Time to down size, Sales way down.

[mrrufusandmsladya]

In 2017 had a good year selling, In 2018 I had half the sales as in 2017.

I use to carry over 500 listings when sales were good (2017).

Right now I have 266 listings, cut them back with low sales in 2018.

Today I am cutting back my listing even more.

I keep my prices low enough to make a sale, then ebay wants you to lower 

them even more.  With the new postage rate, can not do it with out raising the 

price.  I want my buyers to get a good deal, same as I would want if I was 

buying on ebay.

Sales are down 66%.

How many other sellers have done the same??

Good Luck Selling!!!

[tunicaslot]

I've got 3 bags and boxes ready for Amvets. I took 3 bags to SA last week. Sales are slow on all 3 of the venues I'm on but I love the hunt for new items so it's hard to scale back for me.

[juststuffisell]

I reduced my store size after Christmas. Went from the 1000 listing store to the 250. This is where I will sit until I can figure out how better to show up in ebay search in a way that generates sales enough to justify spending what they want me to spend.

I did raise all my prices and am rolling out a flat shipping price based upon my costs ranging from 7 dollars to 30 dollars - which you know is not good for sales....but....after taking an honest look at my financials for last year and how much it cost me to sell and what I was netting after expenses...I netted about 1000.00 a month on eBay on an average of 3800 or so in sales a month. That is after fees, shipping, supplies and does include inventory replacement. My inventory level grew year over year at cost only 2K so I have more inventory dollar wise, but you know you have to replace inventory as you sell it to continue to bring in fresh eyes. Plus, as tunicaslot noted...I love the hunt....so it is hard to scale back - but you have to sell inventory to have the cash to go hunting. The hunting is my motivation...lol

In the end, I have just not been netting enough after replacing stuff sold with like kind to justify in my own head where I was at with the larger store. It was not resulting in more sales. To me, the problem is not really just eBay, the problem is me as well. I need to figure out my end first and if I do that with the right inventory, the other end will work itself out.

Cheers

[*coins]

The less items you have on, the less items you are going to sell...

[hioctane62]

For me, 2017 sales were half of 2016 sales, and 2018 sales were half of 2017 sales. I've slowed way down on listing here, and have to make a decision by the end of the month on renewing my store (or going monthly). I have tons of stuff to list, but it seems hard to get motivated in the current ebay atmosphere.

Forced returns, false SNAD's, free returns, managed payments, just to name a very few of the issues sellers face that negatively affect their business. I really hope Elliott gets their way and there is a major shakeup at the top coming.

[parkersparrow]

My sales for 2018 were about the same as 2017.  I'm up on average about 20% to this same time last year. I think i'ts because I've added more trendy merchandise and markdown old stale merchandise a lot sooner than I have in the past. Shipping discounts when buyers buy 2 or more items have increased my items per sale. I also started selling on another platform around the end of October where I have a link back to my ebay store. Plus promoting on Facebook & Instagram help too.

[dbmm-media]

donate all your inventory to a charity and write it off on your taxes  

[linus.hux72fe]

I have little motivation to list here and Ebay has to my lack of motivation with its latest (for me) aggravation.  (They changed the phone app so creating a listing there is always good till cancelled rather than being able to select 30 days).  Aggravating to me, although perhaps not others, as I have to save the drafts and go in to the site on another computer to change the listings to 30 days and then submit. Yes a small thing but just another aggravation to me. And it's not the commonly given explanation that I'm a new seller because I am not new.

I follow about 87 sellers of various things including jewelry, clothes, antiques, primitives, car parts and a few friends across the country.  In the last 7 days NOT 1 has even sold 1 item. These are sellers across the US, not simply in my geographic area. I've never seen that before.

I'm simply not motivated listing here. It takes too much time and effort for the return in my eyes. Other places I sell are not slow at all for me and listing both those places is quick and clean.  As well I did another antique show and had a huge weekend (over $7000)  which leaves me to believe it's not that vintage items aren't selling. 

I've heard all the explanations:

Vintage items aren't selling.

Its winter. People are busy paying heating bills. 

Its summer, just wait for winter and 4th quarter holiday sales and people are inside with time to shop.

Change your titles.

Oops change them back again.

Lower your prices

Raise your prices 

Free shipping

Charge shipping

Free returns from purchase until hades freezes over

Its throttling

There is no throttling

It's just a glitch

It's not a glitch-just a new option ebay is giving us

[linus.hux72fe]

Sorry about that.  I pushed the wrong button.

The point I was meandering to is that I totally understand downsizing and even contemplating leaving. I'm old and the Ebay "experience" is boring me much less a millenial.

I'm not at all interested in Chinese junk.

I'm not interested in seeing the same listing month after month lowered in price .50 a month.

I'm not interested in ebay's guessing what they believe I should be interested in when I search for something.

I'm not interested in playing their guest what this policy means this week game.

I'd just like to sell and buy. But one is tied to another.  My December sales on another site were 6x what my sales were for the 4th quarter on Ebay.  I am plenty motivated to sell there.  

Ah well, best of luck to you all.

[parkersparrow]

I agree about listing on the app. I mostly create my listings on a laptop, I do use a lot of stock photos so that makes it easier for me to list. When I do take photos I do everything on my laptop save as a draft and then upload my photos from my iphone through the app. I think if I only listed through the app I would go crazy with frustration and quite ebay as well.

[sakic92710]

Trying to sell on eBay is getting to be a real joke.  My first week of Feb. saw, maybe, 1 sale.  Last week, I totaled $24.  This week is better but, definitely not nearly enough to make a difference.  Sold $100 on Kijiji today.  Will get a few measly $ from auctions on here.   Listed 75 auctions.  Only know 7 will sell, for sure.  Guess 0.99 - 1.99 is just too high!  I might downsize so much on here that I'm completely gone!  lol   Good luck to all.      🙂

[mam98031]

For me, my sales significantly started dropping in the late winter of 2014.  I mean drop off a cliff.  It started in March of 2014.  There were three things that happened at between February and April of that year.

1.  Ebay got hacked [while we didn't lose any financial records, it affected buyer confidence significantly]

2. Google drop returning Ebay listings in the search returns because Google took issue with some things Ebay was doing and considered it spamming.

3.  Cassini [search engine] went site wide.

OMG after that, still my sales have not been the same as they were before these events.  Whether or not they had anything to do with it IDK, but it is how it happened to me.

2015 was a horrible year for me.  2016 & 2017 saw a slight pick up, but still a great deal shy of 2014 and before.  2018 picked up in sales too.  Still not what I was pre 2014, but going in the right direction.  However some of that was not due to Ebay but do to a different reason.  2019 keeps going back and forth.  Some days are good and then a few days are bad.  Hard to get a handle on the trend yet for 2019.

[stockjedi]

I think way down is a under statement, we've been selling for over 10 years (under different account) 12k 100% feedbacks, average 800-1200 a day and sales have dropped 80%. today we had 1 sale for $22. Have already let employees go that dealt with eBay sales. This place is going down faster than an intern’s dignity at a cigar club meeting. Been on eBay since the 90's and this marketplace is not looking good at all, too many big boxes dumping 1 million items to compete with each other, the chinese sellers of course selling garbage for $0.05 and eBay's executives ruining this platform, I really see no hope for small to mid size businesses here. We're going to start packing-up and go elsewhere especially with all the crook buyers threatening you with negative etc just not worth the headache any longer. To me eBay is DONE.