Sudden Sales Plummet

[sweetish_meatball]

I've had the oddest several months, with NEARLY NO SALES. That's become a trend this year.  

eBay once outsold my own website and Amazon. Now eBay's a distant third. I'm hoping the eBay Open will answer some questions for me, but that's not the route it's taken in prior years.

I've optimized listings, experimented with different kinds of promotions, tried listings with many and few photographs, removed listings for a week then relaunched them, tried different keywords, used Terapeak, and more.  Some tactics have worked for a week or two, the others have not.  All listings are within the same product category. 

Is anyone else facing this challenge? Do you think it's temporary or permanent? Do you have any suggestions?

[tobaccocardyahoo]

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@sweetish_meatball wrote:

Yeah. I don't know why I have a store.

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I have a store because before there were stores, listing fees on items which did not sell more than ate up the profits on what did sell.

A basic store and its 10k+ listings is a bargain.

Those of us who sell long tail collectible items have horrid sell through rates and manage to make money. We have enough flexibility to raise the number of listings to try to even out the hills and valleys of selling these items, and to diversify our offerings.

And the store provides an easy way for buyers who are interested in what we sell to find our latest offerings.

If you are selling mass market products, there a bigger marketplaces than Ebay to sell on. If you are selling used and collectible items, Ebay is the best place at this moment in time, but it is an uphill climb because those other mass marketplaces do not make it easy to sell collectibles there.

I left Ebay during the 2008 recession for Amazon. I sold more and made more there. I came back to Ebay because they made it harder to sell collectibles. Imagine getting the equivalent of a VeRo complaint on a 1930's advertising item. That now happens on Amazon.

[buzzapparel]

The sales are being favored to sellers with the best price to promotion ratio that eBay’s  algorithm believes will most likely lead to a sale, this info constantly changes as it’s in a state of constant flux.

If you are in saturated categories especially where buyers aren’t looking for a specific item from a specific brand, eBay will show the buyer other likeminded listings from sellers selling items where the algorithm approximates will benefit eBay the most. 

At the very least, your prices must be competitive, beyond this, the amount of money you are willing to pay eBay seems to correspond with better chances for a sale. This is assuming you’ve optimized all other variables. 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Same here, except that Sept & Oct are usually my busiest months of the year historically.  I had an $80 week last week & a $65 one a few weeks prior.  For the last 6 weeks or so, I've also only been selling on 2 days typically.  Normally I sell 2 items/minimum every day.  I promote at high rates, I have tried a bunch of different things, I even did my last ditch effort on Sunday of turning on BO, which I try to never do.  Normally the few times I've had to do it, I get inundated on day 1 & 2, even though a lot of them are worthless offers.  This time I have had 4 offers total, since last Sunday.  The only good news was that 3 of them were reasonable.  

IDK what's going on, but this is untenable.   I have tried coupons (1 taker), I do promos every month, I send offers.  Probably 80% maybe more of my sales are from offers I've sent.  I have never seen it like this & it's scary.  Thankfully, we have other income, but this is the worst I have ever seen. 

[sweetish_meatball]

That's interesting. 

If I give up my store and don't offer quantity discounts will I still have positive results?  eBay's fees are killing my margin!

Thanks for the food for thought!

[sweetish_meatball]

Excuse my ignorance, Mr. L,

What's "BIN sales?"

[myfrugalboutique]

BUY IT NOW

[kensgiftshop]

Not sure about other places, but when I need reading glasses, I just run to Wally World and pick some up for less then $10.

Buyers could be doing the same.

[inhawaii]

If it makes you feel any better...

Sellers have been reporting "sudden sales plummets" for the last 10+ years.

We see it here every day.

All of a sudden "last week" or "last month" or even specific dates like "August 19th".

[nilis13]

Yes, most definitely 

[agentcloseteur]

Something is VERY wrong with eBay search and the algorithm. I have been selling here for 14 years and this is like nothing I've ever seen. I have spent more hours on the phone with customer service than I care to admit. They know something is wrong...but they will NEVER admit it. Whatever 'enhancements' they think they are making, they have essentially turned ebay off for a large number of sellers. I just continue to pray that they have tech people that are working on it behind the scenes. It is completely nauseating, you are not alone.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

I know the general consensus is that 'throttling' is a myth as are "selling limits"(ceiling caps on sales) but there's something wrong.

I've been running pretty steady around the same $ total per month and around 150 sales per month since the end of Q4 last year.

This month I happened to get an enthusiastic return buyer who bought around 95 items from me in a niche category, yet my sales are still barely over the 150 and only about $100 or so higher than the usual average.. It's like once I had all those sales the spigot turned to a dribble of 1 or 2 sales here and there for the rest of the month.

