ebay. Pulse Check. No sales, no traffic.

[yousave2005]

 Ten years on ebay. This is th first time our store and listing fees are higher than final value fees on sales. Not good.  We still have plenty of beautiful things that were selling like hot cakes just a few years ago. The inventory is amazing but no traffic is so down.  It's like a ghost town. The sales are 95% down comparing to 2012.

What is going on? 

[victorjunkman55]

Thanks to eBay and their policies, changes, and roll outs, This will be the worst Holiday Season ever, and many members won't be here come the new year.     Good Luck to you.

[preloved.threads]

Best of luck for some pick up in sales for the holiday season! I know in my categories, I dont even get views unless I have my items up as BIN's...

[campesinoplastic2014]

It's because of the  ..ummmmmm   weather   (wink wink)

[papyruspapillo]

It is because, as Carl Icahn says, ebay is the worst-run company he has ever seen. Hard to disagree. Every day, I am amazed at the gross blunders of management. These people seem to be "unbright".

[ten_o_nine]

If 10 Million items are sold on eBay each day, and there are 10 Million sellers, it would average one item per seller per day.

[*eponymous*]

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@papyruspapillo wrote:
It is because, as Carl Icahn says, ebay is the worst-run company he has ever seen. Hard to disagree. Every day, I am amazed at the gross blunders of management. These people seem to be "unbright".

---

Icahn only cares about how much money he can squeeze out of a deal.  He traded his equity shares in eBay for Paypal equity shares, which is all he wanted out of the breakup to begin with...

Have eBay sales gone down according to the Q3 report?

[dcintennessee]

Isn't that an average of 10 million listings, not 10 million daily sales? 

[baantiques]

I've found I have to cypher the changes Ebay has made whenever I notice a change in my sales.  They make a lot of changes to the search engine and don't give even a hint as to what they did.  We are just supposed to figure it out.  I usually do, but I get more angry every time.  I woudl rather spend my time building a business than removing roadblocks.

[castlemagicmemories]

I think there are a lot of things to take into consideration:

Many areas of our country have been hit with natural diasters and are still in the recovery phase.

There has been a lot of re-design, window dressing, tweaking, and testing going on.  In my experience, when these things happen, other things do not flow smoothly.

There has been a lot of glitches and features not working.  The Watch List has been very hard to get to, sometimes purchases could not be paid for, error messages for many functions, sorry we cannot process your request now. Try again later.

Sellers have been having issues uploading pictures.  Best Offer is being placed on listings, when sellers may not want it.

Buying Board shows buyers are having technical issues, sellers are cancelling transactions and listing for a better price, items are shipped from China, when the location says US.

Just a few highlights.

[nawlinsron2]

Needless changes and warning e-mails for innocent questions can't be helping...
And CEO focus on ebay's stock price instead of giving SELLERS preference over buyers.
"Sellers"...you know...the ones who DRIVE the stock price.

[tenbigdogs]

Hi @yousave2005,  Have you done any market research on your types of items?  What sold just a few years ago may not be selling like hot cakes any more on any venue.  Hummel popularity has been waning for some time.  Murano clowns seems like a niche.  The market for such items may simply be dying off.  If you ramped up a successful business with certain items once, you can do it again with items that are popular today.  Good luck!

[reallynicestamps]

I tend to agree.

We Boomers are no longer the largest part of the US (or world) consumer base.

And although the oldest of us (by which I mean me) are only 71, the youngest are  53.

Most of us front end Boomers are downsizing. And the tail have decorated their homes and don't want more stuff.

What are you selling that appeals to Millennials.

They outnumber us.

And while we will inevitabley die off over the next 20 to 40 years, their numbers are increasing.

Found this which does not focus on buying patterns.

http://www.wmfc.org/uploads/GenerationalDifferencesChart.pdf

Still worth reading is Boom Bust Echo by David Foote, which mostly is concerned with the Boomers since it was first published in 1990.

But one of the takeaways is that people do certain things at certain ages.

In personal sports, for example,  if you want to attract Boomers, build a golf course. If you want to attract Millennials build a tennis court.

Millennials have babies, Boomers have grandchildren.

Millennials have student debt. Boomers have assets.

How does your product line fit with those larger parameters?

[reallynicestamps]

@yousave2005

Those Italian lamps could also be Mid-Century Modern which really appeals to hipster Millennials. They are fabulous!

Have you looked at your listings on a smartphone? A lot of the information does not appear the way it does on a desktop.

[yousave2005]

Thanks you. All our listings are checked with tablets and smart phones.  The technology is there. We need to get all the buyers back to ebay.