eBay

themightyquinnbrassandwinds · ‎11-03-2022

I have been an eBay seller for 25 years. I could be wrong, but I do not think there is a single person in upper management who has been at eBay for as long as I have been a seller. And for at least 15 or so of those years, I have been eBay's flagship seller in the categories of woodwind and brass instruments. I've seen a lot of changes come and go.

I do not think it is hyperbole to say that literally every single major change I have seen happen in the last 10 or so years has been to the detriment of the sellers in an attempt to soak them for more nickels and dimes. Most recently has been this pivot away from being a general marketplace to being a marketplace specializing in selling sneakers, Rolexes, and Magic The Gathering cards.

My year to date sales on eBay are down 22% from last year. And it is no secret why this has happened. Ebay eliminated support for my category. Though I was a $4 million+ seller in 2021 I no longer have an account manager. I don't have anyone at eBay who knows my business, and eBay has, effectively, told me that my business doesn't matter to them. This is the culmination of a years-long, seemingly purposeful effort by eBay to destroy this category by raising fees and reducing service to drive sellers off. What was once a thriving community of vintage musical instrument aficionados has become a wasteland filled with cheap Chinese junk, and, for some reason, I'm still here as well.

But wait, you say. Perhaps I'm just mismanaging my business and this isn't eBay's problem at all? Well no. As you can see, my sales in other channels are up over 50%. This is a pretty welcome development for us, as these channels have substantially lower fees (even counting in my advertising costs) and I tend to realize higher sales costs. And it looks like this is the direction my business will be heading-where eBay used to account for 95%+ of my sales it is now barely 40% and falling each month.

I've never had any illusions that eBay cares at all about me. But as someone who sends them literally hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, it boggles my mind that they don't care about my business or my revenue stream. eBay appears to have decided that their original strategy of making money by empowering sellers to build businesses and succeed as been replaced by a strategy of strangling sellers nearly to the point of death in an attempt to wring every last dollar from them.

It might be too late for eBay at this point. I have sounded the alarm bells every time I have had a chance to speak to management, which is probably why they don't want to hear from me any more, but this is not a sustainable business model and is the reason why eBay stock is currently trading near a 52 week low. But as one of the sellers who literally built eBay, I will be sad to see it shuffle off into obscurity.

We had such high hopes.

babclassics · ‎11-03-2022

Wow.... just WOW. We are in the same boat as you but more of a dingy compared to your sales. The downfall for us was in the jewelry category starting when they combined most all jewelry into a few huge categories and tried to get everyone to use keyword item specifics. That really killed our sales of niche category stuff in those categories that were not flooded with Chinese junk for $1. You can no longer browse categories not knowing what you want till you see it, like you used to be able to. Now our stuff can barely be found unless we promote at like 50% and that is not going to happen.

On top of all that, they now put about 100 ads on every one of our listing pages. The worst being at least 20 ads IN BETWEEN our first photo and the item description. It is hard to even find the item description any longer (at least on a PC) and we put a lot of effort into thorough descriptions to increase confidence in our products.

2 years ago 80% of our jewelry sold on eBay, now it is 20% on eBay and 80% sells on Etsy (with lower fees) and on local marketplaces. We are selling the same stuff - all one of a kind which is a lot of work to list. Really sad and we are starting to make the transition to other venues out of necessity, not want.

Best of luck to you (and all of us) going forward. Sure wish eBay would read some of this feedback and actually take action on it.... oops, day dreaming again.

Anonymous · ‎11-03-2022

That is a SPEC-tac-ular and insightful breakdown of the systemic decline of your sales space. We all know that the small minds in San Jose aren’t actually interested in accounts or account holders…they only see trends and averages and groupthink perspective.

richard1rst · ‎11-03-2022

I can not speak about eBay directly as I do not have access to managements plans or reasons.

