It's always a Holiday on eBay
Never underestimate the buying needs of the American public, when it comes to holidays! Retailers know and understand this very well: the Halloween goods go out before August is over, and while the Halloween candy is still at full price, Thanksgiving and Christmas items start taking over the Halloween space.
What I think I am trying to say is even simpler than that: ALWAYS keep your eBay store holiday-ready. "Christmas In July" is a staple on the cable TV shopping channels, and you should think along those lines. Create categories as you find items that fit your eBay inventory: "Valentine's Day," "Diwali," "Easter," "Passover," and for those of you in Oceania, Australian/New Zealand winter 'Christmas/Yuletide' celebrations generally begin on the 4th of July.
Links like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listofwinter_festivals are especially helpful in adding items to your "Holiday" category. Do you have beautiful goods from India? Why not schedule them for September to give people time to decorate for Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. It occurs in October or November (check a good calendar online). It's a five-day festival is marked by parties, banquets, fireworks, candy and other sweets. Women dress up and decorate their homes.
Figure out the timing for Chinese, Korean and Japanese holidays. You just might have a stack of fancy red money envelopes to sell in time for the Chinese New Year, when money in red envelopes is a traditional gift.
Not only do we have the western world's holidays in the spring, notably Easter and Passover, the Persian/Iranian community celebrates Sadeh on March 21 each year, to banish the cold of winter. If you have Persian antiques or decorative goods, start putting them live near the end of February and include "Sadeh" in your key words.
Coming back to the USA, you want to be sure to have items for Valentine's Day year around: a lot of grooms are looking for heart-shaped trinket boxes ahead of time, to "pop the question" on February 14th! So, set up your Valentine's Day category and keep stocking it.
The same with St. Patrick's Day: stock it with kelly green items, shamrock-motif items, and all of those things you bought at closeout sales on March 18th! Be ready to feature items of Israeli origin to accommodate Jewish holidays year-round. A beautiful Hanukkah menorah is a treasure for the right buyer at any time of year.
Be creative! You know the eBay world is very big and very inclusive.And, one last thought: don't forget to allow time for international shipping.
1 Comment
Elizabeth Ball says:
Great ideas, Danna! Christmas/Yuletide actually gets celebrated even earlier in Australia, from the Queen's Birthday Weekend in June (usually around 8-10 June) as winter officially starts on 1 June and since cold weather is so unusual for us Aussies, we love to celebrate it with wintry Christmas-style festivals as much as possible. Yuletide is definitely underway by 25 June which is six months to Christmas.
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