declining sales
Summary: The discussion focuses on declining sales and potential reasons behind them. inhawaii suggests that understanding consumer desires is challenging and external factors like cost of living and gas prices may affect purchasing decisions. gurlcat addresses societal issues such as middle-class struggles with expenses like health insurance, emphasizing the importance of money management and work ethic. In another part of the conversation, grann-4629 and chapeau-noir discuss the impact of shipping costs on sales, with chapeau-noir noting the convenience of online shopping as an alternative to physical stores. Overall, the participants express diverse perspectives on economic challenges affecting both buyers and sellers.
my ebay sales have been declining.... anyone else?
kh-andreww
·3 months agoHi everyone,
We appreciate your participation in this discussion. However, the conversation has gone off-topic and has become a bit too heated. To help keep the community welcoming and constructive for all members, we're locking this thread from further replies.
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lawnmowerpartsstore2
·3 months agoLiving the Dream 🙂
dr*op
·3 months agoyou have to pay to promote your items. anything for eBay to take another dollar away from me and you. i'm glad i don't sell as a business...i use eBay to clear space, and it's sad that sometimes, it's just simpler to throw something out then even bother with eBay.
theteamsetguy
·3 months ago@dr*op ,
Instead of throwing stuff away you should donate it to Goodwill so someone else can buy it and sell it on Ebay.
inhawaii
·3 months agoJust for once I want someone to come here and say...
"My sales are exactly the same every day, every week, every month. What's going on?"
erikstuff
·3 months agoAfter months of poor sales (less than 10 a month) it looked like April was picking up. Three sales on April 2, and a signed book sold on the 4th. Looked good... fastest start in a long time. Then... 14 days until another sale... then 11 more days before my final sale of the month. SIX sales... my worst month in 28 years on Ebay. I may break that record this month.
ocean-state-mint
·3 months agoLooking at last years sales, I noticed a sharp decline starting in May. It is usually because spring is kicking in and people are spending more time outdoors and spending money on their yards, home improvements, etc. As the summer grows closer, June and July are usually pretty good months, depending on what your selling as well. Good luck!
sakic92710
·3 months agoMine have been down forever, it seems, but I can only blame myself. For instance, one of my listings of mint items, if purchased, has the exorbitant price tag of 8 cents per. I don't add free shipping, so that must make it very unreasonable. lol
inhawaii
·3 months ago-------------------------------------------------------
onefootflipper
·3 months agoI am up 68 percent month over month.
I just had a look at your store. My honest advice is to stop buying the clothes you are buying. Your prices are very low and they still aren't selling. You have 552 clothing items in your store and only sold 18 of them in the last 90 days, that is a 7 and a half year sell through rate. Whatever brands, sizes or styles you are buying do not seem to be ones that ebay shoppers want. The only clothing subcategory that even seems to be working slightly for you is socks and you still have a 19 month sell through rate on those.
adamcartwright
·3 months agoMy sales are way off this month.
I could do better on listing every day, but it's more than that.
Time to refresh stale listings.
lakefor94
·3 months agoToday has been over the top good sales. Have had 5 days over the last 30 days like today.
Some days or a couple of days in a row, no sales. Some days, some sales, some days more sales than the day before. Some days less.
Sales tend to be up and down and all around.
I could not hardly get anything else much done today due to sales and thankful for that.
Addendum: sales continued into the evening, crazy. Was steady all day which is great for someone averaging 2 sales on eBay per day.
Addendum2: Forgot to mention that I went waaaaay out on the limb and listed a pair of shorts, mistakenly purchased by my wife some time ago. She bought me 40's and I wear a 34. (Looked at the hanger instead of the tag on the shorts.) Those sold yesterday for just about what she paid for them + shipping. NWT's, only took a couple of weeks to sell.
I had only ever listed one other clothing item over the years and that was a purple, down vest that my MIL bought one for everybody about 15 years ago. I just could not sport that vest and it found a new home.
lakefor94
·3 months agoAddendum3 -- After 15 sales yesterday across venues, a big fat zero so far today as of 4:26pm CST
"That's the way baseball go" --- Ron Washington
Addendum4 --- 1st sale of the day at 8:47pm and it was an eBay sale.
