95% sales crash in less than a week
I have been selling on ebay for a little over 26 years now. In the last two months I have been bitten by the ebay algorithm that slashed my sales by 97% and 95% over a 30 day period with the "ebay engineering team" having fixed the issue in between with a 1600% increase in sales. My sales are all over the place but last week turned in only $53 on sales on an account that normally does $200 per day. I see people complain all the time about this exact topic......but time ebay (once again) seems unwilling to fix it.
HK
63 comments
kh-light
·4 months agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·4 months agoJust a heads up: This thread is from April 2025.
redlinear
·1 year agoIf you have any sort of competion here, you just have to wait your turn for good placement in a search result.
the_hoff
·1 year agoMy sales have dropped significantly during May, and I'm hearing similar stories from other sellers. I'm still getting views, watchers, questions, and lowball offers or offers which I accept and then I don't hear from the buyer again. I've looked at my analytics and traffic is down slightly, but it's not unusually low. I honestly think it's the economy. People are engaging in their usual online browsing habits, but due to all the economic uncertainty and the ever increasing cost of living they are being ultra disciplined about their purchasing decisions and are just resorting to "window shopping". Let's hope it doesn't continue for long.
animal-house-8
·1 year agoI have noticed lately that if I list lets say 5 items at same time they will sit there for weeks with zero views on all of them, so I take them down use sell similar and relist them and boom I start getting views right away. I wonder if thats some kind of ebay malfunction.
niqus
·1 year agoWelcome to the A.I. world of eBay! The good news is you can ask Tech and he'll tell you the eBay Machine works PERFECT 24/7/365 and he can prove it because he's printing money!!
paraquip
OP1 year agoI just wanted to provide the final update on this thread......my original assumptions were correct despite adjusting listings to the absolute lowest price on ebay.......my sales have fallen to a point when I am out of business. The 95% figure originally used has moved forward into the 30 day trend and is heading into the 90 day heavily. From the point of my posting I have not had sales of over $100 in a week. Two nonconsecutive week of ZERO sales. Ebay support admits the algorithm change , see all the identifying metrics, agrees with me (their support does anyway) and has not fixed it.
Ebay has simply not been a free marketplace for some time now.....and actions they are taking have hurt many sellers.
HK
kensgiftshop
·1 year agoYou might be the lowest on Ebay, but how about other sites?
Your "Umarex Co2 12 Gram Cartridges - 5 Pack for $9.95" is $8.99 for a 12 pack on Amazon.
onefootflipper
·1 year agoThe original poster is highly specialized in sellling a single sort of product airsoft / BB guns and supplies.
When that is your ebay business all it takes for your sales to completely stop is for one of your competitors to undercut all your prices by a few pennies or possibly boost their promoted listing percentage.
It appears to me that your competitor Action Village is outspending you on ads because their promoted listings are appearing above yours.
Might want to consider adding the word "bundle" to everything you sell that you are including extra items with, most of them have it, but not all.
If this were my business I would go through and make sure all of my photos were better than my direct competitors and I would experiment to see which gets you better results, lower prices or promoted listings. I noticed in at least one case you advertised a hard case but did not put it in the photos.
If you are personally putting those bundles together than I would seriously consider separate listings with and without the extra stuff and I would make the one without the extra stuff be cheapest on the site, no promotions (to catch the cheap customers) then I would spend all my promotion money on those bundles.
In fact I would probably
reallynicestamps
·1 year agoYou know we can see your Sold listings and their selling prices, right?
"Last Week" was the 6th to the 12th.
You sold three items for just over $100.
In the past 90 days you have sold 42 items. In February you sold a total of 11 items.
I'm dysnumeric, so I may be missing something.
aeparts1
·1 year agoWhat does eBay gain by tanking your sales. They must gain something, otherwise they wouldn't do it.
chevymontecarlo88
·1 year agoIt may not be as much as them trying to tank sales but them trying to help them. (updates) I am not too familiar how eBay is coded, but do they change the entire site at times, or do they build on to older code?
tarotfindsandmore
·1 year agoMore and more it appears the manipulation is (negatively) tied to PLs. It's been noted previously that PLs do put a seller on eBay's radar, for better or worse. I don't think there's an active campaign to bury listings so much as a push to get sellers to promote at higher and higher rates. Obviously, eBay doesn't benefit by sellers losing out on sales, but it most assuredly does cash in big time on sellers who keep raising their PL rates in response to lower and lower sales.