[oblagon]

I have been on eBay since 1998! I have never seen it this slow and so sudden.  Its kinda of a sudden drop I started to notice about 2 months ago.   I cant even send offers out when I used to send out offers almost daily with some success I dont really have any more.  Something in the algorithm has changed.

However, and this might be an insight into how this site is now run and by whom....Interestingly enough, I know ebay read these comments now.  I made a crack about how the tax bill is due to unexpecting sellers who sell at least $600 bucks thanks to you know who and 80K agents he wanted to hire to come after the side hustles out here to make ends meet and not focus on the large corps being protected...somehow that riled the feathers of someone because today, two listings that have been there for years were pulled out of compliance which is not applicable at all BTW. so punishment for saying this and asking about other worthwhile sites to sell besides Etsy and eBay or was this a coincidence? 

Anyway where else is a good site that still works for the sellers? I'd appreciate it. I do hope eBay comes back to what it once was.  I know the economy impacts it but the economy has not been good for a while now its not sudden but this drop is.   Good luck all!

[mr_lincoln]

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@oblagon wrote:

I have been on eBay since 1998! I have never seen it this slow and so sudden.  Its kinda of a sudden drop I started to notice about 2 months ago.   I cant even send offers out when I used to send out offers almost daily with some success I dont really have any more.  Something in the algorithm has changed.

However, and this might be an insight into how this site is now run and by whom....Interestingly enough, I know ebay read these comments now.  I made a crack about how the tax bill is due to unexpecting sellers who sell at least $600 bucks thanks to you know who and 80K agents he wanted to hire to come after the side hustles out here to make ends meet and not focus on the large corps being protected...somehow that riled the feathers of someone because today, two listings that have been there for years were pulled out of compliance which is not applicable at all BTW. so punishment for saying this and asking about other worthwhile sites to sell besides Etsy and eBay or was this a coincidence? 

Anyway where else is a good site that still works for the sellers? I'd appreciate it. I do hope eBay comes back to what it once was.  I know the economy impacts it but the economy has not been good for a while now its not sudden but this drop is.   Good luck all!

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@oblagon   Interesting comment on Sending offers ... I noticed my eligible list has been just about cut in half in the recent past.  I almost suspect some of the Watcher numbers weren't natural ... like one with 6 Watchers but when I go to the Send offers Eligible list it drops off ... hard to believe the 6 people Watching it all have their communication settings set up to block Offers ... just my humble opinion of course ... 

[zamo-zuan]

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

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@myfrugalboutique wrote:

I totally agree, and as much as we all want to “fix” it..we didn’t break it. A lot boils down to corporate greed. 

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@myfrugalboutique   BINGO!  That is the most frustrating part and as @zamo-zuan mentioned up thread they tried everything they could think of after their sales flatlined during their normal busy time ... so WHO was getting all of the sales??? 

I have done a lot too as well as tested PLS but nothing has put sales back on a growth curve ... in the last 18 months only 2 have set new sales dollar records ... that's not only NO growth but a decline in sales ... I have pushed more inventory to other venues in the last 2 years than any other time during my selling on the venue ... while things do sell they sell too slowly, sell through rate is key for growth and when it slows down cashflow suffers.  

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Wish I knew the answer to that - who is getting the sales. 

All I could say is that the sellers in our category with the most stock and best prices are seeing falls, and the needle doesn't move with all the things that are best practices and/or should see increases in traffic/sales.

Combined with all the tech issues, it's a pretty clear sign that things aren't working correctly and sellers aren't properly being rewarded with traffic for doing the things they should. Where that traffic is going instead, though? Who knows.

I can say that smaller local sellers who purchase through us have seen an increase in sales. Not nearly as much of an increase in business as the sales we lost. But it does seem like a very odd concept, as their prices, ship times, feedback, and PL investment are not as good as ours, so why are they seeing increases? 

That's just eBay, I guess.

[janet9988]

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@sweetish_meatball wrote:

I've had the oddest several months, with NEARLY NO SALES. That's become a trend this year.  

eBay once outsold my own website and Amazon. Now eBay's a distant third. I'm hoping the eBay Open will answer some questions for me, but that's not the route it's taken in prior years.

I've optimized listings, experimented with different kinds of promotions, tried listings with many and few photographs, removed listings for a week then relaunched them, tried different keywords, used Terapeak, and more.  Some tactics have worked for a week or two, the others have not.  All listings are within the same product category. 

Is anyone else facing this challenge? Do you think it's temporary or permanent? Do you have any suggestions?

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Yes... list MORE where ever yours sale are better.