Sales can be up, up, up then down, down and all of the sudden, cha-ching.
inhawaii
·3 months agoCall an electrician - to turn on the switch.
-or-
Call a plumber - to open your spigot.
lakefor94
·3 months ago@inhawaii
I just had them fix it yesterday morning.
Not sure what the issue is. 7:03, still sitting on nada.
chapeau-noir
·3 months agoThe spigot is probably all clogged with @inhawaii's (**Best Seller on eBay**) sales.
adamcartwright
·3 months ago@lakefor94
I'm happy to hear you had a great sales day today.
It's your reward for cracking me up with that visual of an entire family in purple down vests.
Sounds like your MIL is one of those hard core purple ladies and wanted the entire family to join in.
My mom was gifted a purple top from a purple friend of hers and wanted to throw it out.
I told her she had to wear it once in front of the lady and then could donate it.
chapeau-noir
·3 months agoNever, however, sell anything that is not perfectly purple to a purple person. The fallout can be dire. Ask me how I know 😵. It WAS perfectly purple, but apparently not the RIGHT type of purple - some other purple, I guess. Maybe it was Disappointing Purple, like the Disappointing Green top I sold to someone else.
adamcartwright
·3 months ago@chapeau-noir
Oh boy.
Disappointing purple, yikes.
Speaking of green -- there's an old lady in NYC who wears only green. Lime green.
And it doesn't stop there -- her entire home is in green, even her flatware.
She's called the Green Lady of Brooklyn.
thepatterndrawer
·3 months agoThis is normally a rather busy time of the year for me. I shouldn't have to shell out money to promote my store. eBay is sucking me dry; they want money for everything now. 4 years ago, I could make a decent profit, but between eBay and USPS, it just doesn't make any sense. I may hold a going-out-of-business sale this winter. Will eBay let me post a sign? Or do they not want people to know that they've gone downhill, and a lot of us are disappointed in management? They just don't care about us, or they wouldn't be turning us upside down to shake out every penny we have. I'm hounded constantly to promote my listings. Here's $10.00 take it to promote xyz and you don't have to pay it back until you sell it. Are you running into the same scam?
grann-4629
·3 months agoI get constant coupons for $5 and $10 if I use their app. If they raised the coupon value to $50, I might consider it ... otherwise the pitfalls of using their app is not worth it. I can't stop these offers so I just ignore them .. like the garbage ads etc. they put on listing pages.
henderson409
·5 months agoMy sales have been off since Thanksgiving. I was just complaining about eBay adding similar items from other sellers to my listings, anyone else getting that?
inhawaii
·3 months agoSales are declining for some, increasing for others.
Sales never stay the same.
halleyscomet2062
·5 months agoSame. They have tanked over the last 4 months. The worst since I have been selling on eBay and that has been since 1999. I was selling 8k more each month last and the year prior and in during Covid my sales were the highest they had ever been. I am not sure what happened with eBay but my sales are stagnant as well as views. I searched for some of my listings with just key words in the main search and didn't even see a few of them show up. Something with eBay is WAY off and wrong. I don't know if they are trying to push sellers into live shows but if that is the idea, it is not going to work for the majority of established sellers on this platform. It's forcing us to leave in masses to other auction platforms unless something changes soon.
lakefor94
·5 months ago@halleyscomet2062
EBay won't miss anyone of us if we leave.
You have a good sell thru rate for only having 87 listings. You must know how to buy as collectables and clothes are the most saturated categories on eBay.
buyersellerfinder
·5 months agoJust wanted to remind everybody - new and old sellers alike - to familiarize (or re-familiarize) yourself with what is basically the listing mechanics...
