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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

I had a major sale decline started in mid July to current.



Just currious if anyone else has had this. Its not the normal slow down that happens at times.



Just wanting to know how many others maybe are experiencing it.



If I am the only one, need to look at my inventory and prices, but if it effecting everyone else as well, then its beyound my control.



Thanks for any input into the matter.



Message 1 of 72
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71 REPLIES 71

Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

Yes Sales have crashed. I believe its due to multiple reasons



1) eBay trying to tweak the search results to favor big etailers.


2)  50 free auction listings causing a  flood of competition every month thereby causing existing sellers to lose out.



I think we could be finally seeing the terminal decline of eBay due to excessive micro management of sellers by them.


Message 16 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

onezoso
Enthusiast

Hi all,



It's NOT just ebay but out on the internet as well with stand alone web stores. At least mine anyway.



I quit selling regularly on ebay several years ago but still maintain my account. Instead I have been selling off of my own webstore which has been online since 2000.



I was enjoying steady sales daily for years and nice and strong for the last 6 of those. Then all of a sudden without warning starting in April according to my web stats software and bank account, my web traffic and sales began a steady plummet into hell.



The death dive of both internet visits and sales leveled off at the bottom which is about 1,200 unique visitors a day down from 16,000 per day. So from the end of March 2012 was at 16,000 unique visitors/shoppers per day down to 1,600 uniques per day as of 10-5-12 as I type this.



That is why I am here. I had to do a seach on the net to see if others have notice a strange decline on overall internet action and that Google search served this one.



Now one thing to consider...it may very well be the effects of Google latest algorithm update named "Panda" which I think was unleashed just about the time my stuff started going south. 



I read an article saying a LOT of online merchants got severely hurt by this latest Google update.



So something that may help in your research.



Good luck everyone!

Message 17 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

Yes, that is exactly how long things have been bad, it is not us, it is ebay.


I am listing every where I can, may start having Yard Sales, too!

Message 18 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

My sales have dropped over half of normal.  Every 4 years this happens up to the election.  I have been in retail for over 30 years and this always happens.  I hope that this time it is not due to Ebay search perameters.  It is not due to inventory or prices...

Message 19 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

Same story here. Sales decline catastrophically since late spring this year. That has nothing to do with ebay. I never sold on ebay, always use my own website for 14 years now and never saw such slow sales as this year and it seems getting worse this autumn. This has something to do with the shape the world e-con-omy is in. The consumers do not spend, they hold on, due to job loss, due to many are simply taking revenge against greedy corporations, greedy banks, greedy investors, who foreclosed their homes, fired them or their relatives or friends. Remember the skyrocketing "rip-off" real estate prices in Europe and North America and around the world, even in Morocco, during 2000-2008 years? I was always wondering who can afford those exorbitant prices? I knew something big is coming as those kind of prices can;t last forever. A guy in Spain in 2007 was making US$1000 per month and his tiny studio (cheapest he could find) apartment cost him US$800 equivalent to rent. What would he do with the remaining $200 for the entire month? Pay electric bill and stay hungry? And any decent house in the EU cost at least 350K Euro which was something like half a million bucks! How many people could afford a house of their own or even a condominium, or a rental? Condo prices $250K and up, rentals across Europe $1500 and up, who could afford? All these tens of millions of people, your potential customers, got robbed by greedy corporations, by greedy banks, by greedy investors that spend minimum money, effort and energy trying to make maximum buck from real estate etc. Then the dirty politics and environmental issues added up as well and here you have asll those people penniless or holding on to their dear savings or what's left of them, if any, not spending, waiting to see what happens. And all these con artists and banks and controlled media conglomerates are spreading the "news" about increasing sales or loss of sales of a funny 5% while the true figures are more like 80% to 99% to most small business! And it will probably get worse until people grow up and become less greedy and spend more wisely, instead of just rocky "on and off" with spending.

Message 20 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

This is a worldwide sales drop, not just USA. Forgot to mention that every time gasoline prices go up at the pump soon after your sales will decline as people spend more money on necessities such as gasoline and food. Once food prices go up they don't come down even if gas prices come down. Next time gas prices go up, food prices will go up even more, so the best solution is to cut on spending on necessities - eat less, smaller portions, don't eat unless necessary and don't drive unless necessary. You will help the small business economy and will hurt the greedy giants while save the small business by keep on spending wisely on your hobby, entertainment and other items. Sounds contradictory, but that's how it's gonna work out best for everyone - cut on spending on necessities MORE than you will cut on spending on hobby and entertainment.

