eBay

monstertoybox · ‎10-04-2019

We have been on Ebay for over 9 years, and of course like everyone else is mentioning it was great in the beginning - it was fun and exciting. I loved talking about my store and how well it was doing. Fast forward to now and it is nothing but frustrating and depressing. I never mention my store anymore because it is just way too embarrassing.

It has been going downhill here for a few years, but this year is the absolute worst it has ever been. I’m making less in 90 days what I used to make in 1 month just last year.

There is no way anyone on here can convince me that Ebay doesn’t control every aspect of my store and my ability to make sales. The patterns of sales leads me to believe I am only “on” at certain times and in certain states. Just as one example, which is statistically impossible - Thurs 1 sale at 3:54am (west coast) nothing for the rest of the day, next day Fri 1 sale at 3:55am (west coast) nothing for the rest of the day. And as others mentioned one good day, I can be assured a few dead days will follow. Clumped sales from one state or one time zone. Days of absolutely nothing - no sales, no feedback, no messages. Complain to Ebay about slow sales and miraculously they will suddenly come back to life for a few days, only to always return to miserable sales.

The most frustrating part is it seems no one gives a **bleep**. My store is completely failing and no one at Ebay could care less. I have worked really hard on my store, put in many, many hours to try to make it great. I take very good care of my customers. Ended old underperforming listings – revised titles, lowered prices, take all my own pictures, added all my item specifics, did promoted listings (which I don’t do anymore because it doesn’t work), marked down all my items, free shipping on a lot of the items … I could go on. Basically, I have jumped through every hoop they sent my way.

BUT STILL NO SALES! What am I paying for?

It’s coming into the Christmas buying season, we could always at least depend on this time of year to do well, but I’m so afraid that this year is going to be a total bust and then we’re done. I can't see paying for the monthly store fee if it continues to get worse and worse.

movieman630 · ‎10-06-2019

Hey Ebay! You might want to wake up my listings today! Or am I being punished for a negative feedback and not allowing a cancellation? I need sales to stay in business! I make money and you make money. If I have to shut down you make NOTHING!

monstertoybox · ‎10-06-2019

@mangafanatic2013 wrote:
Sales are dead. Even with watched items, they aren't buying. Like many, I've tried every trick in the book, nothing works. I've tried adjusting prices in both directions.....promoting items, doing best offers (no offers made or so low ball it's almost insulting then counter offers are ignored or declined), making offers to watchers (only 2 in hundreds have taken the lower offer). NOTHING IS WORKING!

Since GTC was forced upon us, sales have been dead! And newflash to ebay, like many other sellers, I used the $ from my sales to buy things too! So no sales equals I don't buy either! I did a store for two years, but cancelled it when ebay forced GTC on us as my sales went south, so much so that I could afford the monthly store fee, forget actually making any money.

Ebay NEEDS to revamp their site. 1) Stop forcing GTC on sellers, most of my sales came on the day I listed or the last day of the listing...since GTC sales are dead. 2) Implement a FAIR feedback system where sellers can actually rate buyers like in the past and that allows us to automatically block bad buyers. Forcing sellers to only leave no feedback or positive feedback, gives buyers an incentive to abuse sellers. 3) NO REFUNDS should actually mean no refunds....if a buyer files an INAD return for a listing that stated NO REFUNDS they should HAVE To show (with photos) and tell EXACTLY how the item was not as described. The very few returns I've had were all buyers filing INADS for issues that WERE IN THE LISTING. IF the buyer didn't READ The listing they shouldn't be able to file INADS! 4) Seller should be able to send a lower offer to ALL WATCHERS, not just one! I had an item that had 11 watchers....every time it was "send offer eligible" that offer was only sent to ONE of the watchers. That is NOT how most sites do it. And why can I only send an offer to watchers when it's "eligible" for it, who determines that???? 5) Search needs to go back to what people actually are searching for! Every time I search, I get a ton of non related promoted items by Chinese sellers that have nothing to do with what I'm actually trying to find! It's frustrating as a buyer and I tend to go elsewhere when I get pages of not what I'm looking for after searching...I imagine most buyers are doing that.

Just a few thoughts.

These are all very relevant. I've also tried to send offers and out of the hundreds I've only had two purchases. I don't know why some items for sending offers and some aren't. There are a bunch of my limited edition pins with tons of watchers, but offers are not available to send. Why not? But not that it works any way. I've always used GTC, just because it was easier for me, having so many items. It would be too hard for me to relist constantly.

