Posted by Yes, it’s a known fact that during the delicious warm months of the year, sales slow down both online and in brick-and-mortar stores. And it makes sense. People take vacations. Enjoy time outdoors. Linger around swimming pools. (I can almost smell the Coppertone.) Spend more time with family and friends. Shopping takes a back seat to the pleasures of summer. As it should.
That said, I don’t want my business to totally languish this summer. Here’s what I plan on doing when I’m not relaxing on my front stoop with a glass of chardonnay.
Put older inventory on sale, hopefully enticing a few buyers. I am particularly keen on selling off clothing which tends to be slowwww sellers for me. It’s weird because I love vintage clothes and have bought them online for years, but they take forever for me to sell despite having lovely models and giving all the measurements, etc. Thankfully I’m getting down to the last pieces. (Right now I have an interesting mix of pieces on sale.)
Weed out more of the duds in my store and in my death pile. But here’s the conundrum…I have had things linger in my Etsy store for years and then sell. For full price. Even after they’ve been on sale. Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s really a dud! Take for example this small signed Japanese iris print. It was in my store for three years. (Yes, three years!) But it was a nice thing and easy to store so I hung onto it. And it finally sold a few days ago. I guess there is something to be said for being patient.
Take advantage of the abundance of estate and yard sales to stock up on some great items. (Q4 is coming!!) But I want to keep being more discerning. Things may be tempting at just a $1 or two, but are just aren’t worth selling online or do not represent the quality or uniqueness I want to sell. (This estate sale last year required lots of digging in boxes. Not totally safe as some items were broken.)
Keep listing and listing and listing. Enough said!
Try to beef up my social media presence. Need to figure out how to better use my instagram account to drive more traffic to my stores.
Continue to add more items to my new Chairish shop, Cloak and Dagger Vintage. I opened this store at the end of April as an experiment to see if some of my higher-priced items would sell faster here. So far I’ve sold two. There are pros and cons to selling on Chairish, but I’m definitely going to continue and currently have 24 items listed.
But I do plan on enjoying summer too. My city has a great lineup of free concerts that I can’t wait to enjoy and bust a move! And I’m sure we’ll head over the mountains a time or two to dip our toes in the ocean.
What are you doing this summer??
Happy hunting,
Karen
Hunting for Vintage 
Free concerts are always fun, I hope to do something like that this summer too! Sales do get terribly slow during the summer.
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I’m glad you’ve had some luck with Chairish. I have been curious about Chairish for a few years now, but everything seems to be priced pretty high retail (why we as sellers are drawn to the site, yes?), which makes me wonder what percentage of their listed items end up selling. Maybe I should try it for a few of our more expensive items. Hmmm…
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So far I’ve only sold 2 things, but one of them had been listed on Etsy for a year previously, so I was glad that it sold so quickly on Chairish. Yes, some sellers throw insanely high prices on things. I try to be more realistic while leaving room for offers and the fees. (If you have 1-9 items, Chairish charges 30% commission, over 10 items it’s 20%.) I’ve marked down the price on a few items because that bumps them up in the search queue. We’ll see what happens. Let me know if you ever try it! – Karen
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Thanks for the helpful tips, Karen!
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