What to do if you don’t get orders

T octopus

Hello i have a new shop called Alfie’s Bazaar, and i have had this shop open for nearly 2 months and i have just have a little under 700 items, but the problem is i don’t get many orders at all. Could people please check out my store to see if there is any problems, with pricing or anything, or if it is just a new seller thing. Please could someone possibly suggest some things to help me at on selling.

Hoddie

You don't ship anywhere except the UK, which automatically cuts out a big number of buyers. You also haven't set up any shipping methods which removes any impulse sales, and turns some buyers off who don't want a delay in the ordering/shipping process.

The fact that you have a low number of items though is most likely the number one reason why you're not getting many sales. I think I hit 20k parts before I started getting 2-3 orders per week on a regular basis.

One other thing that may put some off - it would me - is that you may be mixing up some of the colours. You have many parts in the old Light and Dark Grays, and only a few in their modern equivalents of Medium and Dark Stone Grays. This in itself doesn't mean anything, you may just have the older colours in stock, but one of the items you have in Dark Gray is Plate 4 x 4 Corner (2639), which was never released in that colour. Again, you may have secured one from Legoland or a Lego staff member, but that's unlikely, and calls into question whether you have misidentified other items with the wrong colours.

Identifying colours will become second nature quickly enough, but until it does, it may be worth investing in a few bricks of the colours you're unsure about so you can quickly reference what you have.

All the best with your store

Vosblokjes

You're not already open for 2 months
Member for
1 month 2 weeks

You don't ship to my country (Netherlands), maybe only in UK. That's fine, but it limits the number of buyers.

The biggest 'problem' however is that you only have 640 (not little under 700) items in your store and as far as I can see those are not very rare items. So buyers are limited to what they can buy from you, but they can buy these at very much others stores that also have other items.

So as it is now if you get 2 -3 orders a week that would be a lot if you ask me.
It's nothing that you are doing wrong, nut others are doing better.

TechnicMadMike

Nothing wrong with your store, like above have said you don't have many parts at the moment. I buy my sets build them and then I start part them out. my store funds my lego hobby which then keeps my store full of parts, so maybe look at getting some more parts.

tons_of_bricks

Honestly, 700 pieces is not that much at all. Just keep adding more pieces and you'll see the orders coming in a little faster.

BrickinEasy

I'll echo what everyone else has said. You simply don't have enough parts. I opened my store up with around 40,000 parts and averaged around 1-2 orders a day

ValleyBricks

Yes, as everyone has said already you just need more parts. I’am only a small store (60,000 parts), When I first started I was lucky if I got 2 orders a week. I fine variety helps as well as quantity. Check your prices, offer discounts, add more stock.
Good luck, and keep parting out 👍😀

Calibrick

I would echo everyone above (particularly the friendly note about considering rechecking your colors - that's a really important one if there's a chance you may be mixing the new and old grays - and if you're not, please ignore me! <s>), but I would really zero in the shipping methods, too.

BO's groove and audience VERY much skews to instant purchase - it is well worth the time to setup the shipping methods, building in weight/costs for packing materials, etc. That, plus adding more stock, and you'll get orders before you know it!!! :-)

Jay37

+1 for everything stated above. Like some have mentioned above it took me a while to receive orders (well, a proper one at least - got my dad to place one as soon as I went live just so I got a handle on what happened with the process!) and that was with quite a few parts already inventoried and shipping methods set up. Sometimes it will take time to tweak things, and yes, definitely make sure your colours are correct. I didn't even bother listing grays and browns until I'd worked out what was what!

CG - Belgium

All I can say is that the more items in different colours you have in store, the more orders will come to you. When I buy I try to combine as much items as possible to save on delivery costs. So, even when you are cheaper then other shops for item x I still might buy at the other shop since they also have items A B C D E ..... even if item X is slighty more expensive. Just because I don't have to pay double delivery charges you know.

I started off with 1.5k of items and 2 orders a month. Now I have over 14k items (still not that much at all by the way) and I receive 4 to 5 orders a week. Still peanuts but getting there bit by bit since I'm planning to add more bricks to the store over time.

Also the above mentioned. If you stick to the Uk you are leaving a whole continent aside ... but then that depends on how professional you want to keep it.