It's reminiscent of a drug dealer on a school yard. The first couple hits are free, then you pay, then you really pay, as you become more and more dependent. The sellers I've seen experiencing the wildest swings seem to be those that have become dependent on eBay's promotions. The dealer knows they have them over a barrel.
thejo-52
·1 year agoWow you have a lot of watchers can you send some offers out to get things rolling?
redlinear
·1 year agoYou are not going to sell something if it's not seen.
I have the lowest price on a Hino 268 Fuel Injector.
I search
Hino 268 Fuel Injector (it's on the 1st page best match)
I then sort Low$ to High$ (It's now gone)
eBay doesn't really care much about anybody buying or selling.
They make their money on advertising and want you on this site as much as possible, wasting time.
sreu3058
·1 year agoPlease don’t send me negative thoughts or actions, but what disturbed me most about reading this is not ‘algorithms turning shops on and off’
But that shops can call customer service, complain, and then somehow immediately get turned back on.
paraquip
OP1 year agoIf you get to the right person this does in fact happen.
jonathanbrightlight
·1 year agoThat doesn't actually happen. Customer service can't "turn it back on", but people get their conspiracy theories reinforced by unrelated changes in their selling patterns and believe what they want to believe.
fbusoni
·1 year ago@jonathanbrightlight
Correct. Anyone with that sort of access is incommunicado.
@sreu3058
Don't believe everything you read here.
fbusoni
·1 year ago@paraquip
eBay's ethos is "Economic opportunity for all."
(We live in a reward society, not an entitlement society, so that ^ notion rubs lots of people the wrong way.)
In practical terms, "Economic opportunity for all" in the eBay context means every seller is (somehow) given a shot at making money.
How in the hell eBay makes that happen with an algorithm is unclear.
But the net result seems to be that many sellers here will say that one week their sales are up; the next week, their sales are non-existent. Or much worse.
Put another way... it's a feature, not a glitch.
jonathanbrightlight
·1 year agoYep, eBay wants to limit your sales so they make less money.
I'm sure that's it.
colfaxstation
·1 year agoPart of the problem is promoted listings. They cause the search engine to pick up anything that has one word from your search. I've said this before. I deal with model trains. One of the high end manufacturers is Fine Art Models. I've done searches with that and gotten nothing but nude photographs, with NO other options. Add trains to the search and then the train items appear along with the porn.
fern*wood
·1 year agoI'm curious as to why ebay would do anything that limits sales for anyone? Are you saying they mess up or are they doing it intentionally?
rschissler
·1 year agoThat's why the "throttling" claim is so ridiculous. As you can tell, the conspiracy theorists are running rampant on this thread.
paraquip
OP1 year agoI would suggest you take some time to read ebay annual reports. You will see where throttling works for them if you know how to read metrics and do the math.
paraquip
OP1 year agoSo you understand it is not uncommon with any service provider to cut the least / less profitable customers.
We did this in many companies we work for. The bottom 10% of customers are reviewed and eliminated.
When you look at it overall by doing this profit automatically goes up.
colfaxstation
·1 year agoNo, sales drop.
meme6253
·1 year agoIt might be the algorithm, But it could also be consumer confidence is extremely low, worry & concerns about tariffs,Threats of recession or worse, worry & concern about the economy as a whole.
north_of_sunset
·1 year agoOk this is what I know, I have been selling here on eBay for seven years, and in that time my sales have consistently been all over the map. I mean for a while my sales would be doing great, then for no real reason ( that I know of ) they will literally fall flat, sometimes going for 2-3 days without a sale, that is until I make a call and talk to an agent. If I’m lucky and land an agent who knows what their doing in respects to my issue, and or issues within a day my sales are suddenly up and running again. However if the agent I speak to does not know what they’re doing my sales will remain DOA. It is so aggravating having to deal with unpredictable, and erratic sales figures that seemingly have nothing at all to do with what I have, or have not done. I can’t begin to tell you the stress these dramatic sales swings bring. Once more not knowing why, there fore not knowing what I can do to fix the problem makes me think that someone, or some people are having one big laugh about the whole thing while sellers ( like my self) suffer from dramatic head trauma brought on from banging their head against the wall. Sorry for the rant
paraquip
OP1 year agoThis is EXACTLY what I am talking about!
tarotfindsandmore
·1 year agoIt does feel like we're playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey...but they keep moving the donkey.
paraquip
OP1 year agoThere are just fewer agents that know where the donkey is!
chapeau-noir
·1 year agoThe donkey ran off.
jbbowers12012
·1 year agoJust trying to understand What Exactly does the agent do that brings your sales back??
paraquip
OP1 year agoEbay may lie about it but the sales metrics don't. The topic I am posting about is commonly occurring.......most of the time they "fix" the traffic issues.....it's being going on for quite some time now. In each and every case of course I have had to prove it 100% before they "fix" it. I just wish they would take their fingers off the scale.
