I haven't really noticed a slow down in traffic since january and certainly not since the strike BUT..
12% is a lot and most of my stuff is under 10.00 as well however I will say that on quite a bit of it i have like a 300%-500% mark up. The bigger pieces aren't so much since i'm selling them for starving artists but i still factor in enough to cover all my fees and make a profit.
Ronnie: Depending on what she is making to sell, I find that etsy.com is a much better marketplace for handcrafted items. I've removed my store from there for my cross cultural greeting cards because I just can't keep them in stock and they are too hard to make.
I don't think Ebay is on the way down actually I think they are realigning themselves to be more market friendly. There are lots of "stores" over there and mouthy people who spout off on the forums and the blogs but have ZERO in their stores. and i've been listing on craigslist for about 5 years now and ebay is still much more trafficked.
As far as traffic goes.. my #4 referrer to my store is GG&J.
but I do have a site that feeds traffic there, plus i'm pretty active on livejournal groups and flickr groups so I get quite a few sales from there. and like Redcherry said.. put your URL to a stand alone store on the pictures and people will type it in. Once your stand alone store makes more than ebay then it's time to move on.
The theory I've always subscribed to was that you have a balance between store and auction. I have my stuff at auction for about 3 cycles (7 days each) then I move it in the store, unless it's a repeat item that I sell frequently. Once it's in the store more than 2 months (it only costs .01 to list in the store) and it doesn't sell, it goes to my 'sale' list which is every 2 weeks. I try to turn my inventory every 90 days otherwise it starts eating into my profits.
that's about it.. got go watch my sales since my auctions are going off in the next few hours.
Oh yeah that another thing I've learned... Most sales are made on Sunday evening and Wednesday evening. Who knows why. I say its the Sports theory but what explains Wednesday? A little shopping before prayer meeting??
