Sales these days ?

[Boki]

How are your sales these days? 🙂

[KeegansCreation]

Meh. I sold some party stuff and a set of car mats (nice!) but the pace is slow.

[MadjackGG]

Have improved somewhat, although the recent round of price increases didn't help. Usually see 1 - 2 sales per day, but still have periodic 1 - 3 day gaps of no sales, which I'd like to knock on the head.

[Barbara]

Slow. My sense is that retail has slowed down all over the place. What's strange is that traffic on the roads around here is heavier than ever while the stores don't seem to have as many shoppers. Where are those people in cars going?

[Windy]

If they are anything like me they are catching up on all the medical visits they missed since about March of 2020. 

[Bebops]

Crickets here the last few days

[Wildart]

just beginning to uptick again slowly. better than none at all.

[RMorganSnapshot]

Dismal at best. Right after the first of the year things started slowing down and now they've almost come to a standstill. Latest stretch is 4 days since last sale and then it only seems an air freshener is selling. 🙄 Not sure whether it's the economy or something has changed at Z itself? Posts to Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook seem to produce nothing whatsoever. Have even tried ads on local bulletin boards with hope of increased traffic. Very frustrating. Just getting people to SEE your items is the biggest hurdle........

[blushroses]

slow slow slow...huh

[Barbara]

It's not Zazzle, and it's not anything we're doing or not doing. The country is in the beginning of a recession, and as an increasing number of people are realizing this, they're tightening their belts. We don't sell to the very rich; rather, it's the middle class, which understands that now isn't the best time to spend on much more than the necessities.

I'm sure things will improve, but they may go down in the meantime. I've seen recessions before, and this one looks like a humdinger.

Don't expect much right now, and you'll be happier.

Colorwash's Home

[WBartworks]

There also may be less money being spent on advertising our product right now.

[BreathtakingVin]

I believe the print-on-demand market is much more competitive than it used to be. I don't completely agree with the recession idea because job numbers are really good, gas has gone down for 50 straight days, and people are still buying. I think Zazzle has got some real competition now from regular websites and other print on demand companies. 

[Barbara]

Whether or not we call it a recession likely depends on one's source of information, but certain facts are unavoidable, inflation being at the top of the list. Ultimately, world economics aren't good, and spending is down. Even Amazon's prices have increased, probably because shipping costs have risen. Also, some of their "shelves" are empty due to decreases in manufacturing and overseas shipping of goods.

Yes, people are still buying, but not as much as they were. Zazzle can't help but be affected by the economy the same as every other business.

Colorwash's Home

[BreathtakingVin]

When I was in mail order in the 1980's I learned a valuable lesson. People don't buy in the Summer. They start buying again in Sept. This Summer was especially bad. If there was a really bad economy, we wouldn't have seen people jamming up the airports like they did. They just wanted to get out. I don't blame them. Being cooped up for years because of COVID, they just wanted to go somewhere. Anywhere. So, I think the fact that people just don't buy much in the Summer added to that. I learned that buying is from Sept to about April. After that, it drops off. This was made worse this year by the shipping costs going through the roof and people just wanting to be anywhere but at home. That may change in the near future because of interest rates, but it's not the economy completely. It's cabin fever. I'm seeing an uptick in orders now. 

[Barbara]

My sales started to go up in the middle of August, which I couldn't account for because people like always were on vacation or at home with the kids or out and about or whatever else people do during the summer. The sales are still relatively decent. People did buy online in a huge way during the pandemic, mostly from Amazon, which made out like a bandit. Talking with our mailman, he said the postal workers were referring to themselves as Amazon employees. Same went for UPS. It's altogether possible that many people who didn't previously buy online so much have come to see the convenience and haven't stopped seeing it. I know this is what happened to us--we increased online shopping and have continued there, though wherever possible we prefer buying from local merchants.

Shipping has definitely gone through the roof, enough that Amazon Prime is no longer the deal it once was. The other thing are the OOS products that have at least one component made (usually) in China or that are sitting on boats waiting to get into the U.S. I think our sales would be even better without the high shipping and OOS problems.