However, as an overview, consider that Capitalism is defined as “Creative Destruction”

In 1955 Forbes magazine created a list of 500 of the biggest, strongest, profitablest, blue chipiest companies. The list became known as the Fortune 500. Today, only 52 of the original 500 are still on the list. More tellingly, 260 of the original 500 no longer exist.

Some feel victim to the “better mousetrap”.

For all the trouble AT&T had with the Feds declaring that they were a monopoly, I contend that they were brought to their knees by the imagination of a low level prop master on Star Trek. I haven’t had a land line in over 30 years.

Kodak was shoved aside by Polaroid which was in turn shoved aside by digital cameras.

OR

The founders of the company, who built it with a “fire” in their belly, retired.

At one time General Motors sold more cars than ALL of the other car companies IN THE WORLD combined. But when Albert P. Sloane retired it fell victim to the Peter Principle. A few years ago they declared bankruptcy. Ditto for when My Sears retired.

Founded in 1995 eBay was unique and a magnet for those who love the “new”. In time competitors tried to replicate and improve upon it. Many tried and failed. But some serious competitors do now exist. So if nothing else eBay's slice of the pie is smaller than it was, even as the size of the pie increases.

So is eBay falling victim to the Better Mousetrap, or the Peter Principle, or Both?

??????

luckythewinner · ‎11-03-2022

@themightyquinnbrassandwinds wrote:
This is the culmination of a years-long, seemingly purposeful effort by eBay to destroy this category by raising fees and reducing service to drive sellers off.

Or maybe it is the culmination of a years-long, seemingly purposeful effort by eBay to raise fees and reduce service and yet have sellers like you continue to sell here 🙂

animesalesandmore · ‎11-03-2022

Ill say both things can be easily solved by not being lazy and greedy. Ebay is basically becoming Sears. Too greedy to help people if it hurt their profit and too lazy to try new things that would change their whole image( aka rewrite eBay from a updated compiler from starch where we wont have to deal with these outdated bugs and can easily update new technology into their website (looking at you whatnot).) . companace and greed is what kills the biggest companies.

zamo-zuan · ‎11-03-2022

Can 100% relate as a seller at #1 in our category for many years.

Losing account managers was the beginning of the end of them actually caring about sellers. Alongside that, they've gutted support, and their "AI backed search engine" has only degraded things in to optimizing eBay profits without any proper compensation for sellers investments, and subtle/indirect fee increases.

Meanwhile their public statements are about how they're working with sellers and listen to us... And fake marketing hype about the "upgrades" they do to our categories.

The best I can do is let you know that you're not alone. There's many of us in the same exact situation as you. I hope it's not too late for eBay, but when I had met with eBay staff in person, one of the terms they used was "eBay is a big ship and takes a long time to steer". We can only hope they're able to steer it in a better direction, rather than giving us pep talks about how everything is sunshine and rainbows as we barrel towards an iceberg.

iart · ‎11-03-2022

This actually makes some sense. We've stuck around to half a dozen times when sellers left in large numbers. Our strategy was to take advantage of less competition. And, until the last few years, it seemed to work. Now, we have too much invested in eBay to leave.

@luckythewinner wrote:
@themightyquinnbrassandwinds wrote:
This is the culmination of a years-long, seemingly purposeful effort by eBay to destroy this category by raising fees and reducing service to drive sellers off.
Or maybe it is the culmination of a years-long, seemingly purposeful effort by eBay to raise fees and reduce service and yet have sellers like you continue to sell here 🙂

