Is it normal for sales to drop around this time period?
Merry Christmas everyone! Just looking for some advice and perhaps re-assurance from those of you who are online like me today 
I sell exclusively via Amazon FBA. We were doing excellently for the past 30-60 days, growing faster than ever. Happy time.
We’ve had a few hiccups since starting selling on Amazon 9 or so months ago, with cash flow (largely due to sea freight delays, as well as still learning the ropes of proper inventory management).
So around 4-5 days ago, around half my ASINs became out of stock all more or less at the same time. But instead of a 50% drop in sales, we’ve seen 90% or so. Today is the slowest day yet.
Is this normal around the Christmas period, and is anyone else experiencing anything similar?
34 replies
Seller_nex6aLZ9HPynF
Where are you based? We are in the UK, and today most people celebrate an event here called Christmas. It a day where many folk spend time with their family enjoying meals, passing on gifts and playing games and having the odd tipple.
We often find that Christmas Day is slower than others.
Seller_6sxtIS0RbZ5k7
Yes, it’s the same every year, sales start to decline a couple of days before Christmas and then take a while to get going the other side too.
Seller_lIrgXLRN891Wd
Great thanks for the replies and re-assurance. Feeling much better now and looking forward to the New Year.
Seller_sjp09PdZ4tzP6
What is Christmas? Is it a new flavour of ice cream or muffin?
Whatever it is I don’t like it
Seller_dTPPOE3wi8Ow7
I expect it is always quite around now, saying that I’ve had 2 sales on amazon today and 1 person asking where their item is… on christmas day
Seller_ENkMm3uWy4Blq
Yes, Sales around Chrismas time and new year drops but it comes back up to normal flow once all the events like Chrismas and New Year finish so it will probably take 2 weeks or more.
Seller_r1BWHFE9Q49m3
Yes, as everyone has mentioned already, you should definitely expect sales to drop on 25 December because Christmas Day is a holiday for most people in the UK and many other countries. This also includes most mail carriers and couriers, and people know that even if they are buying through Amazon Prime their orders won’t arrive on 25 December.
However, it’s traditional for many businesses in the UK to then have sales beginning on 26 December (i.e. “Boxing Day” sales), and so many customers will be actively looking to buy things immediately after Christmas Day - so you might see more sales tomorrow. Plus, think of all the people who will have been given Amazon vouchers as gifts for Christmas. They will be looking for ways to spend that money on Amazon 
Seller_PY6qN1rPPfY0J
Of course it’s normal.
People stop buying Christmas presents online around 3 - 4 days before the 25th as they worry that they won’t be delivered in time. After that, people have run out of money and then around 24th - 26th their minds are on things other than Amazon shopping.
Every year it’s the same, you can set your watcn by it.
Sales pick up again gradually as you pull away from the festive period. For me, with skiing holidays on the horizon, my seasonal goggles etc. start to sell better usually, however Covid has of course hit that business hard in the last couple of years.
Seller_Wxkaaqf3sVtGV
Sounds pretty normal. I am a horrible last minute Christmas shopper myself and noticed from about Wednesday 22nd that even Prime orders were expected after Christmas, so I gave up on looking and hit the shops instead. Seen a huge drop on my own FBA orders from that night also, so I wasn’t alone.
Seller_rGtEcZnu0JTRD
Perfectly normal, will vary from seller to seller depending on what you sell, from our side of things we see sales increase 30-40% from early November through to about 19th December, then they go very quiet until the 30th December when we get a bit of a peak.
Funny enough we took more orders on Christmas day this year than we did on 23rd / 24th December, but sill only at 156 when we normally see 600-700 per day during the year.
Online retail can be very bumpy, you should never expect a steady run of orders, it can be a bit of a rollercoaster so you have to budget both your cashflow and workforce to be able to cope with both the peaks and the troughs.
