My Sales Tanked, And I Have A Theory

[maimaimai90]

I've been selling for just about 2 years now. I found my niche, developed my business model, refined and worked it. I was doing about 2.5k per month in sales on about 150 listed items, with the usual variation - seasonal and otherwise. I had 100% feedback and repeat customers.

Ebay wanted Free Shipping, I give 'em free shipping. Ebay wants 1-day shipping. I give 'em "epic fast shipping" to quote one customer.  Ebay wants Free Returns, I give 'em free returns. Ebay wants Guaranteed Delivery, I give it to 'em. Whatever direction ebay wants to go in, I try to adapt and make it work. So far, so good.

So naturally, it was time to expand. As I sell mostly men's clothing, maybe 'summer slowdown' wasn't the best time to expand, but I increased my listings about 40 or 50 percent in July, and sales increased by about 35%. Right on target. I did the same in August, with good results. It was my best month on ebay. Now with the summer doldrums behind us and more listings than ever before in my store, September should continue the trend. Not so fast.

September saw a 25% decline in sales. October was equally bad, and November - which I anticipated as being the best month of the year - has so far been horrible. I'm currently on pace to equal my year-low January sales when I had less than half the items listed. I anticipate doing half the sales of August, or a 50% decline from that month. This is despite loading up with Christmas and winter items - the items that ebay (and common sense) - recommend.  

So what gives? I went crazy trying to pin down the reason. I tried listing on a regular basis. I tried binge listing. I kept my account constantly active. I lowered prices. I raised prices. I had sales. Nothing mattered. Am I still top-rated? Yeah. Is my return-rate too high? Ah, my returns are exceptionally low, especially with all the clothing I sell. Can't be that. Unresolved cases? Nope. In three little words, **bleep**?

Looking at my sales on a graphical plot, it was easy to see exactly when things began to tank, the inflection point so to speak. But that still made no sense. Now we all know that a platform like ebay is run by computer algorithms, and these are developed and manipulated toward one end - optimizing revenue from sellers. Nothing sinister about that. We all try to optimize revenue. 

Obviously, none of us know the details of how 'ebay' operates, but the generalities are there. We kinda all 'get it'.  For some reason, I was dumped into a lower priority 'bucket'. Sure, they give you the occasional 'off-the-charts' day, the same way a casino strings you along until you're just ready to walk away and cut your losses, and then you hit for a few hundred. And you come right back. Until you're broke. Sometimes I get the feeling that ebay is a casino and we're all just hangin in there waiting for a jackpot. 

I was going over my messages awhile back, and noticed an offer from ebay to upgrade my store to the next level up. I considered it, since I was paying for insertions each month, and it sorta made sense and I was planning on continuing the expansion. But the subscription fee was 3X what I was paying, so I had to think about it just a bit. Unfortunately, the deadline for the offer was August 28, and I didn't respond in time and the offer expired. 

My sales began to decline immediately after that date. Ebay simply dumped me into the 'not worth it' bucket. 

Thanks ebay. Two years of representing your company as best as I could, and winning customers with every sale. And in an instant, all that work is tossed into the 'screw you' bucket. Hey, it's your platform, if you think that's the optimum way to harvest revenue from your sellers, more power to ya. But I'm starting to agree with the naysayers - ebay is flailing around trying to compete with Amazon and the new kids, and flailing rhymes with failing, doesn't it.

[turquoisetulips]

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@fashunu4eeuh wrote:

Hi, you have been successfully selling for two years, growing your business, and hit a dry spell that cannot be explained easily. In an effort to understand the problem, you theorize that eBay would willingly forgo months of Final Value fees it would have otherwise collected from your healthy sales, in favor of a punitive response to your decision to not upgrade your store.

What would eBay gain from such an action? If you don’t do well, eBay loses your income stream. Why would they want that?  fanhunu4eeuh to OP .

Common sense says  they probably wouldn't want that . However  could it be possible that e bay attempts  to scare [ for the lack of a better word ]  sellers into believing they need to upgrade ? That may not be the most ethical practice  but I doubt there are many companies left  that still run their business without using some unethical tricks of the trade . Tulips 

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[3714508518]

"If you don’t do well, eBay loses your income stream. Why would they want that?"