For me I was surprised by how the ebay search engine works from the buyer's perspective....
eBay Best Match algorithm considers a number of different factors:
**If you think you've been in a sales slump**
How to Optimize Your Listings
https://export.ebay.com/en/growth/promotion-strategies/how-to-optimize-your-listings/
sfau
·5 months agoMarch has been great so far. I was too busy to list new things so only did relists and even had 5 sales on a day that I did nothing. It may be the change in season for me though as I sell my kid's stuff.....
eze-right1
·5 months agoYep. Either folk are holding on to their cash or there's more sellers than buyers on eBay. Probably both. God Bless, Grandma, I hope your sales pick up.
krazzykats
·5 months agoYou forgot to mention one very important group: boomers.
We don’t feel the urge to shop for a lot of things anymore. Clothes? I’m still wearing jeans I bought five years ago, and there’s no reason to add more right now. My walk-in closet is packed with business and casual wear. Since I don’t work outside the house, I usually stick to comfortable outfits.
I do replace shoes and socks more often, though, and I’ve become more particular about their comfort.
When it comes to collectibles, most boomers already have plenty after years of gathering them. These days, we’re focused on downsizing, which means cutting back on buying vintage pieces.
Many of today’s popular products cater to younger generations, most of whom have little interest in the collectibles cherished by the boomer generation.
ᓚᘏᗢ
chapeau-noir
·5 months agoI'm not sure how cherished those collectibles are by Boomers - at least in my cohort, we came in with the 'clean' uncluttered aesthetic and tended to collect much less stuff. We are, however, pestered with 'stuff' inherited from previous generations. Even in my family, who tended to collect very little, I was stuck with all of this china and a bunch of musty 'collectible books' I've been trying to get rid of.
I think it's just all piled up and we all have too much stuff, period.
christworks
·5 months agoPeople never stop buying. In the last 24 hours, there have likely been millions of transactions on eBay.
eBay recently reported strong growth for 2025, with YoY revenue up 15% and growth during each quarter of 2025, and they expect continued growth in 2026. I credit, partially at least, President Trump (don't yell at me yet) for setting the economy up so that people can have success if they do their part. That means having items people want. That means being buyer-friendly. You get the idea.
There will always be slower times for most sellers since people's needs change throughout the year. You can't expect to sell a bunch of winter coats in the U.S. in the middle of June. You aren't going to sell too many bikinis in December. I promise you my USA Olympic gloves did not start selling until February this year, though they had been listed for a year. I sold out in a week.
Now, it goes without saying this week there has been a lot going on. I asked you not to yell at me earlier in this post because I call balls and strikes. I don't care who it is. I am not happy with what is going on. I think it was a very unwise decision to go down the road we are on at a world level right now. I think the focus needs to be more tangible things at home. I don't think this goes along with the America First adjective that I fully believe in. I do think it is possible that world affairs are impacting some sales for people.
I will share some of my own numbers with you. These numbers only pertain to eBay and not my total revenue/profit from the entire reselling business.
January 1, 2026 – February 27, 2026 (before the war started): YoY my total sales on eBay were up +59.9%. For comparison, for Q4 2025 my total sales were up 96.2%. So I've still been growing in early 2026, just at a slightly slower rate, which is to be expected outside of Q4. Now I expect my numbers for the 2026 period would have been higher, but I was closed for two weeks in early January for vacation and we got hit with two major winter storms at the end of January and early February, which had an impact on sales during that time. I think YoY would have been closer to +70% to +75% but for me closing for two weeks and the issues we had during the winter storms. My pace of listing is steady and I don't have a stockpile of some highly in-demand widget, so there is nothing extra from me going into those numbers.
Now, my numbers from the period of February 28, 2026 until March 6, 2026 (after the war started) are vastly different. YoY total sales are -27.1%. This has brought my Q1 2026 total sales number down to +47%. That's a net one-week change of -12.9%. I had zero sales Saturday and zero sales on Sunday. I had to go back to early 2023, when I first started back on eBay, to find a Saturday–Sunday period where I had zero sales. Monday through Wednesday this week were horrible. I have finally started seeing a little hope the last 48 hours. It's fragile though. These gas prices are going to play a role for the average consumer. I did start a sale to see if it brought people in, and I think that has helped too.
