Ebay Sales Down

[tommytreasure]

Recently, I find it very difficult to sell items, even those in demand, with many watchers, and the lowest price for the item. The economy is thriving, so I'm perplexed as to why people are so reluctant to spend money.  My feedback is 100, I've been selling for years, but it's never been this difficult. I'm not sure it's even worth the trouble anymore. Pay Pal and Ebay fees cut into profits, and I offer "free shipping",  which certainly isn't free for me. I foot the costs. Seems like a waste of time these days. Is anyone else experiencing this, or is it just me?

[namtrag1]

I just figured it out.

The key to sales success on eBay is quite simple:)

1. Take great pictures.

2. write a great description.

3. List every day

4. list everything you have for a loss!...thats right a loss on Everything....make sure you have a big pile of money to start with so that at least you may wind up with huge bills and no money to pay them with.

Doing step 4 is key because we sure as heck don't want to make any money for ourselves.  But make sure eBay gets all those fees and store subscriptions evey month so at least they make money.

I'm here at eBay for the friendship , the spirit of going broke, and the pride of having no money.

Good Luck and Good Selling

[coolections]

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@tommytreasurewrote:

I find it very difficult to sell items in demand and the lowest price for the item.

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Even though I am not an expert in determining items in demand and costs but looking at what is available on your listings, I see nothing in that much of a demand and I do not see lowest prices. Times have changes and items you have listed IMO have very little demand.

[dlr_8655]

Sometimes, the reason that your sales are down is much more complex than one single cause. There could be many factors in play, going for and against you.   spotify premium apk

Maybe several of your old competitors left the market but were replaced by bigger sellers with a better reputation. At the same time, eBay were testing a new design which gave your sales a brief boost. Then eBay’s search traffic dropped for certain keywords, and their own search algorithm gave other sellers a chance for a while. The combination of factors went against you overall, and your eBay sales went down. 

[purple4dprincess]

i feel  your pain!  i've been selling & thriving for 12 years.  at least 4 items per day.  Now, I'm lucky to have just 4 per the past 2 weeks- if that!!!  many watchers, no buyers!  what is going on?

[ozarkjoe]

Take a look, sales for 2017 were up over 2016 but I can't see a breakdown for the details about who made the sales.

https://investors.ebayinc.com/financial_releases.cfm

[tinstarglassware]

Now days in order to make a small fortune on ebay you have to start out with a large fortune. I'm currently down 32% over last year which is my average decline over the past 3 years despite the fact I have 4 times the listings. I've figure I have two more years at this pace until I'm in the Red...at that point I have to say goodbye ebay and good riddance.

[714gorilla]

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@tommytreasurewrote:

Recently, I find it very difficult to sell items, even those in demand, with many watchers, and the lowest price for the item. The economy is thriving, so I'm perplexed as to why people are so reluctant to spend money.  My feedback is 100, I've been selling for years, but it's never been this difficult. I'm not sure it's even worth the trouble anymore. Pay Pal and Ebay fees cut into profits, and I offer "free shipping",  which certainly isn't free for me. I foot the costs. Seems like a waste of time these days. Is anyone else experiencing this, or is it just me?

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I feel the same, but I blame Ebay and not the economy.  Ebay has cut the amount of monthly listings they give and has raised sellers fees every which way they can; but the final insult to both sellers and buyers is Ebay's latest hoop-to-jump-through called 'Promoted Listings'.  I'd call it "Pay to Play", and since they started that my views have gone down...no views = no sales.  If you want your items viewed...the more you pay, the higher up your items are to be seen and in the right locations.  I'm a buyer and a seller, and I am tired of the games.  It just seems a little underhanded to me.

[detroit_diecast_llc]

Namtrg1 has the answer to slow sales on ebay "There is no explanation to this other than the obvious that eBay is throttling sales to us unfortunate sellers."

[percgrabbe-0]

In reply to OP hate to say this but its very busy on other sites I sold about 10 items over the weekend and zero on ebay last weekend or all week last week and I sell the same exact items both places. 

[percgrabbe-0]

Maybe one day ebay will realize that big box corps and chinese sellers might bribe ebay for site placement but they dont buy items or bring in their own customers. 

[mr_lincoln]

@namtrag1

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@namtrag1wrote:

eBay at their discretion spreads the sales around.    There are too many posts with long time sellers that experience a Violently Sudden and Unexplained drop insales....me included.

There is no explanation to this other than the obvious that eBay is throttling sales to us unfortunate sellers.

 Call me cynical, crazy, dumb, uninformed, etc etc etc but the proof is in the fianal outcome of results.