HK
inhawaii
·1 year agoJust curious.
How can you possibly prove that your low sales are a ebay issue?
paraquip
OP1 year agoIn my OP and subsequent posts I have stated it pretty clearly. By background is in analytics.
When ebay deploys a "fix" its only after the seller has presented irrefutable evidence to the fact (in this case sales).
The personal examples I use are both individual listing based and metrics based. This is not my first rodeo on the topic.......in the last 24 month I've had 6-8 calls on this exact topic.
Here are ebay messages from last night:
Thank you for letting me know. I do see what you mean about the drop in sales and the difference. I do work directly for eBay, but you are correct we don't see how algorithm is set up in our system. That is all set up by the people who created the platform
I can see that, especially with the volume from previously. The algorithm is a huge factor in sales too. I know I've had sellers have a great week or two of sales, and then the next week or two sell like one item for a whole week. It's tough because the algorithm changes at anytime
I hope you can see the issue now
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoIf your background is in analytics, perhaps you can answer some relevant questions
How many sellers are competing with you now? How many listings compete with your listings? How have these numbers changed, if at all, between when your sales met your goals and the current period? How has the number of your competitors who are using promotion changed? What, if any, changes have external search engines made in deciding whether to display gun related products? External views are often responsible for a significant number of sales of some products.
Note, that the answers to most of my questions could have effects and they would not be attributable to the Ebay algorithms.
dcrtechandelec
·1 year agoBour background is in analytics right? That's why you have shown no data to support your qualitative "analysis." Computer science and mathematics do not equal analytics, a conveniently non-specific term. You do not know a thing about algorithms. Algorithms are fundamental to computer programming. Do you think search engines are just sentient robots? So much misinformation gets spread, and people get the idea in their heads that it is impossible for a market to fluctuate. 26 years ago you were swimming in a very, very tiny pond. You are now swimming in Neptune. Even if your listings were systematically buried in search results, an algorithm is simply not the sole excuse for a 95% decrease in sales. Honestly, image analysis is hurting you, as advertisers are likely not lining up to display mock weapons. For you to come here and further fuel misinformation is quite annoying, as your metrics contain outliers with respect to listed items, and are therefore not representative of the marketplace as a whole.
paraquip
OP1 year agoPosting that type of data is also posting my financials in a public forum. No thanks but I have provided that all to ebay.
Feel free to post your financials to prove me wrong.
ed8108
·1 year agoHave you tried using the old more likely than not standard ?
inhawaii
·1 year agoNo, I did not.
He has "proof" that ebay is the cause of his low sales.
No sense arguing.
redlinear
·1 year agoSearch
1968 Chevelle Window Regulator
then switch to SOLD
colfaxstation
·1 year agoExactly right!!!
inhawaii
·1 year ago"My sales are down and it's all ebay's fault" is also a popular complaint here on the boards.
quicksilverdiecast
·1 year agoFortunately over the years I have built a large group of repeat buyers and it continues to grow, regardless of how it may be getting crippled, They avoid getting caught up in all the "problems" and just come directly to my store., I also run from almost all the "marketing ploys" as when you have a system that is working fine with expected result...well not much sense in fixing what is not broken, which for the most part will not be able to conflict with what is working. For my issues, they are the new message system, which compared to the old working system, leaves a lot to be desired..and the infamous shopping cart, while I have noticed that combined shipping is kinda getting better. The ironic thing is with International shipping (besides making you crazy) the rule is or was no combine shipping? YET I get international orders...that someone somewhere has combined and the best part is is that the shipping total is daRn near accurate, which amazes me, yet national orders being combined is still a nightmare, like I said I have a great base of buyers who trust me and have little problem paying the ridiculous shipping costs, knowing I will refund the ebay induced overcharges....Now none of this happened overnite and has taken a lot of work and thinking outside the box.
kensgiftshop
·1 year agoYou only have 36 listings up and what you're selling probably has a pretty small selection of buyers.
paraquip
OP1 year agoThousands of buyers actually
kensgiftshop
·1 year agoThere might be thousands of buyers, but they could be buying on other sites where they can get them cheaper.
chapeau-noir
·1 year agoLooks like OP sells multiples - probably doesn't need a ton of individual listings.
paraquip
OP1 year agoOne the weekend I did some in person selling as well and removed 12 items that were listed due to the sales crash. In person selling take A LOT of effort
tarotfindsandmore
·1 year ago...and with over 100 million gun owners in the U.S. and almost 70K sales, there's a good chance he does know what he's talking about.
