Zero sales since May 1

[reelworks]

On the four remaining accounts I list and manage at work, in categories which are usually at their peak this time of year, there have been zero sales, zero watchers, since May 1, and out of thousands of items listed, since about mid Nov. of last year only a slight trickle of buyers and views on items that were selling like hotcakes up to that point. Its as if no one can see our items all of a sudden?

They shut down two accounts after they slowed to a crawl and I've been told to stop listing any new items on the remaining four now. When the current ads expire, I'm out of a job I guess. As are 19 others.

As tenants dwindle in this building, the rents have gone up and that makes it worse. in 2019 there were 38 businesses here, now there's seven left, soon to be only four. 

The items are fishing tackle, new and used, vintage bicycle and scooter parts, and used hand tools. Every account has perfect feedback and every account has been around for over 18 years. Even the regular buyers are gone.

I was talking to a guy half way across the country about this and he tried to find a few of the items that were listed and wasn't able to find them without a direct link via email. Even when he typed in the exact title of the item? He was finding everything but, with mostly all chinese ads on the first pages.

Is eBay intentionally hiding items on sellers who don't pay extra for all the BOLD and special listing add ons?

I keep getting the same email from eBay over and over about doing same day shipping and free returns, but that's not going to happen. Its 3 day shipping, even though all items gets shipped the next business day, and since all items are liquidation items, (Bankruptcies, estate sales, retirement liquidations, etc), we can't offer free returns on what is basically as-is where is type of items.
Its worked for 20 years, we're not changing it now.

I keep hearing that the economy is slowing down sales, its not slowing down sales at all, if that's the cause, its completely ended them. Items that were getting bid up to several hundred dollar now don't sell for even a fraction of that, they don't even get a look let alone a bid.

Spring and Summer have always been the best time of year for the fishing tackle sale, but so far this year, nothing has sold, not vintage, not new, not used, nothing. 

[flyingmvp]

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@pixzee wrote:

I always say this, "try harder."

You may need to advertise out side of eBay. EBay is a great venue for a shop and for processing payments, so if you can direct customers to your eBay shop, you don't need to place high in the search.  A lot of people I know use Facebook market place as well.

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Not anymore, we did use to direct buyers in the past to our Ebay store via Facebook, Pinterest etc' postings but not anymore, I would suggest to spend your time (and $$$ ?) promoting your items for direct sales , eBay is not longer providing  the traffic nor the sales yet still collect ever increasing fees and expecting us to pay more and more for PL's on top of the fees already charged , it would be pointless  to provide them with your own hard earned traffic.

[lawnmowerpartsstore2]

5 Stars for you 😎

[membersinceaug2001]

A suckers game.

[reelworks]

Facebook has always been a complete waste of time, in the 5 or so years since they started Marketplace there I've not been able to sell or buy a single thing. Buyers have never materialized and sellers don't answer messages. As a buyer I've probably messaged several hundred ads and have never been able to buy a single item. Either the seller never replies, or they won't give you a contact number or valid address of where the they or the item is.
Listed items just sit with no replies at all. I tried it for a few cars, motorcycles, tractors, electronics, etc. Mostly items too large to ship. A buddy of mine however does very well with FB but he's 200 miles north of me closer to NYC.

I had a guy the other day who emailed, then called through CL, he tells me he's very interested in pair of speakers I had for sale but I'm 'kind of far away'.  I ask where he's located and he's not more than 10 miles away. He made it sound like he was hundreds of miles away. He tells me he needs to 'plan a trip down my way' if its still available then he'll call me.

[flyingmvp]

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@reelworks wrote:

Facebook has always been a complete waste of time, in the 5 or so years since they started Marketplace there I've not been able to sell or buy a single thing. Buyers have never materialized and sellers don't answer messages. As a buyer I've probably messaged several hundred ads and have never been able to buy a single item. Either the seller never replies, or they won't give you a contact number or valid address of where the they or the item is.
Listed items just sit with no replies at all. I tried it for a few cars, motorcycles, tractors, electronics, etc. Mostly items too large to ship. A buddy of mine however does very well with FB but he's 200 miles north of me closer to NYC.

I had a guy the other day who emailed, then called through CL, he tells me he's very interested in pair of speakers I had for sale but I'm 'kind of far away'.  I ask where he's located and he's not more than 10 miles away. He made it sound like he was hundreds of miles away. He tells me he needs to 'plan a trip down my way' if its still available then he'll call me.

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Facebook has specific buying/interest groups who are all about buying and selling specific items, 

I had number of old VW car parts sitting here on Ebay for years, sold on the  "Classic VW Beetle Buy, Sell, Trade and Swap Meet" a week after listing my items, same for BMW motorcycles parts, sold on one of so many BMW riders group on FB, eBay holyday season 2021 was dead, sold on one of the local "seller buyers" group in my area one load of 900 scarves, just like that, locally, no FVF no snads , no metrics or returns.

Don't give up, do some "leg work" in the specific fishing enthusiastic group, classic bicycle groups etc,  

create contacts with buyer with the same exact interests, see what happens...

Good Luck.

[tks-appliances]

We have generally had a 5% ad rate until last month. The economy is tanking and we are having to fight for every sale. We are currently running a 16% ad rate just to compensate for the drop. We can barely keep our sales holding steady. We dropped almost 45% from April. It has been really rough. Lots of people depend on us making these sales. Going to be a while before we see any change I fear...

