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Sales on BrickOwl have gone. Why?
It’s now over one week without a single order. Same inventory on the other site, same price. Plenty of orders.
Logically it would suggest lack of customers and/or too many sellers. Or both. I imagine a lot of new stores have appeared here after the announcement over there. Or is traffic declining here?
I moved mid 2013 from BL. 2014 was my best year since I began in 09. 2015&16 we moved and I was closed some, but 2017 was half of 2014, 2018 was worse, 2019 even worse which prompted me to reopen my store on BL mid year, which led to 2019 being my second best year in the end!
In 2014 my inventory was half what it is now and prices were 20% over 6 month average, they are now at -10% to -20%
It would be nice to hear from others who are or were trading only on BrickOwl, similar results or is this only me?
and from @Lawrence about traffic. Is it in decline? Or is it the number of stores opening?
Once again I’m in limbo, with the future of BrickLink uncertain as far as sellers are concerned and overall poor sales here, I’m feeling inclined to call it a day and focus on the resale market of all the retired sets I now have.
Thanks
Logically it would suggest lack of customers and/or too many sellers. Or both. I imagine a lot of new stores have appeared here after the announcement over there. Or is traffic declining here?
I moved mid 2013 from BL. 2014 was my best year since I began in 09. 2015&16 we moved and I was closed some, but 2017 was half of 2014, 2018 was worse, 2019 even worse which prompted me to reopen my store on BL mid year, which led to 2019 being my second best year in the end!
In 2014 my inventory was half what it is now and prices were 20% over 6 month average, they are now at -10% to -20%
It would be nice to hear from others who are or were trading only on BrickOwl, similar results or is this only me?
and from @Lawrence about traffic. Is it in decline? Or is it the number of stores opening?
Once again I’m in limbo, with the future of BrickLink uncertain as far as sellers are concerned and overall poor sales here, I’m feeling inclined to call it a day and focus on the resale market of all the retired sets I now have.
Thanks
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https://www.brickowl.com/forum#/discussion/comment/38061
So I've checked our numbers. At that time, we had 150.000+ parts, 8600+ lots and around 20 orders a month, worth approx. $20 each. I said I had expected at least twice the traffic. A few months later, we've grown a bit (190.000+ parts / 9700+ lots) but the number of orders has almost tripled (56 in last month) and the average order value increased to $30.
I think it's important to say that we ship internationally. Only 20% of orders come from Czech Republic where we are based. Maybe even more surprising is that 20% of orders come from the United States! It seems that people out there have their reasons why they choose to pay for international shipping and then wait at least two weeks for the package to arrive. So, I can't complain so far.
I have only ever selled on Brickowl (having left BL during the Brickarms debacle) - this month has already exceeded last January's sales (and January 2018 was my biggest selling month that year), and the month isn't over yet... my 2019 sales were steady or higher measured against 2018 - May and August appeared to have been lower then 2018, but September and October more than made up for that (being higher in 2019 than in 2018). So I'm just not seeing the same slump. Summer was lower for both years, which my research showed is pretty typical.
I price Current Average less anywhere from 7 to 10 percent, depending on the time of year. Of course, with accidental $99.99 listings from a few sellers and the couple of stores that really skew prices with incredibly high lot rates, I then have to sort my entire inventory price high to low and manually reprice a lot of items (e.g., a $0.104 average item listed at $8.79). My shipping rates are actual commercial base cost (printing postage via PayPal) + $0.50 to cover packaging costs, invoice printing, PayPal fee, etc.
I also manually price all sets and collectible minifigures to be reasonably competitive.
I guess this is a long way of saying we're not seeing a slump here?
“0” is July 2013, the null is closed for moving August 2015 for about a year. Inventory has mostly been added with BrickStock, which would be BL 6 month average, however BrickOwl average tends to be higher. I do have a good amount of sludge accumulated over the years. But that’s only about 10-15% of inventory.
I stopped shipping outside the US, the number of orders was minimal, likely due to cost of post.
If it were the same story on BL it would make more sense, but it isn’t, I’m looking at easily 6x the sales over there, 12 orders this past week vs zero here
Yes, I think because of some intl postage program nations negotiate and subscribe to, shipping from Europe to the US can in some cases be cheaper then shipping with the US. Same with China to US. I think that is now being renegotiated though, as it was very much harming local businesses such as ours.
It is weird (but good!) that BL sales continue while BO slows for you. It would be interesting to see some metrics from @lawrence for site visits, but in fairness, it's his site so he can cheerfully share them or not as he chooses. I do recall reading somewhere there was a BO goal to work on new marketing strategies this year (perhaps to take advantage of the opportunities of BL handover to LEGO, as that may require BL renegotiating some contracts with other brick-related sites), so hopefully that will help.
Bottom line, people can't enjoy all the awesomeness that is BO if they don't know about it! :-)
Tyson.
2 more over there so far today, none here
This is now the longest period with zero
Leopard's idea is the only one I would have, also, if you're not opposed to processing smaller orders in the hopes of getting larger orders later from those folks (I see that a lot - I have no minimums. Someone buys a $0.88 order... and then comes back a few weeks later with an $80 order <s>).