allthingssurplus · ‎11-03-2022

I have the same issues as you. I have written many on this board virtually saying the same thing as you. I had in the early 2000's a $3mil + eBay business and like you had a rep in Salt Lake City. That worked really well. Sold my interest in that company in late 2011. This business is a little smaller at $2.4 mil annual selling computer components and parts. Three years ago I saw the concrete writing on the wall and began reducing my presents on the platform. We are currently on 5 selling sites and only doing 12% of our sales on eBay. Working to leave that is the goal. Our eBay sales fell off by 60% beginning in September of 2021. I finally rolled over and started Promoting the 4000 listing we have up last month. Went for 300k impressions to a high of 4.5 mil and views are up over 100%. By paying the "VIG" (loan shark term for very high interest or points) our sales are coming back. I have determined that eBay is now my 25% partner. Just wish they would start paying their fair share of the overhead. I thing your items would work well on Bonanza. We are gaining traction on that site. By the by I have been on the site for almost 23 years. Yes they do not want folks on the site that really know how it should be no matter how much volume they lose. First three quarters this year the fab management has managed to lose some 40% of GMV. Not a good sign. Luck to you

richard1rst · ‎11-03-2022

@zamo-zuan wrote:
Can 100% relate as a seller at #1 in our category for many years.

Losing account managers was the beginning of the end of them actually caring about sellers. Alongside that, they've gutted support, and their "AI backed search engine" has only degraded things in to optimizing eBay profits without any proper compensation for sellers investments, and subtle/indirect fee increases.

Meanwhile their public statements are about how they're working with sellers and listen to us... And fake marketing hype about the "upgrades" they do to our categories.

The best I can do is let you know that you're not alone. There's many of us in the same exact situation as you. I hope it's not too late for eBay, but when I had met with eBay staff in person, one of the terms they used was "eBay is a big ship and takes a long time to steer". We can only hope they're able to steer it in a better direction, rather than giving us pep talks about how everything is sunshine and rainbows as we barrel towards an iceberg.

And yet, love him or hate him, agree or disagree, look at how quickly Elon Musk has changed the tone at Twitter. And it has only been a week.

chapeau-noir · ‎11-03-2022

Twitter is a curious example, though - it's not a tech company, it's a content moderation company that uses some tech. It's extremely easy to completely disrupt something like that almost instantly by simply changing a few ground rules (or threatening to).

eBay has the same old problem every company which begins to fail has: Bad management, in this case lack of focus. In eBay's defence, it's very difficult to find someone who could have predicted and met the challenges arising from light speed changes in etailing between 2002 and now.

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
— Alice Walker

#freedomtoread
#readbannedbooks

m60driver · ‎11-03-2022

@luckythewinner wrote:
@themightyquinnbrassandwinds wrote:
This is the culmination of a years-long, seemingly purposeful effort by eBay to destroy this category by raising fees and reducing service to drive sellers off.
Or maybe it is the culmination of a years-long, seemingly purposeful effort by eBay to raise fees and reduce service and yet have sellers like you continue to sell here 🙂

Except that Ebay fees have not risen dramatically in quite some time. But yes Ebay's customer service, like that of all corporate America, has been dramatically reduced under the cover of covid and what does remain has been shifted offshore and is often just some clerk with a thick accent voicing what the chatbot has generated. But the reduction in your sales is probably more connected to competition, both within Ebay and with alternative platforms then because of Ebay corporate decisions, many of which have been rather poor.

coolections · ‎11-03-2022

Ebay does not specialize in anything. You are wrong. If people want your instruments, they will buy your instruments. Don't worry about ebay's stock portfolio unless you own stock. All you need is to list and have a price buyers are willing to pay. Ebay is nothing but an advertisement to potential buyers to buy your stuff.

zamo-zuan · ‎11-03-2022

@chapeau-noir wrote:
Twitter is a curious example, though - it's not a tech company, it's a content moderation company that uses some tech. It's extremely easy to completely disrupt something like that almost instantly by simply changing a few ground rules (or threatening to).

eBay has the same old problem every company which begins to fail has: Bad management, in this case lack of focus. In eBay's defence, it's very difficult to find someone who could have predicted and met the challenges arising from light speed changes in etailing between 2002 and now.