Ebay believes that If they lose a seller buyers will just buy from the next seller, preferably the one that bends over more and pays more. In what ways has ebay ever shown that they want sellers to do well?  Their main objective has been to require sellers to do more work to make less money, while they profit off it. 

[baantiques]

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@mrconran wrote:

I think the main reason sales are down is ebay wants to force sellers to adopt promoted listings.  At least that is my theory.

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That's exactly what it is.  I said months ago that promoted listings were a back door fee increase.  Think about it - you pay extra to get your listings seen above non promoted listings.  That works great if you're the only one doing it, but if everyone does it, the only difference between then and now is higher fees.  And eventually with enough people using promoted listings, you will have no choice but to use them or your listings will be pushed so far down no one will ever see them.

I used promoted listings for a while.  It didn't increase my sales, but it DID increase my fees.

[baantiques]

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@paulhua3 wrote:

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@maimaimai90 wrote:

Eyes wide open now. 

And for the self-assured crowd - just wait until it happens to you.

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Uh huh.  I've been waiting 19 years for it to happen to me.

Throttling?  What nonsense.  If a listing is one of 10,000 similar items, sometimes it may be near the top (ending soon, low price or recent sales) other times maybe near the bottom (no recent sales, high price, late shipping, excessive returns or snads) and who knows how many other factors eBay uses to order items.  But punish sellers?  Punish?  Complete bullpucky.  Just too silly to argue about.

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It didn't happen to me until I had been selling on Ebay for 16 years.

You casual sellers are always the ones who claim throttling doesn't happen.  You claim that it doesn't exist because you haven't experienced it.  But the reason you haven't experienced it is because you don't sell enough to be anywhere near the throttling radar screen.

Here's a piece of advice.  You want to find out about throttling?  Buy a warehouse full of product, hire people, and try to expand.  Then come back and tell us all about how, no matter what you do, no matter how many thousands of listings you add, that you can't increase your sales past a certain level.

Until you do that, your denial of throttling really means nothing to those who have experienced it first hand.

[sharingtheland]

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@ersatz_sobriquet wrote:

Spent 3+ days researching one item--yep, BTDT! More than once. It's an extremely competitive world, and to outsmart them I've been forced to make these aging eyes sharpen with precision knowledge upon sight, and it's hard work, I get it! Now back to polishing sterling and finding antique German xmas in my hoard, if only I wrote down that obscure sterling mark it took me forever to find, back to the starting line....... 🙂 

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ersatz, if only I still had my books on obscure sterling marks which I lugged around for years and then thought "why am I keeping these?"  I'd send them to you !

Did someone make a casino reference ?  The jackpot I hit yesterday was more than I've grossed in 4-6 months here.  I would not, however, recommend gambling as a steady source of income.   

[moms**art**window**]

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@maimaimai90 wrote:
We should all be a little worried about the coming recession, but my particular slowdown was much too sudden for that to be a factor.

On a more positive note, Chinese shippers should soon be in for a massive postage rate hike, which should certainly benefit a lot of small US sellers. So there's that anyway.

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How soon do you know?

[klginc77]

Look WHO started Ebay and WHO is REALLY running Ebay currently, nuff stated...

[sharingtheland]

How I wish the word "throttling" had not become popular around here.   Of course ebay isn't deliberately limiting a seller's sales at a certain pre-specified amount.

Ebay search (I use that term loosely) is, however, algorithmed to the nth and ebay has chosen to limit the number of listings a buyer might see at one time.  Even ebay realized no one was going to scroll through 15,000 pages of something.

I have no proof of this but I would also assume there is a space/server issue going on.  

I can prove where my items are seen and purchased and it amazingly corresponds to areas of the country where ebay will collect the highests fees on shipping.   I've lived in three different areas of the country while selling on ebay.

[paulhua3]

Casual seller?  I have 14,000 listings right now in two stores.  I'd use one of my selling IDs but the problem with that is that in the last couple of years it seems that many folks consider people they disagree with to be enemies.  The amount of incivility in society and on these boards has made it unwise to open one's self to retaliation.