But don't get me started on search! Some of the things the search engine does especially picking the category (without customers knowing) is especially troubling. I've found some of my items were not being found on search because they were not in the "default category " that search comes up with. WHO is in charge of choosing these default categories?! And why aren't sellers notified somehow? Also simple things like "the" and if you use "&" or "and" should NOT matter on a search engine, but it does here. You will get different results, so customers aren't getting all the results depending on what they type in search. I could go on, but we've all heard these issues and it is falling on deaf ears.

The list of irritating issues grows ...

yuzuha · ‎10-06-2019

@monstertoybox wrote:
These are all very relevant. I've also tried to send offers and out of the hundreds I've only had two purchases. I don't know why some items for sending offers and some aren't. There are a bunch of my limited edition pins with tons of watchers, but offers are not available to send. Why not?

Buyers can choose not to have offers sent to them. I have that setting on because most of the things I watch aren't things I want to buy, they're things I plan to sell myself so I want to see how much they go for.

tryrightzone · ‎10-06-2019

hi i am having the same problem so you are not alone and am thinking of not having an ebay store if it does not pick up

monstertoybox · ‎10-06-2019

@movieman630 wrote:
Hey Ebay! You might want to wake up my listings today! Or am I being punished for a negative feedback and not allowing a cancellation? I need sales to stay in business! I make money and you make money. If I have to shut down you make NOTHING!

Unfortunately they are still making money on me if I don't sell or not because I have a store. I'm also paying the higher monthly rate, not the annual because I want to be able to shutdown with out penalty (which is coming very soon). Maybe they are taking advantage of this, because they're only making 10% per sale, but the monthly store fee is much more. The longer we have items on here the more store fees they will be able to collect?

I'm sure I'm being punished for posting on here about this subject, because my sales have been non-existent since Fri morning (I started my post Fri evening), but at this point it doesn't really matter to me. My sales are seriously so bad that is doesn't matter anymore, I think it's more important to let others know that really good sellers that have been on here forever are having serious problems. This site is completely broken by whatever is happening behind the scenes.

movieman630 · ‎10-06-2019

I usually find that my sales pick up if I complain. Ha ha! There's no rhyme or reason. I've also come to accept that it's impossible to have a clean feedback profile. As soon as I start to see the negatives roll off another one is soon coming. Like clockwork. It's always some newbie user with no feedback. Like the most recent guy, 7 feedback since 2005. He could care less that this is how I feed my family. He's just upset because he didn't do his due diligence before he hit the "BIN" button. That's not my fault. In selling NOS automotive parts it doesn't pay to take returns because most of the time you won't get your part back, you'll get their old part back. Or they'll just waste your time "trying" a part to "see if it works" because it "looks the same". Try selling a "tried" part as new when they mark it all up with scratches and screw marks. Or they just find it cheaper by $1 somewhere else and want to return it (at your expense) to save a buck.

Anyway you slice it in my business it doesn't pay to take "for any reason returns". Most automotive businesses operate with the same return policies. It's not like selling t-shirts or toys.

I decided it was better to save $200 than accept a return and pay the return shipping from a buyer who didn't know what he was buying before he bought it. I'll take the negative and keep the $200.

monstertoybox · ‎10-06-2019

@movieman630 wrote:
I usually find that my sales pick up if I complain. Ha ha! There's no rhyme or reason. I've also come to accept that it's impossible to have a clean feedback profile.

In the past that has also worked for me, to complain about slow sales and miraculously the sales will start again. But I think that is over, they really don't care anymore.

You are right that is doesn’t matter on Ebay anymore about having great feedback. When I search through solds to get an idea for pricing I see the same items I’m selling sold at higher prices and always from a seller with a lower feedback percentage. I have busted my (you know what) to try to maintain that 100%, which at times has been very challenging. Of course less sales means less of a chance of having those unhappy customers, so that’s maybe one positive?? Ebay is no longer about quality, which is such a shame.

hurryagain · ‎10-06-2019

@goldrushfinds wrote:
You are not alone. Lately (as in the last couple of weeks) things have really gotten bad. Right now it seems no matter what you list and no matter how low the price, it still probably won't sell. You have to list things on Ebay at 25% of the price offered on The River to get it to sell. Ebay is now the cheapo site. You can research items to sell that have a great sell through rate and they also will not sell. Something stinks and I don't like it.

yeah...when this happens, it is not a good thing at all unless you are a cheapo seller...then it becomes a race to the bottom and who wants to participate in that (as a seller)? As a buyer, I would be all in of course...