I think most of us know there is something up with the flow of sales, if not the infamous algorithm, but have given up on discussing it because 1) there's nothing to be done about it and 2) the insistence from other sellers that it isn't happening.
paraquip
OP1 year agoTo give you an idea on how bad it's gotten.....when the account was just left alone.....$1300/day in sales. Now averaging less than $100. There were a lot of factors that caused this but when you run afoul of ebay they have throttling functionality that will drop you annual sales by 50% in a single day.....ask me how I know
inhawaii
·1 year agoYour annual sales dropped 50% in a single day?
paraquip
OP1 year agoThat is correct.....once the throttle functionality was deployed sales fell by 50% in 1 day and never recovered and also limited my sales to $500/day averaged out over a week. When round 2 of this happened $200/day. Round 3 killed just about everything to where I was scraping for any sales. Towards the end of 2024 I had one of those "fixes" deployed that gave me a decent Holiday season. The recent throttle (I've already mentioned this in the OP) Cut sales by 97%....thien I complained and the "fix" was deployed which lasted a little over a week.....then the 95% drop.
the_final_touch_llc_store_1
·4 months agoI have two Ebay stores... my old one is 30 years old (140k unique feedback) and at my peak, my gross was $90k/mo... algo kicked in an my sales started dwindling (slowly) each month for several years until my monthly gross was $10k/mo... it was a very slow decline. I left Ebay to sell elswhere... algo kicked in there as well... so I came back for supplemental income and opened a new store on Ebay... 3 years into it, and my sales are up/down on a daily basis... some days I sell 1-2 items, some days I sell 20 items. I have 1000's of items listed and I list daily. Back then, sales were relative to how many listings I had. It doesn't even matter now. You can have 1000's of popular listings, but if you don't pay top dollar for promotions and marketing, you will not make enough sales to make it worth your while. It's nothing compared to back in the good 'ol days. Something is certainly not right.
tarotfindsandmore
·1 year agoOh I don't doubt you a bit. I've had many accounts over the past 28 years, but never seen sales as erratic as they've been over the past two years or so. I don't grumble about it (much) because I do well enough for a tiny store, but I've been riding the rollercoaster (on a wee scale) like many sellers.
If I had employees or overhead, or even a family I was still responsible for, there is no way I could do this full time with the way things are now. It's heartbreaking to see the endless posts about this very issue, and the poor sellers being told over and over that it's their fault. You have someone selling a dozen items a day for a months or years, then one day it just stops and they barely make that many sales in a month. Then they come here and get beat up by other sellers. It's the worst kind of gaslighting.
chevymontecarlo88
·1 year agoThis is very true and unfortunate. To make things worse, the users that gaslight are typically the more experienced users on this forum. 😓
I really wish a solid competitor would step up to challenge eBay. IMO, eBay is not going to change/improve drastically until they are forced to. It seems like every update needs an update to fix the update.
tarotfindsandmore
·1 year agoHere it comes, right on time.
colfaxstation
·1 year agoThe best example is do a search for a specific item and then do the exact same search on sold items. The garbage you get in the search of items for sale drives away buyers who have to wade through all the promoted items that contain one word from the search instead of all words. EBay needs to change their search engine to rank list matches like they do in the sold area.
redlinear
·1 year agoSearch
1968 Chevelle Window Regulator
then switch to SOLD
inhawaii
·4 months agoOne of the funniest and most ridiculous things i've ever read on these boards.
Annual sales can not drop by 50% in a single day.
"Annual" means one year of sales.
Your average daily sales can drop by 50% in one day, but not your annual sales.
And your background is in analytics?
OMG!
bladebiker1976
·1 year agoAnd those sellers are always so smug and arrogant about it too. They can never reply to anyone in a civilized manner. It's always laced full of snark and insults from them. I hope their day comes their sales hit rock bottom and never rebound. It's so unnecessary and uncalled for.