Is the recession hurting your sales?

I have seen a decline in my ebay store sales, not sure if that is a result of recession or Ebay's messin with the search ability but my online writing business has not been negatively effected. I would say that because of the recession more individuals will be turning to IM to make extra cash in these difficult economic times.

Laura

As more my ebay business its actually increasing in sales, though that market is mainly Australia and my products are summer related so Im not sure if the recession has a effect on that. Doesnt look like it though.

I definitely think people are searching more online than ever before....some people I know believed esp. here in the US it is because
- there are both people who are laid off thus spending more time online searching for jobs and other ways to make money
- there are people still with jobs also searching for additional money sources but also staying home more so as not too spend money out eating, shopping, entertaining, etc. and thus also spending additional time online

I am originally from Australia too and yeah b/c we have been going through this for 12 months and after being back home at Christmas and reading more I sadly thing Australia's year of pain may be 2009. (Hopefully I am wrong)

i think, in general, on line sale would be least affected.
i fact, they could/should increase, since the cost of buying online is considerably cheaper and offline. This applies to both smail delivered goods and electronically delivered.

Australia wont escape the recession, there is no doubt things are going to get bad this year, and at the very least 2010. I buy all my products (ebay products) from the states and the Australian dollar is very bad right now. (62 cents) ouch!

oh yeah that exchange rate is a killer now for you...and to think in July last year it was essentially 1:1.
In the end the cycle for Australia will play out like this. The US consumer will eventually start buying again..which means buying things Made in China....this will intern rejuvinate the Chinese manufacturing again and factories and construction will flourish again as they have for last 20 yrs (maybe not at a spectacular rate as before but still huge b/c of the population)

Once China is pumping along b/c of US buying their exports, then they will need Australian resources to grow again...and there you are back to propserity for Aus

How long all of this takes is a mystery but hopefully for us all sooner rather than later. However for Aus even if the US consumer started buying today in bug numbers, the flow on effect might takes 6 months to a year to reach Aus so there will still be some pain.

Same reason why Aus only started to feel real pain about 9 months to a year after US started.

Agree with you there cgj1981, and the delay makes sense. BHP recently sacked 3,000 workers here, have a few friends in the mining industry (who left my work place) who are currently 'waiting for work' and are not getting paid.

My ebay store sales have actually done well over the past couple of months and I have seen an increase in traffic and clicks.

My sales for Feb. are up over January by about 20%. Amazon is doing really well right now as i am promoting tax software through PPC.

I am really optimistic about things, but I know a lot of people who have lost their job here in my area.

Well, February just closed and it turned out to be one of my best months, this despite the recession and the month only have 28 days. I think now is the time to really work on SEO and getting your site to rank. If the recession is hurting us now, once the economy has recovered it is important to have your sites positioned and ready for when people do start spending again.