I know that there are those who are going to say "well, eBay has always been a cheapo site," which I will say is not accurate. Ebay was first and foremost a site where you could find the unique - interesting - handmade - and hard to find things at a good deal...and sometimes if you were lucky, downright cheap.

Ebay-el'cheapo did not happen until after the sellers from China flooded the market several years ago and ruined not only this site but many B&M sales as well.

monstertoybox · ‎10-06-2019

Oh and one more positive I haven't had to buy shipping supplies! I used to have to purchase boxes and bubble wrap almost monthly. It has been almost 8 months since I've had to place one of those orders.

BUT I WOULD MUCH RATHER HAVE MY SALES BACK! $22.50 in four days is not going to cut it. Having over $40K listed (600 items) and 1 sale in 4 days. This is normal??? If this is going to be the new normal, we are done here.

gamersbaystore · ‎10-06-2019

If the economy weren't bad then the people who are here would be buying, but they are not. I only have over 200 watchers right now! Don't know what economic reports you read but economists have made it clear we're heading for a recession, and the entire U.S. manufacturing sector has already stated they are in a recession and production for many companies has stopped entirely.

More jobs than ever today, and more jobs created this past month. Too bad those jobs are total junk. Wages today are but a small fraction of what they were 25 years ago. In the 90's the average worker here in St Louis where I live was earning around $25 an hour. I earned as much as $50 an hour in the 90's.

The cost of living is out of control in the U.S right now. We were living on $8,500 a month after taxes last year and it was just enough to cover the bills each month. Why? Because my health insurance alone is close to $600 a month! My mothers health insurance is close to $500. My latest migraine medicine is $550 a month out of my pocket (which I have to stop taking as I can no longer afford it), and I just got another $113 bill from the ophthalmologist, and that's besides the other $115 the insurance already paid.

The cost of everything has gone way up! Even our home insurance is now thousands of dollars a year for a single bill! My car broke down last month, another $1,000.

You can't expect people to have a spendable income when the average income is never enough to survive.

Where people get the idea that $10 or $12 an hour at a part time job is a livable wage is beyond me. I guess you could live in a tent in the park or your car with such a wage.

gamersbaystore · ‎10-06-2019

My sales were totally dead until Oct the 1st rolled around. The only reason I'm getting sales every day right now is because I was adding close to 100 new listings a week the 2 months prior. I kept listing 7 days a week until I reached the point of burnout in mid September.

ebay made a lot of horrible decisions that ran their platform and sellers into the ground. But regardless of what ebay does now, they can't help the fact the average American is now dirt poor and hasn't a dime to their name. No one with a $12 an hour wage is shopping on ebay, as no one can survive on such a wage anymore.

I realized months ago the only way anyone is going to survive as a seller on ebay today is to have thousands of active listings with a lot of diversity. This means more investment of money and time, but for me it was a risk worth taking.

mysalonsavings · ‎10-06-2019

Very true! I have one now that purchased, paid for and received an item then found it from a beginning seller for less,

now that buyer wants me to refund the difference or "she will escalate it to Ebay"! If someone wants to give their item away that is their business but don't expect me to price match because Ebay shows the item cheaper from someone else after they have already purchased. Another buyer purchased an item for 75.00 and cancelled minutes after paying. Of course it sold through promoted listings. This is really getting old! I buy on here also and I would never dream of behaving that way. I just wish buyers would be sure the want the item at the price given before clicking the buy it now button. 😒

pink.fish.rule · ‎10-06-2019

@monstertoybox wrote:
@mangafanatic2013 wrote:
Sales are dead. Even with watched items, they aren't buying. Like many, I've tried every trick in the book, nothing works. I've tried adjusting prices in both directions.....promoting items, doing best offers (no offers made or so low ball it's almost insulting then counter offers are ignored or declined), making offers to watchers (only 2 in hundreds have taken the lower offer). NOTHING IS WORKING!