For the record, I would hope that all sellers do well, but I think one's success here has much more to do with one's selling practices and the competition one is facing than any "vengeance" on the part of eBay.  I think eBay's list order of items for sale is 99.9% based on the probability of getting a happy buyer and has nothing to do with punishment.

[orangehound]

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@maimaimai90 wrote:
Once again, when your sales decline dramatically in the span of a few days as I described, it has nothing to do with anything you mentioned. Anyone who has sold successfully for any period of time is well aware of what it takes to survive in retail.

We're not morons.

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OK ... you have 2 years of experience in retail here on eBay (per your first post), and you are experiencing your first decline.   I get that ... it is confusing and threatening.  But, if I am reading your response correctly, your reaction to this decline is "it is eBay's fault and I am doomed" ?

Yes, I agree ... you are doomed if that is your posture.

Alternatively, if you want to be successful in retail then I suggest a posture of seeking out adjustments whenever faced with marketplace changes ... make the right changes, and you will pull out of your slump.  

(I am willing to make suggestions to help, but I am not willing to enable a negative confirmation bias that doesn't accept responsibility for their own business ... what is the point of this thread, making adjustments or confirmation bias?)

[moms**art**window**]

not complaining but after a real long long time of 0 or nothing to speak of,all of a sudden sales,4 in a row it's interesting all right kinda like a casino no rhyme or reason anyone else?

[rschissler]

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@moms**art**window** wrote:
not complaining but after a real long long time of 0 or nothing to speak of,all of a sudden sales,4 in a row it's interesting all right kinda like a casino no rhyme or reason anyone else?

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Looking at your sold listings, it makes no sense what you are saying.

[savwillsell09]

dear maimaiami90,i dont usually bother to read such a long post ,,,my opinion is your far to intelligent to be here and you could most likely to much better in some other business...anyway well written...good luck!.............heck cant believe i wrote that without swearing...lol

[everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures]

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@myjunqueyourtreasure wrote:

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@baantiques wrote:

You had an eye-opening moment.  There are a lot of people here who deny that throttling exists on Ebay.  I think those are just the people who have not had the eye opening moment you jsut described.

Things were going well, so you tried to expand.  Ebay decided Ebay didn't want you to expand, so Ebay started throttling your listings.

That happened to me 4 years ago when I bought a warehouse full of parts and tried to take it to the next level.  I got slapped in the face with the realization that unless you are an Ebay darling, the only thing you will be successful at is increasing your level of frustration.

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If you recall the blue who let the cat out of the bag about "secret limits", this type of 'throttling' is not unknown when a seller has a sudden growth. ebay claims it's because they worry the seller will overreach themselves and not be able to cope with the added volume of sales.

Take that as you will, but I'd still call that throttling.

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Ebay has come right out and said it will hide listings...it is in the user agreement too. That is no longer a conspiracy theory either. Ebay also said it is showing what it thinks buyers want. So if they think buyers do not want your item...guess what...it will not get seen. Also not a conspiracy theory. There are a lot of buyers who never get to see what they searched for at all for some reason....also not a conspiracy theory.
Ebay has come out and said a lot of things that some will still call conspiracy theories..although not sure why. Maybe a refelx from prior years. Who knows.

[maimaimai90]

As I said in my original post, I carefully and systematically tried all the usual things and more. And I'll say it another time - the 'sales slump' happened in a matter of days and never recovered. This wasn't my first sales slump, this was something different. I was eager to find out why. I wouldn't be bothered writing a post about a run-of-the-mill slump.

What's the point of this thread? Understanding how ebay works, getting feedback from others who might have experienced the same thing, and offering a cautionary note to those who sell on ebay.

You characterize my original post as a self-pity party - it's ebay's fault. Not true. I have a background in computer modeling and programming, and I have a bit of insight as to how optimization algorithms work. As I said, it's up to ebay to decide how they want to harvest revenue from sellers. I was clearly tossed into a lower priority bucket. That might - or might not - change in the future. I definitely want other ebay sellers to have their eyes wide open. And many people have confirmed that my experience is not uncommon.

Lastly, how exactly do you know what I have done over the past 2+ months to regain my sales? You seem to know a lot that you couldn't possibly know. There's been quite a bit of great feedback to this post. Your smug replies are tiresome, but thanks anyway.