Message 21 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

My sales were good up until mid-September. About 4 sales per day with 12-16 over the weekends (Fri-Sun). This has been my pace for over 2 years. But then, about 3 weeks ago, it all came to a screeching halt. Im doing less than half the business I was, and its not just me. My supplier has gotten extremely slow too.



My theory is this is more than just the Ebay tweaks, because overall my traffic is still the same. Good view counts and watchers. It just seems like people arent "pulling the trigger" and buying. I really think it has to do with the election coming up. People are waiting on that before they shop, for some reason. I dont get the correlation myself, but Im hopeful that after November 6th things begin returning to normal. Im just barely breaking even right now...

Message 22 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

Waste of money, Waste of time as well.  Local Market fares have experienced exactly the same trend. More regulations regarding selling and restrictions without a business or a used dealers license. Every one is trying to cash in in particular the Government.


Your rights to sell as a living soul under the constitution have been removed by regulations. They want people to spend money on starting up ligit businesses so they can get more money from individuals in fees, lionesses, tax, and basically bog you down with paper work and records or keep you out of the game.


Some ebay notices have warned about certain legislative changes some time back.


I am a casual seller and have noticed that people are hunting down the cheapest priced items (as we all do when we buy). However, the large Chinese sellers seem to be doing better. Why?


1. ebay caters for business sellers, tries to get sellers to buy more as per my messages.


2. search engines changed


3. people are not buying or are trying to get things for ridiculous prices


4. use IE and Mozilla two different ebay watcher and page seller information?


5. More on line shops and more options some have free listing.


6. ebay trying to get sellers to open permanent ebay shops ?


7. Over regulated. In some Countries and States there are huge changes regarding selling on line. All in the name of legal sales and legal listings. Good however, restrictive. Takes a lot more time to list not worth placing a lot of information for listed items.


8 Governments trying to tax in on online sales, they can not control Over  Seas sellers but they can try and sponge of Local sellers.


9. Larger department stores opening up Internet stores to try to cash in and push out smaller sellers.


10. More people starting their own websites they use for sales directly rather than using ebay.

Message 23 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

I can only speak as a buyer now, I have chosen not to sell on Ebay anymore since the change that found sellers only able to leave positive feedback no matter how much of a PITA a buyer is...some things are ridiculous and that is just one of them, Ebay says they want a fair market environment and then takes away the things that help ensure that, like a seller being able to neg when needed.


 


Anyway, as a buyer I can verify that the search now brings up mostly the large seller inventory on almost anything requested and the digging begins, since it's become almost impossible to find some things no matter how one requests them.


 


Also, most folks just don't have any money these days and they are cutting back on everything, but mostly doing without buying anything they don't have to have.  When they do buy they are looking for a bargain and that hits sellers hard, even worse now Ebay is a haven for the bad buyer who will complain on anything/everything in order to try and weasel a partial refund (it's a method some buyers use on every item they buy).  The sad reality on that is it puts the seller in a no win situation since if they give in they are unfairly cheated out of profit, and if they don't then they will get an undeserved neg from an extortionist buyer.  Who needs this kind of selling environment anymore?


 


Ebay used to be great, changes came and it was good, more changes and with each on it sank a bit more...now Ebay is mostly a dumping ground for cheap Chinese made knock offs and the few good sellers left here now are not listing as much as they could because they know each sale is now a risk.

Message 24 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

t2940
Enthusiast

I came in as a full time seller around Oct last year and did okay. Coming through the Christmas season and beyond to April things were moving. I have noticed a slow down lately and i'm not sure why since most items are repeat for me with a few exceptions. We are in a difficult economy and have been for a while but lately I see it around me everywhere. Most people I meet (which are a lot) have changed jobs from their original careers over the past few years. I'm still happy with ebay because I hate Amazon with a passion. (just me)


Other than that, I truly wish everyone here a better year.