I ordered something made in Germany back in the middle of June, and I was told it wouldn't be shipped before the middle of September because they sourced their parts from several places around Europe and they were having problems getting in those parts. So, it's not just the U.S.

I think a lot of people are ignoring the economy right now, which is good for us, but after a while, inflation will really hit them. Low-income folk are already feeling it, but they aren't our customers.

Colorwash's Home

[Boki]

Sales are catastrophically bad,...😞😢😭

[MadjackGG]

Two days without a sale and then...a postcard. 😑

[MMAndersonArt]

My sales are the worst they've been in years. I go a week or more between sales now. It's very distressing.

[Boki]

I feel invisible, no sales for days,... 😭

[MMAndersonArt]

I haven't had a sale for nearly 3 weeks. It has been years since I went that long without any kind of sale. I don't understand what has happened.

[kashmier]

I was sad today not seeing any movement again. Then finally my sales changed by three. Unfortunately it was three pinks. I hate when I look all day waiting to see the number of sales go up and they go down. 👎

[MadjackGG]

That's the worst. Had two orders of golf balls go pink a week and a half later.
Ticked me off for the rest of the day. Thanks for nothing, Mike!

[Wildart]

take heart, I am getting sales some resonable ones,repeat buyer, others tiny, but sales all the same. So if I get sales, you all can too, don't get discouraged, there are always swings and roundabouts here...

[Boki]

It's nice when there are sales, even small ones, but it's very bad when there aren't any for days, as is the case with me right now,... 😞

[Westerngirl2]

Barbara has it nailed. It's the economy, not anything we are doing wrong.

People are guarding what money they have left over after buying inflated groceries, gas, necessities. For goodness sake, a bottle of dish detergent that I used to pay 99 cents for was $3.57 the other day.

It's crazy, and I see nothing happening anytime soon that will stop it. It's hard on us, but I can't blame folks at all for being cautious about spending. I am, too.

But take heart...wallets always open up a bit more when the Holidays come around, and I think we will still see improvement there. But for the future? who knows?

[KeegansCreation]

On the plus side (kind of) people will still buy small, inexpensive frivolities. Recently I've sold postcards, magnets and those little wooden stamps. Nobody is buying a duvet cover anytime soon and if they are having a party, they probably aren't going to shell out 300$ to give everybody attending a personalized cookie. But, like people going to the movies every weekend during the Great Depression in the 30's, they'll still spend for tiny, affordable indulgences. So I think now is a good time to focus on things at the more affordable end of the Zazzle product line. Sure, they bring in small royalties, but it can keep up morale to see a postcard or magnet sale even if the money is low.

[Barbara]

A fine example of how people are buying these days is what I did this morning: Ground beef had a good sale at my supermarket and I bought 4 huge packages to divide up and store in the freezer. Watching others in the market, I saw the same kind of behavior. Our customers are dealing with these things too.

Colorwash's Home

[kashmier]

It did seem like things were improving but only a pink today. It always frightens me when days like this happen. Has anyone else noticed that on days when end of the month payments are moved from your account sales drop to usually zero for the day? It could just be me. 

[Boki]

Every sale is important to me, because a few cents in my pocket is better than no daily income. But the worst thing is when they give up on the product and then for days after that there are no sales,... Sad, right now,... 😞

[Caprice]

Should I buy something from my store so I have a sale this weekend? 😝😝😝

[Windy]

LOL! Actually I do wonder if that is how some people (inadvertently) jumpstarted their sales....

[BreathtakingVin]

Not great. Charging a customer 16.00 shipping per item instead of what the shipping really costs (which is how a real e-commerce store should do business) is scaring them away, I'm sure. Things might pick up in a few weeks, but I don't see nearly as much sales as I did last year this time. 

[kashmier]

Checking in. I blamed the lack of sales on the Holiday here in the US. It seems to be more than that. I didn't think about the messed up overseas shipping of products being the reason behind the amount of items that are sold out. I guess a lot of products are sitting waiting to get shipped. I miss the guest books. They were fun to make.  

[Boki]

No more sales for days,... 😞

[Scott]

We don't need two of these conversations. Please use this other discussion: https://community.zazzle.com/t5/general-zazzle-discussion/sales-down/m-p/13427