I believe a lot of the issues with eBay could be summed up in a few key points:

- Lack of transparency

- Lack of honesty

- They're aware of poor tech team performance and have only made the tech team more responsible (even for resolving CS issues nowadays) while gutting other teams (MSO Sellers Health, the CS teams themselves, etc)

Most of the other issues could fall back in to one of these points. Their "improvements" coming alongside degradations elsewhere. Their blatant dishonesty in marketing. Their ignorance of feedback. Their exploitative marketing becoming more and more blatant and unapologetic. Their unfair metrics systems. Their automated penalties where nobody could fix the problems resulting from glitches since everything is automated and no CS has the ability to adjust. Their increased costs on sellers without compensating them for their investment (and not actually responding to questions about this, even from investors). Their lack of security from abusive users. Their lack of response to issues that affect sellers. Their lack of honesty in their earning reports.

To even little things, such as claiming they give such great USPS rates, and declining to mention that FVF are added to those rates, a fact that many outside of these forums don't even know.

Even on this very community forum, allowing people to argue whether something does or does not happen, when they know without a doubt the truth, they could confirm the things we experience are real, and instead they decline to mention the answer if it might paint eBay in a bad light.

A little bit of honesty would go a long way, not just with the sellers and community members, but for resolving the issues internally at eBay as well.

zamo-zuan · ‎11-03-2022

@m60driver wrote:
@luckythewinner wrote:
@themightyquinnbrassandwinds wrote:
This is the culmination of a years-long, seemingly purposeful effort by eBay to destroy this category by raising fees and reducing service to drive sellers off.
Or maybe it is the culmination of a years-long, seemingly purposeful effort by eBay to raise fees and reduce service and yet have sellers like you continue to sell here 🙂

Except that Ebay fees have not risen dramatically in quite some time. But yes Ebay's customer service, like that of all corporate America, has been dramatically reduced under the cover of covid and what does remain has been shifted offshore and is often just some clerk with a thick accent voicing what the chatbot has generated. But the reduction in your sales is probably more connected to competition, both within Ebay and with alternative platforms then because of Ebay corporate decisions, many of which have been rather poor.

EBay fees have had inadvertent increases all over. From the changes to how they combine all the fees in to the "total transaction" to get additional FVF's, to the PL that have required more and more investment to get the same amount of impressions.

The competition issues are two separate issues, as you say, but both could be addressed:

1) On eBay, there's only a handful of sellers who could actually compete at the top of the category. The rest simply can't get the cheapest prices available as they are not manufacturers/importers and/or don't have the logistics.

Top sellers know exactly who can and can't compete with them. And the truth is, despite the categories growing, ALL of the top sellers have dropped.

It's a fact (which I provided evidence of from Terapeak a few years back) that the Top 10 seller market share went from > 40% to below 25% in a matter of less than 2 months, when eBay implemented their "AI backed" search engine. They also put in limits on these sellers, which dropped more and more over time.

Shortly after this, eBay hid the numbers for the market share, so nobody could find out what the share is now. But we can still measure total amounts of sales/feedback and compare to top sellers.

This isn't a conspiracy theory, this isn't hypothetical, this is backed up by data that was shared on here.

2) Competition outside of eBay - eBay's biggest advantage in the past was cheapest prices. They have thrown away this advantage in the last 3-4 years with the focus on PL. Mathematically, we've proven that we get more sales by raising prices and investing in PL rather than giving cheaper prices. You lose > 90% of your impressions - and even our ORGANIC impressions drop without the PL investment.

This means eBay prices go up. Which therefore means eBay is less competitive against alternate platforms outside of eBay.

And the more that is invested in PL, the more inadvertent fee increases eBay is receiving.

This also brings me back to my other post about honesty and transparency. We've reported Organic impressions dropping when lowering PL investment for a long time. This isn't supposed to happen, nor does it fit the definition of an Organic impressions. EBay stays quiet. Does this not fit the definition of a fee increase, if we lose ORGANIC (aka Non-Promoted/free) impressions if we don't invest as much in PL?