How long does Ebay hide your items. I sold one item in the past week and I'm very good seller.

[vietvet173rdairborne]

Yes, how long are they going to hold me hostage in no sales limbo?

[isaiah53-57]

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@vietvet173rdairborne wrote:

Yes, how long are they going to hold me hostage in no sales limbo?

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"Hold me hostage in no sales"

Yes I see the analogy - And the "ransom money" would be promoted listings(in our most humble opinion of course)

[lakefor94]

You have mostly garage sale items. It is going to be a slow-go with the items I looked thru that you have listed. 

Best of luck to you.

[brightlightbookseller]

eBay doesn't want you to have sales, which means they won't make any money?  That doesn't make any sense to me.

[ckimodog]

@vietvet173rdairborne 

You have a nice shop with a lot of the same items that so many others are selling on eBay.  You've got lots of competition out there.  My suggestion would be to use your social media apps and attach your listings to what ever apps you use.  There's a link at the top right hand side of your listing page that reads "Share" It has been helpful for me in the past, hopefully the same for you.

Good luck & Happy Selling

[stainlessenginecovers]

No Sales are for 3 reasons and 3 reasons only

1.) people don't want your items

2.) your items are priced higher than the competition

3.) there are 10,000,000 of 'those things' listed so getting seen will ALWAYS be tough (that is where Promotions comes into play-but only for items with Lots of competition and Typically, Only for new items!) 

Other than that, there is no 'hostage' as stated by @brightlightbookseller  this site makes $$ when things sell so this site has NO reason to 'hide' your items. 

[tobaccocardyahoo]

I had a sales lull for about a week which broke two days ago.

I have more items than you, less direct competition, and was not overly surprised.

I see evidence of less buyer engagement with Ebay at this time. Feedback on past sales is slower to come in. Impressions are off. External site visits are way off. Visits are off. 30 day conversion rate is normal.

When sales start happening again, they include sales to my repeat buyers.

I think the weather, the newspapers, the economy and people's level of well being are manifest.

I have sold online during past recessions, the dot com bust and other challenging times, and this does not feel much differently.

[hartungcards]

eBay usually hides everyone's items until they have a staff meeting where somebody says, "Hey, aren't we trying to make a profit here?"  These staff meetings are usually on a Wednesday, so everybody's stuff is usually hidden from Saturday to the following Tuesday.

[luckythewinner]

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@vietvet173rdairborne wrote:

Yes, how long are they going to hold me hostage in no sales limbo?

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Which item are they hiding?

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@tobaccocardyahoo 

"I see evidence of less buyer engagement with Ebay at this time. Feedback on past sales is slower to come in. Impressions are off. External site visits are way off. Visits are off. "

I think there are multiple explanations for "sales slumps" , and as always, much depends on what a seller is selling. 

But I tend to agree about overall buyer engagement. Especially for the single quantity, long tail items many posters here sell. And, just very broadly speaking, I think there are two major factors involved:

1. MUCH more competition. Not just on ebay, but more importantly, there are many more sites (and also B&M sites) where buyers can find this stuff. ebay was (and perhaps, dollar wise, still is?) the Number One spot on the web to look for this stuff. But with so many other options, many buyers never come here at all....they are simply buying elsewhere. (And , keep in mind, many ebay sellers are now multi channel, which means that not only do these other sites have some stuff not found here, but they also have some stuff that is the exact same item as found here.)

2. Lack of effective marketing. Years ago, before the rapid increase in sites selling this stuff, ebay could---and largely did---neglect this stuff as it chased after new stuff/Amazon. Luckily for ebay, they could get away with neglecting this stuff, because there was so little competition. Those days are over, but management apparently hasn't gotten the memo, and so we've had at least 3 years of no real marketing for this stuff or the site generally...what marketing there has been has been for the focus categories, such as sneakers, designer handbags, Parts and Accessories, etc. While that marketing may indeed help make some sales of this stuff, ebay's insistence that they don't need to market the site has been an enormous failure of strategy, with rivals filling the marketing void and grabbing buyers left and right. 

I don't think ebay hides my stuff. I do think if competitors are using PLS and I'm not, they have a very real competitive advantage....so much so, that it can easily SEEM like ebay is hiding my stuff.

It isn't that ebay is hiding my stuff, or even that buyers can't find my stuff because of the lousy search (although the search needs improvement). It is that many of the people interested in this stuff are shopping elsewhere. If they aren't coming here at all, I'm not going to be selling to them (not here, anyway.)

It's no surprise that ebay is pushing sellers to drive traffic to ebay with Offsite Ads Beta and social media. I think ebay knows they need more of this traffic. But they just don't seem to want to pay for it. 

[isaiah53-57]

Wow...What about all the full-time posters contending they DON'T hide listings...Most have some snide attempt at humor that I would have to advise not to lose your day job selling on ebay...

ebay TELLS YOU some listings are hidden when you do a search!

And when I, and countless other posters mention, how we got close to our sales quota amounts early in the month and then crickets, but then that sudden string of sales just in time to pay the monthly bill EVERY SINGLE MONTH...Yeah thats meaningless...

Nah.. no such thing as throttling or hiding listings..

I dont just don't understand these posts in contention of this matter in the face of truth and irrefutable evidence - I mean really...what is the game?

[jasoheat_0]

things are terrible for me as well , i sell more locally and other platforms then i do ebay , list on other platforms times are changing .... I end more listings on ebay now ( due to selling it elsewhere ) . list on ebay i still get a few , but local is doing great for me , ebay sales are just to far and few anymore ... and there HORRIBLE search engibne does not help ... good luck 

[mike_jayroe]

If you sold one item in a week you are lucky. My last sale was 4/28, one of three for April. That has been my worst month since joining e-bay. I am expecting zero sales this month (hope I am wrong there) since so many others have posted about their poor sales.

I wonder if things will ever get better. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@isaiah53-57 

Your "irrefutable evidence" is my "Nope...I'm not convinced by that "evidence"

No "game." I've go no "agenda". I look at the evidence people have presented, and I am simply not convinced.

Just two different viewpoints.

The real question people should ask when sales are slow---here or on any platform---is: what can I do about it?

To me, the answers are pretty much the same, whether you say "ebay is hiding my listings" or "ebay isn't getting enough traffic looking for my kind of stuff".

You can try changes to your business here, such as using PL, or using social media, or running sales, or revamping older listings, or changing up what you sell, etc, etc, etc. And/or you can go multi channel, adding more online platforms or even B&M venues, such as vendor malls, pop up shops, flea markets etc.

So, let's say ebay IS hiding your listings. Is ebay going to stop doing that? I say ebay is failing when it comes to marketing and drawing traffic for my kind of stuff. Do I really think ebay is finally going to say "Gee, my-cottage-books-and-antiques has been right all along, and we had better start doing some serious marketing..."

No, I don't think that, not for a minute. I'd like to see it, and I think it would help my sales, but ebay will do what ebay will do. 

So, we're right back where we were: It's up to me--the seller-- to figure out what to do.

[chapeau-noir]

Spring and summer tend to be slow in a lot of markets to begin with (and has been since I can remember), with competition increasing and eBay flatlining. I used to just shut down my store in the summer (it's shut now because my house is all torn up with renos).