Brent and Richard, my sales have slowly picked up, but they are still not where they were at BS.
I noticed that I wasn't selling anything at until I started going through my listings and correcting the errors created from the BS import, i.e. wrong country, blank catalog number, etc. My sales have picked up, and are predominately the items that I have fixed, or countries that were simple to transfer over. This was my test, I see a stamp in my store (I used USA JQ3), and then searched for JQ1-5. Nothing came up! Because the catalog number field was empty and I have about 12 items in this range on my store.
I have been trying to get the word out, please check your stores. It doesn't do me any good if my store is in order and others are not. I searched for USA #1 and came up with thousands of items. Why? Because some sellers put #1 or #2 in their titles so that they can identify item better when they are sold. Nothing wrong with that, because the catalog number was also in the title. But when the import from BS occurred, the import locked onto the "#1" instead of the real catalog number, resulting in numerous errors.
Another way to check your items is to go into a country and sort by catalog number. If the items are not sorting correctly, they will be a mess either at the front, or at the back of the country, with the correct items sorting properly in the middle.
Another example: I downloaded my CSV file and started working on some files. I went to my store and filtered Brazil (I have about 300 listed) and the result was 30! Went into the CSV file and found that the rest of Brazil had the country field blank. That is why nothing came up.
"Hopefully once the buyers figure it out, sales will return"
My sales have tanked also. I think they will be back but it may take quite awhile. Remember that the new sites that have to take mobile users into consideration are not nearly as intuitive as the old ones that didn't. I never had to ask a question on how to use Bidstart and all the business information required was at my fingertips.
I am still trying to learn how to do many things here and haven't yet figured out how to get dollar totals, monthly sales data, etc that were all right up front on Bidstart - I have to figure it out by tax time or it will take a long time doing it manually transaction by transaction.
I think that I would gladly pay an extra $10 a month just to have the old "My Bidstart" and the Monthly Sales Data Chart made available - I used them everyday and miss them dearly. It was so simple.
Hi Carol, if you go to the selling tab, and then on the right is a column with all the various options under the selling category. Click on "reports" on the bottom. Then you see "Generate new report", select the report type and the date range, and you are done!
Getting a little nervous since my last post in this thread - my sales have all but vanished in the past 10 days even with the 40% off sale I am running on all orders over $10. I think some of my past customers are just sitting things out for awhile - Bidstart was like that old comfortable shoe and now this may be a little rough fit for them. Maybe it is because I am not adding as much new material because it just is taking me too long to put them up. It is probably a combination of factors.
I'm over on HP where things are dormant. I'm waiting while the technical things are put in place then I expect some marketing will start to move things along but I expect that to be slowly incremental. There's been a loss of buyers from BS-SGM- to HipCommerce over the past 3+ years. It'll take some effort to persuade them to come back or to recruit new buyers but it can be done.
I agree with you Brent, it will probably take some time to settle in and I'm sure there are alot of customers watching to see how things will come together. I am taking advantage of the time to learn all I can about the new system. I have alot of faith in Mark and his team.
So, you know what happens when you say sales are slow? Right. Something sells. So just to reiterate my earlier statement, HP is VERY dormant right now. Ok, back to listing more...
I can tell you as a buyer that BS was much easier to navigate than HipStamp. I had may favorite searches (countries) and sellers set up Searching through the maze of stores where the premium paying sellers are first is ridiculous IMHO.
I collect Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, primarily I am looking for them in Mint Never Hinged condition..
Well, I found that thee little areas can be found under both Great Britain-Regionals OR under each of those countries. WTF? That's a lot of trouble to go through. BS was MUCH more logical to search through. That's what made it so good.
My sales are nowhere near soaring either. The last sale I had was back in early May. I currently have just over 400 listings in my store. Not sure what I am doing wrong. If anyone has some pointers to share that would be great.
I've had a few sales and you know what? I like it! Listing a few here and there good fun. I want to leave the Fee-not talking about them anymore. I don't ship overseas so it is what it is. I have faith this will take off. Sellers need to keep listing, listing new material-I would love to run out of material but what would I list then???
Over on HP, I've had some sales this month. Ran a sale by email marketing newsletter for a week & that pushed things along. Though not exactly "soaring" results it keeps me interested in keeping listing & staying committed to the site. At some stage I hope there's a HP newsletter going out to the whole membership. Is there a HS newsletter or update that goes out to the whole membership of the site, or is that still down the road when the management feels the time's right?
My best week ever...in units not in $$$. Better than any week on Bid or Del. Its starting to look good! Now if Mark could only "fix" the cancelled items feature and feedback, everything would be great!
Comments
I noticed that I wasn't selling anything at until I started going through my listings and correcting the errors created from the BS import, i.e. wrong country, blank catalog number, etc. My sales have picked up, and are predominately the items that I have fixed, or countries that were simple to transfer over. This was my test, I see a stamp in my store (I used USA JQ3), and then searched for JQ1-5. Nothing came up! Because the catalog number field was empty and I have about 12 items in this range on my store.
I have been trying to get the word out, please check your stores. It doesn't do me any good if my store is in order and others are not. I searched for USA #1 and came up with thousands of items. Why? Because some sellers put #1 or #2 in their titles so that they can identify item better when they are sold. Nothing wrong with that, because the catalog number was also in the title. But when the import from BS occurred, the import locked onto the "#1" instead of the real catalog number, resulting in numerous errors.
Another way to check your items is to go into a country and sort by catalog number. If the items are not sorting correctly, they will be a mess either at the front, or at the back of the country, with the correct items sorting properly in the middle.
Another example: I downloaded my CSV file and started working on some files. I went to my store and filtered Brazil (I have about 300 listed) and the result was 30! Went into the CSV file and found that the rest of Brazil had the country field blank. That is why nothing came up.
My sales have tanked also. I think they will be back but it may take quite awhile. Remember that the new sites that have to take mobile users into consideration are not nearly as intuitive as the old ones that didn't. I never had to ask a question on how to use Bidstart and all the business information required was at my fingertips.
I am still trying to learn how to do many things here and haven't yet figured out how to get dollar totals, monthly sales data, etc that were all right up front on Bidstart - I have to figure it out by tax time or it will take a long time doing it manually transaction by transaction.
I think that I would gladly pay an extra $10 a month just to have the old "My Bidstart" and the Monthly Sales Data Chart made available - I used them everyday and miss them dearly. It was so simple.
I collect Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, primarily I am looking for them in Mint Never Hinged condition..
Well, I found that thee little areas can be found under both Great Britain-Regionals OR under each of those countries. WTF? That's a lot of trouble to go through. BS was MUCH more logical to search through. That's what made it so good.
https://www.hipstamp.com/store/roosphilately
https://www.hipstamp.com/store/directmaildiscount