Peace

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I would tend to agree with this ... watching IDs here when suddeny they go flat line with virtually no Views or increased Watch counts one has to ask that obvious question.  I seem to recall some posts about the UA actually stating something like the items may not be visible all the time, I forget the exact wording those posters used.  Anyway, I guess we all get our turn in the barrel.

But the thing I do not like reading, and maybe this is category specific, is Sellers saying they dropped their prices and still no sales ... that's the last thing we should do because that is the thing eBay wants Sellers to do ... so the alleged visibility manipulation may be happening for that very reason.  Sales drop, people panic, they drop their prices and the goal is achieved.

I've also noticed lower prices being returned in Sold Search for items ... and wondering if this too is being manipulated.  In reseraching collectibles, toys, etc. it seems like many prices coming back are lower than normal ... this too could be an alleged attempt to have Sellers keep thier prices down ... IMHO of course.

[rschissler]

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@mr_lincolnwrote:

@namtrag1

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@namtrag1wrote:

eBay at their discretion spreads the sales around.    There are too many posts with long time sellers that experience a Violently Sudden and Unexplained drop insales....me included.

There is no explanation to this other than the obvious that eBay is throttling sales to us unfortunate sellers.

 Call me cynical, crazy, dumb, uninformed, etc etc etc but the proof is in the fianal outcome of results.

Peace

---

I would tend to agree with this ... watching IDs here when suddeny they go flat line with virtually no Views or increased Watch counts one has to ask that obvious question.  I seem to recall some posts about the UA actually stating something like the items may not be visible all the time, I forget the exact wording those posters used.  Anyway, I guess we all get our turn in the barrel.

But the thing I do not like reading, and maybe this is category specific, is Sellers saying they dropped their prices and still no sales ... that's the last thing we should do because that is the thing eBay wants Sellers to do ... so the alleged visibility manipulation may be happening for that very reason.  Sales drop, people panic, they drop their prices and the goal is achieved.

I've also noticed lower prices being returned in Sold Search for items ... and wondering if this too is being manipulated.  In reseraching collectibles, toys, etc. it seems like many prices coming back are lower than normal ... this too could be an alleged attempt to have Sellers keep thier prices down ... IMHO of course.

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So eBay is manipulating sales because it wants sellers to lower prices because it wants sellers to be able to compete with sellers outside of eBay, but sellers shouldn't lower their prices to compete with sellers outside of eBay because???

Are collectibles hot items these days, and thus there is no reason for prices of them to be lower than normal, other than eBay sales manipulation?  

Toys?  Really?  ToysRUs  just went bankrupt.  Some reasons because of less demand and their prices couldn't compete, but toy sales prices are lower than normal on Ebay because of eBay sales manipulation?  Maybe you think that eBay toys sellers kicked ToysRUs's butt, and that's why they went bankrupt, but if that's true then eBay sellers shouldn't be complaining?

[vintagepatternsplus]

When market crashed more people came to sell on Ebay. I have now tons of  competitors now.  Thats why price went down! So many choices!

[vintagepatternsplus]

Toy stores go out of business because of more and more people shop online. I buy my new toys at Walmart online with free delivery or at Walmart store.

[lindyslucky]

We have had a dramatic decrease in sales this month as well.

Its probably  a variety of things.

Our society has changed. 

Housing is much more expensive. Areas closer to town have become very trendy. And many are 800 sq feet. There's just not room for many belongings. 

Medical, dental, insurance bills are killers. (And veterinary, if a person owns 2-3 animals it can be $$$. )

We did notice, if we keep listing, we sell. Many of the sold items are new, but not always, leading us to believe if one is listing more, you might get a bump in views?

We hit a slow listing spot & sales just died. When we are listing, it's almost all we can do. 

And I hate it, hard to get motivated when sales are slow. 

The lack of info from ebay is frustrating, especially to someone who had a B$M store, with face to face contact & daily info.

how nice it would be to know how many new sellers, how many stay in, and the average profit of small sellers.

Collectibles we found hot a year ago, are sitting.

Maybe the era of collectibles for China, pottery, glass is just over, when shipping is added to heavy items, it just becomes priced too high to sell. 

We also have tried to stop buying. (The fun part) Competition for items got too stiff.  Prices at local thrift shops are so high, we can't resell. They are getting more than we are for many things. With fees, there is just not much to be made.

We have plenty to sell. Going to do a big purge now for things not moving.

I wish ebay was more lucrative. But for us it's just almost not worth the lonely disappointing slog.

When we used to sell, we bought. Stopped that too.

At this point, just want to sell what's left and move on.