Whatever is going on in your business, you can get through it. Don't give up. We can control far more than we can't. Do everything you can to make your business the best it can be, so when the eBay spotlight is on you, you are ready to go. 💪
ed8108
·5 months agoadapt & adjust, to respond to this situation
oldwestgold
·5 months agoMight I make a suggestion for your listings? It may be helpful to have a generic background for your photos. Something bright, clean, and simple. I see items draped over chairs, on floors, etc. Some possibilities: a nice new carpet remnant, poster board, a piece of white paneling with hooks, etc. Incorporating your eBay ID would also be great at the top or at the bottom. I wish you luck!
onefootflipper
·5 months agoOriginal poster seems to specialize in one of the most competitive and saturated categories on ebay (clothes), and has a lot of tough sell items. I don't know how seasonal the overall clothing market is, but I pretty much never do any clothes shopping in the first 3 months of the year.
Example, damaged underwear. You have 42 results in your store for damaged. You only have one sold result for damaged. Customers don't seem to want the damaged items. I also saw some head scratchers in there, like 3 pairs of unbranded, unpackaged brown socks for $18.99 shipped.
Have you had most of this stuff a long time? You could be suffering from a serious case of store rot, where everything good that is appropriately priced is gone and all that is left is the mistakes and the things you overpriced.
oldwestgold
·5 months agoI have been having a super year to date. 50% ahead of last year. The last 18 months have crushed every one else in my 27 years here. I would suggest trying different things, or you will continue to get the same results. eBay offers several different ways to promote your listings. Try off-site for a few days or promo your store, if you have one. If you are able, bump your items up to offset the additional costs and fees.
Just my suggestions as to what I have been doing. I understand every seller is not the same, but just sharing what has been working for me. If your items have totally tanked, then maybe you should consider selling other items/categories to draw more potential buyers to your items. If you only sell one item, like purple widgets, you will only draw people looking for purple widgets to your listings.
Let my fav trolls and haters take it from here, as they usually do. 😫 🤑
Have a great day to all the others!
tarotfindsandmore
·5 months agoNot a troll here, but you do sell gold. Obviously I don't need to tell you that gold is at an all time high and, not so coincidentally, it started going bananas about ...wait for it... 18 months ago.
Kudos to you for being a part of this market, but no one in any other category is going to see the kind of sales you've seen even if they're promoting at 100%. Honestly, you shouldn't be wasting a single penny on promotions. You just don't need to.
oldwestgold
·5 months agoThe price of gold 18 months ago was $2,400/oz. But thanks for something I already knew. Most of my items have very little gold value, but more Numismatic. Most likely, less than $20 worth of gold in any fractional gold token. Granted, the increase in gold doesn't hurt.
"Honestly, you shouldn't be wasting a single penny on promotions. You just don't need to."
Gee, you are right. I must be doing something all wrong. (sic) On second thought, I will continue to do what I am doing and enjoy the profits. You should be asking yourself - could promos increase my bottom line? Unless you don't like money.
Sometimes it just amazes me how people are afraid to try something outside of the box AND try to tell someone who is kicking it, that they are doing it wrong. What offer of help or suggestion did you provide to the OP? crickets.....
tarotfindsandmore
·5 months ago[Removed by moderator] I have a far more diverse shop than you do, and I'm doing just fine as well. I pointed out what you believe to be obvious, and yes it is to most of us, because you are not a representative sample of how things work on ebay. Inevitably, your sales will slow as the current market cycle does, will you take ownership for it?
Your post to the OP in which you describe yourself as crushing it isn't entirely fair to the OP. Your follow up post is far more helpful. The OP probably would benefit by cleaning up her listing pics and expanding into new categories might also help, but your current success is not the result of either. Your current listings are almost entirely in one or two categories, not exactly the model of diversity. Your categories are good categories right now, but remember the pendulum always swings so perhaps you should heed your own advice.
reallynicestamps
·5 months agoAbout promotions.
I have doubts about PL and I suspect that dropping it completely in November is another reason for fewer sales.
I also believe that many sellers will give discounts to attract customers rather than giving advertising money to eBay. They will have a 10% sale rather than spend 2% on advertising.
Even if the advertising is a proven winner and the discounts are erratic.
EBay is our landlord.
