Sales are Horrible Scarce. Practically no buyers this year. What is wrong with eBay?

[belle-treasures-n-gifts]

Sales are Horrible Scarce. Practically no buyers this year. What is wrong with eBay?

Is it just me or has anyone else had issues with incredibly slow sales this Christmas Season? 

I have seen no TV Commercials for eBay.

Etsy, on the other hand, I see TV ads throughout the day including several Prime Time Commercials and Ads on several different networks.

This year's sales have been the worst we have experienced in the past 10 years of selling on eBay.

"Is", or "was" there a method we missed out on?

One would think that after 10 yrs we would have this pretty much figured out.

Thanks for any input.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone!!!!

[paraquip]

Hundreds of posts on this already.... there are many ways to look at it but certainly Ebay bears some of the responsibility here.

What is under ebays control:

1. Marketing/Ad dollars spent

2. Website coding / functionality / bug fixes

3. Customer service / lack of it

4. Website security

What is not under ebays control:

1. The economy

2. What you sell

3. How you sell it

As you can see.....ebay might have some explaining to do

HK

[reallynicestamps]

I have seen eBay ads.

They are on FaceBook and some comedy websites. I have AdBlockPlus,so there may be many more I don't see.

In spite of being a Boomer, I rarely watch broadcast TV, preferring to stream on demand from the networks without commercials, or on Netflix.

Are you in the same age group as your customers? Are you following the same media as your customers?

[gail5176]

It’s the economy, higher groceries,  I really believe this is the main culprit. Increased cost of living too

[paraquip]

I will disagree on the economy being the main culprit.

The amount of bad code they pushed live this year would be a back breaker for any non-publicly held e-commerce company.

Their ad spend ins 26% down in a tightening economy.

They employed a new third party support company that is horrible

Scams way up this year.

And then there is a stalling economy compounding all of this.

The thing about big tech is they need to run a pretty tight ship (no better or for worse).......when things go sideways is when people leave the platform.....if a company screws up enough the slide will be difficult to stop.

HK

[earthdreamer]

Lately, I actually get a shock when I sell an item. 

[coolections]

I am not going to pick through each and every item you have listed but I can say many of those things people can purchase at a thrift store easily for a few dollars each. Some of the items can be bought new at the dollar store. Maybe go through each listing with an open mind and rethink your strategy.

[coolections]

@paraquip 

1. Almost everyone the planet has heard of Ebay. They have been around longer than many have been born.

2. The website works fine for buyers. I've never had an issue buying something here.

3. No need for customer service if you are a buyer.

4. Ebay has all types of security programs in place and I've never heard of it being hacked.

Stick to the other 3 items you mentioned as the possible reasons for low sales.

[valueaddedresource · Accepted solution]

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@coolections wrote:

@paraquip 

1. Almost everyone the planet has heard of Ebay. They have been around longer than many have been born.

2. The website works fine for buyers. I've never had an issue buying something here.

3. No need for customer service if you are a buyer.

4. Ebay has all types of security programs in place and I've never heard of it being hacked.

Stick to the other 3 items you mentioned as the possible reasons for low sales.

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@coolections 

1. Just because a lot of people have heard of it doesn't mean there couldn't be value in reminding them or giving them fresh new reasons to check the site out.

2. Lots of examples just in the community of buyers running into technical issues on the site, "it's not you, it's us" error messages, payment glitches, etc.

3. Check out @askeBay on Twitter - it's an official eBay customer support channel and there are plenty of public help requests from buyers as well as sellers about all kinds issues, including some of those technical issues you claim don't exist for buyers.

4. Lots of security issues on the site, including but not limited to hacking, but if we're going to talk specifically about being hacked - I know of at least one pretty big example in 2014.

https://www.cnbc.com/2014/05/22/hackers-raid-ebay-in-historic-breach-access-145-mln-records.html

EBay said that hackers raided its network three months ago , accessing some 145 million user records in what is poised to go down as one of the biggest data breaches in history, based on the number of accounts compromised.

[juju_poca]

YA, lots of people have heard of Yahoo, where is Yahoo now ?

[coolections]

@valueaddedresource  OK you are right Ebay is just plain terrible. With all those problems buyers just can no longer buy here. It could not possibly be a seller selling things people just either don't want, or the asking price is just not what buyers are willing to pay. I'll concede and go with your theory instead. In the meantime I'll continue to buy here to help you out.

[sakic92710]

Absolute dismal year ending with the worst month I've ever had.  3 sales plus 1 fake one.  2 of those 2 sales did not even cover the cost of a refund I had to give for an INR.   1 sale in over 2 weeks.  I had 2 on FB today.  Last time I had 2 in 1 day on eBay......cannot remember.  1 week to decide if I start 2023 eBay-free.

[suzysemporium]

More of a casual seller right now. This Christmas sales have been pretty good for me this month. I sold more items in one month this month than I have in the previous months. Last week I have been having multiple sales a day most days. First time for me. This week I have sold nothing. I don't mind, because Christmas is less than a week away. I rather not have someone try to get a last minute Christmas present delivered on time especially with this upcoming storm. Everyone be safe out there. Next year I plan on listing even more on Ebay. I hope to still do well and increase sales next year. That shouldn't be too hard, since I have low sales numbers anyhow.  There are people who do well, and still buy in bad economies. Ps. The auctionprofessor on YouTube sells on multiple sites. Large big time seller who has a staff making more than I can dream of right now. He said sales are down across the board including Amazon. It is not just Ebay.

[valueaddedresource]

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@coolections wrote:

@valueaddedresource  OK you are right Ebay is just plain terrible. With all those problems buyers just can no longer buy here. It could not possibly be a seller selling things people just either don't want, or the asking price is just not what buyers are willing to pay. I'll concede and go with your theory instead. In the meantime I'll continue to buy here to help you out.

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@coolections perhaps the problem is in exaggerating the extremes - you're the only one here insisting that issues either affect everyone or no one....I assure you there is plenty of room in between.

I offered no theories, nor comments on the degree to which eBay may or may not be "terrible". I simply countered your assertions that technical issues don't effect buying, buyers have no need of customer service, and eBay has never been hacked.

Try a little nuance - I promise it won't hurt. 😉

[5594shelleys]

U never ever stop cheering for ebay nor do you never ever stop faulting the seller, do you? 

SALES ON EBAY ARE HORRIBLE