I opened my BrickLink store earlier this year. Between March and September, I had 7 orders. Not that many. In the last week and a half, I've had 10 orders. The difference? A 30% sale.
I'm a real small store. Currently around 18,000 pieces. So I'm not expecting a lot of orders. But after a couple months of no orders, I felt the need to experiment. I updated all my prices to the current 6-month average selling price, and then put everything on a 30% sale.
The same day, my highest value minifigs were purchased. I was expecting those to go. But what caught me off guard is that people started ordering regular pieces too. Those are the fun orders to pick and pack IMO. So I seem to crossed some threshold that my store is now showing up in more searches.
10 orders in a couple weeks is actually more than I'd like. I think a couple a week is where I'd like to be. So I'm going to play with the number some more. Drop it to 20% or 15%. Try and find a place where I'm getting a few orders a week.
I'm also not sure if people are buying because they are on sale or if the price is right. So I can play with that too—just drop my prices by the same sale amount and see if things change.
Am I losing a ton of money? Probably. But it's better to have inventory moving than just sitting there. My shipping costs cover shipping and materials. And most of my sets were purchased at a price where (assuming everything sold) the value was 3x what I paid for it. So even with discounts, I should be making some money. I should sit down and try to actually figure that out though. Again though, this is a hobby and I'm doing ti for fun.
But it's exciting to see orders coming in!