And everybody hates the landlord.
lakefor94
·5 months agoEddie Murphy
mozartbach1971
·5 months agoTry off-site for a few days or promo your store, if you have one.
Are you able to promote your store? Do you think it helps?
adamcartwright
·5 months agoMy sales are down, but I attribute that to myself -- not listing as regularly and as much as I did in the fatter times.
foster9
·3 months agoIt will get better. Then it will slow. Then it will get better again. Then it will slow again. Then it will get a lot better. Then it will slow again.
deltilogical
·5 months agoEbays analysis shows my sell through rate is about even but views are down 20%.
tobaccocardyahoo
·5 months agoI do not sell anything that anyone needs.
I have sold online for many years, my current Ebay account is 28 or 29 years old.
The past 3 or 4 months have been great selling.
War is not good for my sales. Whether we are bombing Iran or Libya or any other country, that hurts sales.
The stock market when it drops, hurts my sales. They pick up when the stock market recovers. I lost more money yesterday in the market than my annual Ebay sales, and although I can afford the losses, I am less motivated to buy anything while the market is down. That hurts the sales of other retailers.
I don't want to jinx anything, but the stock market has been exceptionally resilient recently, and I expect it will resume its upward trend sooner rather than later. I guess I think the glass is half full.
gloryglorygifts
·5 months agoNope. Mine are steady but then I'm in a different market than you are.
Good luck and I hope they pick up for you!
reallynicestamps
·5 months agoConcern about paying Trump's Tariff have slowed sales to the USA and while my overseas sales have increased there is definitely a dropoff.
However, I have not been putting much effort into this particular account and am even in the process of donating most of my books to the Times Colonist Book Sale next month, and dropping my Store for the first time in nearly 25 years.
Another account has been slower than usual with a different product, again the dropoff is exports to the USA.
And now I notice that this was posted on the second account I mentioned and not the one where I will be dropping my Store.
Q1 is normally my strongest sales period.
tarotfindsandmore
·5 months agoOne seller's "great!" is another seller's "meh"....
redlinear
·5 months agoCombination of things.
I bought an alternator yesterday.
Search, Used: Turned up 755 results.
Seems like every seller that I checked out was a salvage yard that had 20,000 to 40,000 listings. Poor listings that were mostly stating Policy...and LOTS of it. Descriptions were either none, to very little, very vague, generic descriptions.
This is due to listing software tools available that allow larger businesses to list 500 cruddy listings per day.
Buyers basically just give up on trying to find the good item from the good seller, and just choose "something" to be done with it.
That's the competition part of good or bad sales.
755 results, used. 60 per page on my PC.
I jumped to page 8 and saw one for $38.50.
Went back to page one and sorted lowest$ to highest$ (I now show 362 results and the lowest price I see is $45.00)
That's the search manipulation part of good or bad sales.
I'd sure like to buy and list what people want. But with auto parts, that's easier said than done.
I've now switched to buying and listing parts that not many other sellers have. Might, or Might NOT be much demand, BUT, when/if a search is run for one of these parts....At least I am seen.
And one more thing: I recently hired an 18 year old. That's who I bought the alternator for. I ran a search, showed him a few options, and he had me buy it for him because he did not have an eBay account.
He's a semi gearhead car guy and was a bit astounded by all this.
According to him.....NOBODY that he knows, anywhere near his age, shops on eBay.
mozartbach1971
·5 months agoIt was previously mentioned that many item descriptions can't be seen on mobile apps because of html issues. Has anyone corrected this and seen any difference? I can't figure out how to make the corrections on my listing software so I can't make the change.
soh.maryl
·5 months agoA lot of what you're selling is clothing. (Yes, I know you know this.)
On eBay, Clothing is one of the most saturated categories. Unless someone is searching for the specific brands you offer, you will probably see too much competition.
