Is it time ebay closes it's doors

[2009.tony1]

16 years ago it was all about ebay, it was the best thing since sliced bread, so easy to use list an item sell it job done, yes you would get the buyers that messed around and asked for a return but ebay was about the seller the ones that made their money. Up to 3 years ago I had over 100 listings for about a year but found that not only were ebay fleecing me with the postage cost and fees including PayPal fees that I had no choice but to use as part of their policies as a payment method, it was the returns that made me decide to end it. Being forced to refund buyers including return postage at a loss for items they bought, removed from packaging used for a day, broke and returned. So the item is now second hand at best broken at worse. Then there the website, wow clearly they have not heard of the saying if it's not broken don't try to fix it, well it's definitely broken now. 

I thought after 2 years I'd give them another chance and after a week trying to list an item,  basically I can't because apparently they don't have my payment details even though I've now entered my payment card details 3 times I now have 3 payments cards set up but still being asked for a payment method. This site is a joke and I can see it becoming nothing more then a brand name from history.  Whenever I'm trying to use ebay it's a headache. No thanks.

[masalv-28]

Maybe it's time you just close your doors and move on to something else, maybe eBay just isn't suited for you and your business model.

[natoman777]

Wow... another person ranting about eBay and leaving and letting us all know.  Honestly, why?   eBay is not closing it's doors.  Many of us do very well on this platform.  When you don't like something it's best to just leave without  burning the house down

[wrong66]

Wow. Mervyn's, Handyman. You must be from the Bay Area. Those were awesome stores.

[pghstamps]

Hello everyone from here in the UK

Got to admit eBay in the UK is starting to try to make itself a 'river' clone.  Here they are trying to sign sellers up to send items out via an 'approved' warehouse using their 'approved' courier..... now why does that sound so familiar.

Then sellers like me, with a 22 year old account, are yet again, this is the third time they tried, automatically changing our postage/shipping to Global Shipping. Now I don't know about you in the USA and elsewhere but here in the UK it has an awful reputation. Actually its worse than that but profanity on a public forum is a bit childish in my opinion.

But for all its trying to make itself the 'river' clone it wants to be there is one department the 'river' has that ebay will never be able to compete with.

My ebay selling fees, without even listing or selling an item are 500%-600% more expensive for the limited stock i put on. If i were to put my full stock on ebay it would be in the region of 900% or more.

The final figure selling fees for both sites are about the same, after I take the exchange rate into consideration. Ebay's exchange rate is much, much worse and the fixed fee does make it more expensive but it is at the moment within a broad range.

Yes I have seen major changes at eBay. Some not great some quite good. In fact for us older sellers that remember being forced into using paypal, who at the time would think we would  see the day people demand they still be able to use it instead of the new misManaged payments scheme they use now.

I don't know about the business sellers amongst you but my trade has seen a growing number of individuals trading illegally as private sellers. This is only made possible by ebay allowing on the UK site up to 1000 free listings, auction and BIN, per month for private sellers. A business seller, like myself, has to pay about $80 plus $16 VAT (your sales tax) just to open the doors for that number of items. Once again the 'river' only allows so much in sales before you have to become a business seller, with the appropriate tax information having to be supplied.

Ebay will no doubt still be in business in the future, however what sort of business it will look like is a different matter. I fear it will become as i was about 15 or so years ago, a place for new customers to be scam wary and for decent, reliable sellers to consider if it is worth the expense.

Still it is what it is and in the meantime ..

Stay safe and best wishes to all from here in the UK.

[stainlessenginecovers]

SoCal: Orange County

[mybigsale]

"Is it time ebay closes it's doors?"

• EBay revenue for the twelve months ending September 30, 2021 was $11.739B, a 39.07% increase year-over-year.

If I owned eBay I would tell everybody to go home and put a "Closed" sign on the door(s) of the 43 office locations in 25 countries.

[chpgts]

Eventually Ebay will go out of business just like Sears, Korvettes, Bradless, Kmart and others. 

 Even Bezos said the one day Amazon will fail. 

[pghstamps]

Ebay sales report 2022 1st Fiscal Quarter.

eBay's total sales in the first quarter were $2.48 billion. This is down 5.9% from the comparable period of 2021.

eBay Inc. reported total gross merchandise volume (GMV) of $19.35 billion in its first fiscal quarter of 2022. This a drop of 20% from a year earlier and the fourth consecutive quarter of declines.

Still, Q1 GMV was 17% higher than the $7.98 billion reported in Q1 2019 at the dawn of the pandemic.

Total sales for the online marketplace in the first quarter were $2.48 billion, down 5.9% from the comparable period of 2021. Analysts, on average, estimated $2.46 billion, according to data Bloomberg compiled.

