Sales are way down. Anyone have this happening too?

[ombra]

Hi all,  

We have been sellers on Ebay for well over 15 years.  We have a small business out of our home.  We sold over $75,000 last year on Ebay and were on track to sell over $100,000 this year.  Our average monthly sales are right around $6500 - $10,000 a month.  That was until last month.  (July 2018) Total sales - $2900.  This month we are at $3100.  I don't see us selling close to our average.  

I was wanting to know if Ebay changed some things, are long time sellers seeing the same trend or is it just the summer slump? 

Thanks 

Paula 

[714gorilla]

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@nieceyskitchen wrote:

Just wanted to add that our sales have been down as well.  We had this store for over 6 years and sell mostly in the home and garden category.  For us this has been trending for about 2 years but this past week was awful.  At our peak we shipped about 30 items on Monday from weekend sales.  This past Monday we shipped one.  Wow, that's worse then when we first opened our store.  We saw this downward trend once China really hit this platform.  First it was small kitchen tools they would sell now China is offering larger and bulker items.  Pricing is below what our store can ship the item for.  We're looking to change our product type a bit and see if that helps.  Good luck, it's really a  changing market.

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I've posted about this before regarding International sellers (as Ebay refers to them). They have warehouses all over the USA so it will appear that they're American sellers.  I could tell they were not because I didn't recognize any of the brands they sell; they  do not accept returns so they do not pay for return shipping like Ebay is asking others to do; and they do not answer any questions.

It doesn't look like they use Promoted Listings from their prices (so cheap). Yet they are near the top of the viewing lists, maybe because they have hundreds and sometimes thousand of items to sell.  Who can compete with that?  Seems like excellent feedback, the Top Rated Seller emblem, 30 day returns, and a seller paying for buyers to return items (for any reason) doesn't get sellers any closer to the top of the viewing lists.

No views = No sales

[richards*rock*collection]

I cancelled the promos and took down most of my listings because I think I just want to have a few things listed for now, it seems more effective. I have also bought some things on amazon and the walmart site with the money from ebay sales, because it was just cheaper.

[creeg1]

Yes, same thing here too (sales dropping) but on a smaller scale. I cancelled the store subscription on July 1st and sales dropped about 70% compared to previous months. I re-subscribed to a store in late July and within minutes I began receiving questions, offers and sales started rolling in the next few days. August started off okay but then it completely dropped off again last week. Time to say goodbye to the store again...

[army.90l0md9f]

I am down 80%!!!! glitches that are not resolved and I do not see as many sponsored ads on facebok e.t.c.. Ive been complaining about 0 impressions in my store for months and was told it was a glitch that was fixed but I was overlooked! my point it, if I am paying for a store and for it to be seen!!! why do I get 0 views without a fix... if this is an example of things going wrong, items not being seen, no wonder business is down! traffic and inpressions are not being reported in real time as they once were! no idea where traffic is coming from to be able to plan business ads! ebay replaced a fabulous version of reporting with a useless primitive format! sad.... 

[drakkordragon]

@army.90l0md9fSponsored ads only works for eBay, not anywere else. So your sponsored listing will only show (if they show at all) on eBay site, but NOT Facebook...etc

However talking about facebook, I've heard they are coming to the selling market soon, and when they do they will be a direct competition to eBay, which is good. May worth checking this out when it happens.

[richards*rock*collection]

I notice there is a longtime seller of washington rough jade, no store but regular sales, I think ebay will give up and let a person sell well without a store if they have something that people are buying. If you have an item that is in demand and priced to sell it should sell with or without promotions or a store, you would think.

[savetons347]

Same here , down 70 %. 3 sales in 20 days, unbelivable .. at this point not bothering anymore with the markdown promotions. After the new promotion 15 days rule  things went south for me ..exporting to my other platforms ..

[knment928]

We have been very slow over the last year, and August was the worst ever. We do not know what is going on, other than to speculate the following: sourcing items is getting harder to do, the economy is better and people are opting to buy new not used, and buyers are not getting rid of their items in haste like they have done in the past. It's also summer, but here is hoping we can get better sales as we head into the fall and holiday shopping season. Fingers crossed for everyone! And no, we did not opt into "free returns" - it is not fiscally sound, and we feel it does not deter buyers from buying from us. Thank you!

[jcmining]

The site's search engine, Is the problem

[calistas_closet33]

I sold 185,000 last year, this year on this site I expect to do about 90k maximum. Last year August was my highest volume month, Im down 75%. I think the slump has more to do to ebay policy changes, glitches and basically wanting sellers to behave as Amazon without any incentive to do so, like seller protection etc.. Promoted listings are what they are pushing because they as a company are underperforming compared to their competitors as well. I started selling on multiple sites at the beginning of this year due to changes here..primarily the push for free returns, promoted listings causing buyer confusion, need to increase pricing if I comply and no seller protection.

[calistas_closet33]

I do promote a few listings in each category for the purposes mentioned and then offer multi item purchase discounts, rather pass along savings to buyers than pay more for less to ebay

[calistas_closet33]

That’s because ebay in my opinion relying too heavily on seller fees..instead of boosting sales. Quantity of sales for them should be the goal, in my case it was..until they changed their strategy and I changed mine accordingly. So now I sell on multiple sites and they lose my revenue

[calistas_closet33]

What’s up with the re-entering of password thing? Oh and new postage page and needing to click go to old view, just annoying.

[calistas_closet33]

I’m not huge scale, used to have about 1200 listings now about 800 but some are multi quantity listings, and I am apparently not good enough for ebay

[calistas_closet33]

I promoted listings and found them on the bottom under listings not promoted..did guaranteed delivery but didn’t show up in search results because 1 day handling = 4 days in their eyes even though it’s complying with guaranteed delivery program...I promote very little now, and when I do i see fees keep going up because more sellers are blanket promoting and it’s just crowded and noisy. I could raise my prices 15% to cover as a test..but honestly think it wouldn’t help ... i still sell, just not nearly the volume here.