Message 25 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

I agree with most of the posts here, and also think the economy has a lot to do with it.  Even WalMart had their worst February EVER.  In spite of the bogus jobs numbers you hear, more people are out of work.  Those who are working have taken drastic cuts in hours and pay.  Inflation is taking a toll.  Everytime I go to the grocery store prices are higher than the week before.  I just think people do not have as much money to spend as before, and everyone is feeling it in reduced sales. 

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Message 26 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

Same thing here. I have been selling on ebay since the late 90's and I have never seen anything like this. Hardly anyone is even looking at my listings, which is something that has never hapened before.

This certainly doesn't seem to me like a typical summer slowdown. Not even close.

I KNOW that there is a visibilty problem, because two of my long time regular customers have recently contacted me to ask why I am not listing on ebay any more. My listings SHOULD all be visible at their locations, but apparently they aren't.

It can't have anything to do with my seller ratings or status. I have top ratings in every respect.

I always add the international site visibility option to all of my listings, so that can't be the problem.

I get the feeling that ebay is far too fixated these days on frequently introducing new technical "improvements", some of which seem to be designed to impede selling rather than facilitate it. Some of the recent changes seem to actually be designed to limit search results, which doesn't appear to make any sense, at least not to me.

I noticed a sidden and significant decline in sales beginning in April. Then this month, July, my sales dropped to almost nothing, and hardly anyone is even lookings at my listings. My international sales have dried up almost entirely.   

I don't know what to do about it. Start a website, I guess, unless ebay gets this sorted out soon.    

Message 27 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

I can relate to your concerns. i have 2500 listings and my business is down at least 50%. i tried offering free shipping for a couple of days and nothing changed as far as sales, just reduced my margin of profit.

 

During back to school and vacation periods it always slows down but not to this degree. i really don't look for things to change much until we get some cooler weather. since i sell mostly apparel the cooler weather will help.

 

i had 4 retail stores about 10 years ago and one thing i can tell you is you can't figure it out.

 

good luck, hopefully things will make a turn soon.

 

mickey / teamsports

Message 28 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

The same is with my sales from July until now and especially in last 2 weeks drop of 80% of my sales !! If you look on this thread from the beginning you will see that it happened in 2012 as well. Maybe it is related to the fact that people are in a vacation and traveling. However, I am selling on ebay for the last 6 years and I don't remember such a drop so maybe there is another reason here. I have a little theory but theory can be checked only when the summer is over and business will get back to normal - Maybe eBay decided to give each result in the search a Quality Score - like Google does, and maybe the had made some changes to the rules of this QS in a way that the same listings that had X visibility until now, don't have it anymore or have much less..

 

What do you think guys?

Message 29 of 72
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Unusual sales decline Mid July till current. Anyone else or just me.

Believe me, you are not the only one, and in my case, its been ALL summer. I have made a big zero, not even watchers, zero views? I am really wondering about this too..  Last sale was May 12, and one more in June, but  I was a victim of a buyer scam I had to refund the money and no return of item.  I was so insane over not getting a negative feedback, I just told her to keep the item and was worth getting a positive one. What hoops I jumped through for that, and was it worth it? Yet the big well known businesses/ companies that have their own brick and mortar store or  a chain of them and have a super strong well known website, are just selling in the double and triple thousand items each month.  Oh, and the penny or 99 cent /free shipping dealers from china are not doing too shabby either.  Those of us who are either part time, or starting a new business and struggling are somehow sitting in a dark corner.  I am not a paranoid person, but lately, I feel like the small sellers are being blackballed or pushed enough to give up and leave.  They are not making much money from us.  

I am saddened because this appears like the company might be doing a major overhaul in restructuring of what kind of marketplace eBay is shooting for  and the private at home or small businesses will not be able to sell here in the future.  Just my two cents opinion here.   I am still hanging in here because it still has more traffic of viewers/buyers than other sites.  Also, checking other similar sites would be OK for me, but I just don't have 100 items or more to set up a store to start.  A couple here and there will disappear even deeper than here on eBay and from my checking sellers store and items, many are sitting for a long time.  Who is moving their items at the other sites?  I feel stuck like a rock in a hard place.  I pray that come after Labor Day, we all can have a successful run for the fall and holidays coming up.  Good luck to us all!

Message 30 of 72
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