More troubling for the marketplace is that active buyers, defined as the number of people who paid for a transaction in the prior 12 months, fell to 142 million in Q1. That’s the fourth consecutive quarter of decline in the number of active buyers.

Looking ahead, eBay warned that results in the present quarter would be lower than it had forecast previously. The marketplace issued revised guidance to analysts of GMV in Q2 of $18.02 billion to $18.42 billion. Revenue guidance for Q2 is $2.35 billion to $2.40 billion.

EBay cited the impact of the war in Ukraine, inflation and a drop in consumer confidence for the lower guidance.

The Q1 results and the forecast for Q2 suggest that eBay sees continuing headwinds as shoppers gradually return to stores and the pandemic-era boom in ecommerce fades.

In April, eBay announced it appointed Eddie Garcia as chief product officer.

During the quarter, eBay launched its Authenticity Guarantee service for trading cards sold for $750+ in the U.S. With this addition, the company now offers authentication in four key enthusiast collector categories. They include sneakers, watches, handbags, and trading cards.

eBay expanded its authentication of luxury handbags to the U.K. and Australia. The company also expanded the number of brands the Authenticity Guarantee covers and began authenticating men’s bags in the U.S.

eBay added the ability for buyers to request, for a fee, expert verification for watches valued between $1,000 and $2,000.

How is eBay doing financially? In the third quarter ended March 31, eBay reported:

Revenue of $2.5 billion, down 6% on an as-reported basis and down 5% on a foreign exchange (FX) neutral basis.

GMV of $19.4 billion, down 20% on an as-reported basis and down 17% on an FX-Neutral basis.
A net loss from continuing operations of $1.3 billion.

(Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding)

[mybigsale]

@pghstamps 

My point is, if I own a company worth Billions of dollars, I am not just going to "close the doors".

eBay is still one of the best, if not the best website to sell preowned items, collectibles, one-offs, vintage etc.

Does eBay have need of improvement?

If I owned eBay, it would be a very different company. Instead of how to increase eBay profits, eBay would be focused on how to increase profits for eBay sellers. If eBay focused on seller profitability and improving the usability for buyers and sellers there would not be a need for continually trying to increase fees for sellers (AD Fees as well). I would also make ethical changes on earning COMMISSION FEES (not transaction processing fees) off of anything other than the item cost (Commissions earned on Shipping and State Taxes). And yes it can be done and still prevent unethical sellers from cheating). 

[pghstamps]

I agree although not including the shipping fees would see us revert back to the 'good old days' of 99c sales and $49.99 shipping to make sure you appeared first in the listings.

Then the free listings that they had about 13 to 15 years would bring us back to the people who listed 10,000 items in my categories but only for 1 day. Then relisted them, via turbo lister ( that shows how long ago it was ..) the next day to make sure they got to the top of the closing soon results.

However we certainly agree that it needs to be more seller focussed. And we certainly definitely agree that the best way forward is more sellers, giving buyers more choice and sellers paying more fees. Not because they have to but because they are selling more.

I don't know about the rest of you but things declined when they started showing completed listings and gave everyone the ability to watch items.

IMHO it was better when it was more auction focussed, but then again perhaps todays shoppers do not have the patience anymore.

Still mybigsale we can only live in hope. 

[mybigsale]

@pghstamps 

I believe I am ethical as well as a top-rated seller. I have been on eBay since 2000.

eBay was OUTRAGED! sellers took advantage by playing with price and shipping to avoid fees, and I believe there were many honest sellers back then that did not cheat eBay.

Now that eBay is taking advantage of sellers by earning commission on Shipping Charges and Taxes (not talking about the processing fee portion to cover the cost of processing state taxes), there is no outrage.

If eBay cared at all, a solution that would still eliminate cheats without cheating honest sellers could be developed.  For starters, eBay knows exactly how much my actual shipping cost are as I use eBay shipping. eBay is the only seller earning commissions off of state tax (charging 13% or higher instead of 3% or lower for the transaction fee).

As a seller I get it, if eBay ads a 1% eBay Manager Vacation Fee I am going to adjust pricing to make sure I still make a profit. But I'm still never going to like it - even if the subject comes up again 10 years from now.

[ulfesharpe]

All these changes, it's clear the CEOs have been rotating, with each one trying to come up with brilliant ideas and strategies and operations to expand their profits. Trouble is a C2C platform should be about maintaining a steady environment and letting the users do all the stupid money grabbing work. But now they are pipelining all the different streams into contractualised and pre-determined solutions leaving no room for a majority of sellers who don't conform to amazon-type marketplaces. I don't think most people here are interested in becoming  outsourcing "store" because then you'll be having all the work to provide goods at the prices the markets are demanding and not at collectors' value (trading value). That's what they're doing, dismantling the good old auction site into a prefab storefront.