which I'm sure you're aware. Do you have figures from last January to compare?

You've already said you're not selling the fast selling products this year, so imagine fast selling products in December sell 100 a day, and only 10% of that trade in January = 10 products / day. Slow selling products sell 10 products a day in December and only 10% of that trade in January = 1 / day.

January is also an awful month for cash flow with all of Decembers courier bills falling due when cash in is at a minimum. I've still never got it right! I thought I was doing well this year, then when you add it all up it's still tight!

The other thing to check is the metrics and reports available in amazon - check your feedback, customer performance metrics, short term order defect rate etc etc and see if there's any clues there .

HTH

I'm hoping it's just a January thing but this time last year we had already reached 2k in turnover and thats a very quiet month for us on Amazon and eBay. So to only have £50 in the pot is..well..shocking.

All our postage has been paid we just have a bit to pay on stock from credit. We're fine until next month but unless we're doing 2/3k turnover a month minimum the bills overtake us, office rent, rates, packaging, postage, wages etc all have to come out.

We've been on ebay and amazon 3 years now and i've never seen it this bad. All the products we've got in stock were selling steady all through last year, since 1st January though not a bean. No interest.

Think we might have to sit it out until February and see what happens, not looking good though.

All our metrics are fine, we're a top rated seller on ebay and a power seller. On amazon it's the same really, 98% positive feedback, buy box on a dozen or more products. We're limited with what else we can do on Amazon and such. Not like we control the listings or the landing pages.

 

[Lynne Baker]

We are soooooo quiet it's a tad nerve racking!
We have only just this week started selling on Amazon so I'm not expecting any sales at all from that channel, but our online shop and telephones are eerily silent.
Thankfully all our bills are paid, and I refuse all credit offered at the moment, preferring to keep it all under very tight financial control.
It doesn't stop me lying awake worrying though!
I have no metrics from last year as we took over only in June last year. We are the sole UK distributor for our goods which is a relief. If you want these goods the only place to get them from is us.
We've got a trade show at the end of February which we're using as a PR exercise. It would be lovely if we got new customers from it, but I'm not expecting to recoup all our costs!
I guess we just have to keep on keeping on...

lynne, keeping on keeping on!

 

[a4labels]

Has anyone noticed a complete dry up of Amazon Orders? We expected a drop in sales with the (secret event) happening and summer in general but this is silly now. Selling 20 products a day at the start of the year, the last few weeks its dried up completely, we haven't sold anything since Wednesday

Other channels are slow but selling daily, outselling Amazon for the first time ever.

Also is it me or is £25 amazon fee for every £125 sold working out at 20% in fees? Even though they've told us on the phone it should be 15% as our sales record is 'very high' :|

Yes - the slowdown hit about the 12th January. Our 7 day total is usually close to the 200 mark and right now its 22. I am still listed. I have no idea why?

Other sales channels have gone quiet - they usually do in January and the snow has sure not helped, but the drop off on Amazon is massive....

 

[Esk247]

Thank god it isn't just us. I've been worrying about it all week because the drop off, especially on Amazon, has never been so big in 3 years of trading on their website. It is completely dead.

I'm putting it down to a mixture of people not being paid yet after spending big over Christmas and the snow with people not expecting parcels to reach them.

Like I say, we can't do much more about it apart from sit it out because with Amazon and eBay you're limited with what you can actually do marketing wise. If the customers aren't visiting their website you don't get seen. Even our Facebook has died of death, every ones got their head in the sand this January.

 

[Lynne Baker]

If you think about it logically it shouldn't be too much of a surprise really.
For the majority of salaried workers it's all but 6 weeks between paydays in December and January, plus the inevitable credit card bills, plus the ever growing fear about the economy. If even the big boys are failing, like Jessop, Comet, HMV etc it scares the bejesus out of people, so they rein in their spending on everything bar the essentials until the storm abates.
That's my take on it, for what it's worth!

 

[Thinehost]

I think this is because of the change in Google's product search. If you search for your product in google shopping, does your amazon listing appear in the results?? In other words, is amazon doing the same amount of marketing on google that they did before.

Margaret

 

[Thinehost]

Sorry - I meant to add a link to an article about Amazon earlier on ...http://www.cpcstrategy.com/blog/2012/09/amazon-to-not-pay-for-google-shopping-listings/

Margaret

 

[Faddy]

Reading this and planning to start my own ecommerce business in the next few months scares me. Thinking about the end of march.

What do you guys think? When do you usually expect things to pic up?

 

[JMRidley]

I wonder if the publicity re amazon taxes has impacted on their sales. I know lots of people who are saying that they no longer shop on Amazon because of this.

 

[Esk247]

I wonder if the publicity re amazon taxes has impacted on their sales. I know lots of people who are saying that they no longer shop on Amazon because of this.

Someone just said that to me this afternoon at the shop. I was asking about putting a poster in their window and they said they've stopped buying on Amazon now, sticking to the shops because they think it's a bit of a con.

Wonder how many other people feel the same way.

 

[Esk247]

Reading this and planning to start my own ecommerce business in the next few months scares me. Thinking about the end of march.

What do you guys think? When do you usually expect things to pic up?

Depends on your product offering. Christmas is big for retail in general. October to December is 50% of our turnover or more. Rest of the year its usually pretty predictable. Ours is bad over the summer when people are away on holiday, June to the end of August we don't do much...not this bad though..this really is BAD! As in..bad bad bad...even in our first ever month in retail we did 3/4 times what we're doing now.

 

[Faddy]

I'm confident about my product offering. Just not so confident about marketing and promoting.

Hope things pick up for you soon.

 

[Page]

Maybe people are getting a bit bored of online shopping ?

There could be all sorts of explanations

Maybe the rate at which new merchants are joining Amazon is faster than the rate at which their sales are growing

i could go on

 

[Deleted member 158328]

We were going all right on all our channels (eBay, Amazon, online store) until the beginning of the week.

Since then they've all gone as flat as a pancake which is worrying as it can't just be due to the snow as a fair chunk of our sales are export.

I must admit since the reports about Google and Amazon etc's tax avoidance techniques came out, especially the stuff on transfer pricing, I've tried to use UK based companies.