[kensgiftshop]

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@reelworks wrote:

Spring and Summer have always been the best time of year for the fishing tackle sale, but so far this year, nothing has sold, not vintage, not new, not used, nothing. 

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Don't know about other places, but around here the lakes and rivers have been flooded for a couple months now and not much fishing going on.

[mr_lincoln]

@reelworks   We're about 6 weeks down the road from May 1st ... have things improved for your sales, views, watched items, general signs of activity?

Are or have you been using the new Unified Listing tool?

Mr. L

[greg_orye]

Thats because you're not selling toys

[arizona_sustainable_living]

This happens to us usually once a year, for about 7 years without fail.  At first we thought it was a fluke, called ebay, changed listings, cancelled and relisted items, called again, sent in support requests, and nothing ever helped.  The only thing that fixed it was time and over the years we've learned to just go find something else to do while the algorithms put us in time out.

Best I can figure it out is that it always happened when were top of the list of people selling the same item(s) and making the most money.  Always seemed to happen when we crossed $20k a month, we'd drop down to 5k, progress back up a year or so later and get shut down again.

And like a light switch.  Never dwindling sales, never a bad economy, just on one day and off the next.

It was surmised that ebay wants everyone to be able to have their "fair share" of selling and it was sort of evenly distributed throughout the sellers.  Meaning: just because Bob sells xyz item at $50 and I sell mine at $30, ebay will make my listings harder (or hidden) to see so Bob can shine for a bit also.  This theory only makes sense because ebay gets their money based on fees, so if everyone pays fees on sales they make (instead of making no sales and leaving ebay), then ebay benefits by leveling the playing field.  Please tell me I'm wrong.

Again, we've been wrestling this issue for many years and had lots of no shipping days to think about it.

Lots of community posts about people having the same issue.  Most of those people have long since left for greener pastures knowing that it will always be the new boss, same as the old boss.  Always.

This is not a rant against ebay, this is just SOP for the past and probably the future.  Adapt or die, this is the world of small business.

Hopefully that helps, good luck.  

PS..

Gah, I was logged in as our sister account.  AZJustin is the parent account if you want to judge.

[mr_lincoln]

@arizona_sustainable_living   I find it interesting and helpful that the pattern you have seen has been consistent over the years and it makes sense.   I too have seen patterns and trends but nothing like those in the last 6-8 months.  I run a PLS Campaign about once a quarter for about 30 days and historically the trend was the week the Campaign ended sales would drop like a rock then recover a week later ... that pattern has changed ... the campaigns don't sell as much and the drop in sales, mainly GTC listings, is lasting longer after the Campaigns end.

However, recently GTC listings, either during a Campaign or normal selling, have not done well while Auctions have done good and actually great at times.  I had a stretch earlier this year where it seemed like only Auctions were selling.  The good news is they are typically my higher value items.

It looks like I might be in another one of those patterns AND I think it may have to do with the algorithms pushing items with less time remaining higher in Search ... I currently have 11 Auctions with bids, one ending today.  I am also in the final week of a PLS Campaign and it has under performed just like the one in 1Q22 this year.  I am seeing significantly lower Impression counts and lower sales (about half as many as in previous years).

I shifted about 10% of my inventory to another venue late last month and will do at least that much or more again towards the end of this month.

[ccstreasure]

anytime I've tried the FB marketplace I've only gotten messages of "Is this still available" and then when I reply they never respond. worthless. 

[hoppe_mik]

Yes it's true they appear much further down on the list without promotions. But now they are actually not appearing on the list whatsoever. So you're actually paying fees for no reason. You're paying them to list your item put it in front of viewers yet they or not showing it. That is actually theft of services. That would be a good BBB intervention. 

[collectintime]

I agree with you , luckythewinner, eBay ruined searches when they took all the categories away. No one needs to explain the logic behind this move to me, because there is no logic. It doesn't take a genius to see that when you could actually find something like a Lladro figurine in a section for Lladro, you would immediately see 20 plus viewers. Now a Lladro can sit there for a week with 0 viewers.  YES, ZERO. It is now thrown in a category with high end Meissen all the way down to a Hello Kitty plastic figurine. These people who suggest spending more money to try to attract buyers, must be given their merchandise they sell for free. Let's see, you better price your perfect items lower than anyone else on the internet to even have a shot at selling them, then offer free shipping, a best offer on your auctions, free returns, (and no one does that! Try doing that with Pottery Barn or Dillards. ) eBay finds a way to take about 15 percent and 15 percent of the shipping that you pay as well. Profit is weak at best. And the price of packing supplies is shocking. If eBay would put back the categories it would not make things wonderful, but it would not hurt a thing! I guess someone's son-in-law at eBay needed a job, so decided to screw over the categories for something to do, and then told us how fabulous this new method is!! It reminds me of Joe Biden who keeps getting on television telling me how good the economy, gas prices, and world diplomacy really are, that I should not believe what I see, but just listen and follow along. 

[collectintime]

I find everything you said ridiculous. You haven't sold anything in five years, yet you want to spout all this "knowledge."  You are giving your "advice" without any experience and without anyone asking for said advice. The original poster just wanted to know if this is happening to all sellers. Since you don't sell anything, she wasn't talking to you.