Since GTC was forced upon us, sales have been dead! And newflash to ebay, like many other sellers, I used the $ from my sales to buy things too! So no sales equals I don't buy either! I did a store for two years, but cancelled it when ebay forced GTC on us as my sales went south, so much so that I could afford the monthly store fee, forget actually making any money.

Ebay NEEDS to revamp their site. 1) Stop forcing GTC on sellers, most of my sales came on the day I listed or the last day of the listing...since GTC sales are dead. 2) Implement a FAIR feedback system where sellers can actually rate buyers like in the past and that allows us to automatically block bad buyers. Forcing sellers to only leave no feedback or positive feedback, gives buyers an incentive to abuse sellers. 3) NO REFUNDS should actually mean no refunds....if a buyer files an INAD return for a listing that stated NO REFUNDS they should HAVE To show (with photos) and tell EXACTLY how the item was not as described. The very few returns I've had were all buyers filing INADS for issues that WERE IN THE LISTING. IF the buyer didn't READ The listing they shouldn't be able to file INADS! 4) Seller should be able to send a lower offer to ALL WATCHERS, not just one! I had an item that had 11 watchers....every time it was "send offer eligible" that offer was only sent to ONE of the watchers. That is NOT how most sites do it. And why can I only send an offer to watchers when it's "eligible" for it, who determines that???? 5) Search needs to go back to what people actually are searching for! Every time I search, I get a ton of non related promoted items by Chinese sellers that have nothing to do with what I'm actually trying to find! It's frustrating as a buyer and I tend to go elsewhere when I get pages of not what I'm looking for after searching...I imagine most buyers are doing that.

Just a few thoughts.
These are all very relevant. I've also tried to send offers and out of the hundreds I've only had two purchases. I don't know why some items for sending offers and some aren't. There are a bunch of my limited edition pins with tons of watchers, but offers are not available to send. Why not? But not that it works any way. I've always used GTC, just because it was easier for me, having so many items. It would be too hard for me to relist constantly.

But don't get me started on search! Some of the things the search engine does especially picking the category (without customers knowing) is especially troubling. I've found some of my items were not being found on search because they were not in the "default category " that search comes up with. WHO is in charge of choosing these default categories?! And why aren't sellers notified somehow? Also simple things like "the" and if you use "&" or "and" should NOT matter on a search engine, but it does here. You will get different results, so customers aren't getting all the results depending on what they type in search. I could go on, but we've all heard these issues and it is falling on deaf ears.

The list of irritating issues grows ...

I could be wrong (been known to happen lol) but I have a feeling 'relevancy" depends on sales. IOW if something gets sales even though it's in the wrong category, AI decides that IS the "relevant category" for that item.

pink.fish.rule · ‎10-06-2019

@gamersbaystore wrote:
If the economy weren't bad then the people who are here would be buying, but they are not. I only have over 200 watchers right now! Don't know what economic reports you read but economists have made it clear we're heading for a recession, and the entire U.S. manufacturing sector has already stated they are in a recession and production for many companies has stopped entirely.

More jobs than ever today, and more jobs created this past month. Too bad those jobs are total junk. Wages today are but a small fraction of what they were 25 years ago. In the 90's the average worker here in St Louis where I live was earning around $25 an hour. I earned as much as $50 an hour in the 90's.

The cost of living is out of control in the U.S right now. We were living on $8,500 a month after taxes last year and it was just enough to cover the bills each month. Why? Because my health insurance alone is close to $600 a month! My mothers health insurance is close to $500. My latest migraine medicine is $550 a month out of my pocket (which I have to stop taking as I can no longer afford it), and I just got another $113 bill from the ophthalmologist, and that's besides the other $115 the insurance already paid.

The cost of everything has gone way up! Even our home insurance is now thousands of dollars a year for a single bill! My car broke down last month, another $1,000.

You can't expect people to have a spendable income when the average income is never enough to survive.

Where people get the idea that $10 or $12 an hour at a part time job is a livable wage is beyond me. I guess you could live in a tent in the park or your car with such a wage.

Actually from what I see those are the ones who get money from the govt onto a card every month. No actual job needed (but guess who's paying for it?)

shjd88757 · ‎10-06-2019

I've called 6 times in the past 2 week.. My sales have plummeted and I was convinced that there was some kind of glitch! I'm a 3rd grade teacher and sell on ebay to help with income. I've lost sleep wracking my brain trying to figure out what in the world could be the problem. I hope something changes soon or my store will be "going out of business"!