Then also, the price of things we really need, like gasoline, has risen dramatically, which may account for sinking sales. People need to get to work, to school, to care for aging relatives etc and that takes precedence over other purchases.
bonanza125
·5 months agoThe demand in what you are selling is probably low.
jbbowers12012
·5 months agoHi, Here in New Jersey our sales have been up & down for the past year or so. Normal I suppose. We are quite small, usually carring no more than 200 listings. Just enough to pay a few bills. Good luck with your sales everyone!
umccars
·5 months agoI can't comment on sales, I'm a hobby seller, with very few listings, and not trying to make a living. My wife and I are retired on a fixed income. Times are hard. People can say what they want but some people are out of expendable cash. Period. Utilities are more, food is more. the cost of living is getting out of control. Now gas prices are going to surge. Only well off folks can afford toys etc. Most are probably only buying items they can't live without. It's only going to get worse before it gets better.
theteamsetguy
·5 months ago@umccars ,
I think you summed it up perfectly.
tools*
·5 months agoIf it makes you feel any better, someone in America has raked in billions in the last year. It may have been through shifty schemes, manipulations, and bribes, but you have to applaud their hard work.
pf9000
·5 months agoI sell on multiple platforms, and Sales have been declining everywhere. It is caused by a decline in consumer spending, due to lack of available funds. The vast majority of us are becoming increasing impoverished. We can't afford to buy things as well as we could in the past.
laurabeardsley
·3 months agoI understand all this but I still say something is wrong here with the views. I have a piece of gold jewelry I listed here and my other selling site . It has been on Ebay now for 5 days and not 1 view so I listed in yesterday on the other site and already 54 views and 12 likes. I cannot understand why here on Ebay there can be NO views?
lawnmowerpartsstore2
·3 months agoNow that is a very good Question 🤔
gurlcat
·3 months ago@laurabeardsley This makes no sense whatsoever, considering there are gold hounds with notifications set up for new listings, and you don't even have the gram weight in the title, so it's not like they could just do the value calculation without clicking the listing to see that weight.
I'm pretty experienced with this, and gold is something I don't even consider using promotion for a moment. It sells itself. So for a new 14K piece listing to get zero views, that's more convincing to me that something's wrong than just about any testimony I've ever seen here.
Of course, one possibility is that the view counter isn't working for the listing. Who knows.
wmsakalaucks
·3 months agoThe problem with listings on eBay is that the selling search engine prioritizes searches first to promoted items that contain any word you use in the search. Frequently, it will drop exact matches way down the list and sometimes even ignore them completely. If you don't believe this, compare a search for selling items and then compare to a search of sold items. Sold item searches match to the description at a much higher value than selling listings.
luckythewinner
·5 months agoSome sellers here report declining sales.
Some sellers here report increasing sales.
Some sellers here report steady sales.
oldwestgold
·5 months agoHAHA. Nice simple analogy.
bill.purvis2012
·5 months agoDo you do International shipping? I found out my listings weren't being seen if they didn't have country of origin. I cancelled my overseas shipping and sales picked back up. Seems they require that field be filled in due to new Tariffs.
meme6253
·5 months agoEveryone is saying I wish I had better items that people want, How are we suppose to know what millions of people want?, There are millions of customers they must want something that we all have, I think it is more a sign of the times, cost of living, affordability, etc., & now gas prices could go haywire, People are prioritizing how they spend.
inhawaii
·5 months agoThis might be a stretch, but I reckon if nobody is buying my items at the price i'm asking, I need to improve on the items and/or the pricing.
grann-4629
·5 months agoSpot On man!
I truly appreciate your idea ... wonder why nobody has thought of this before .
🥳🥳
I can't understand why anyone is having trouble with sales other than the poor economy, high shipping costs, scams and counterfeits, pages of policies that must be followed, INR, MBG and other nebulous combinations of capital letters, tariffs that are going up and down faster than a zipper in a <place with nice red lighting> on payday and competition with 2 million other widget sellers.
Keep on truckin' and let me know when you need those discount snow tires.
luckythewinner
·5 months agoThat is why selling successfully is hard.
If it was easy, everyone would be rich.
I know because I constantly research actual sales in a very narrow niche.
In other words, I sell what I know.
oldwestgold
·5 months agoActually, in my opinion, it depends on the type of buyers you go after. If you sell to the lower class, sure, their money dries up quicker during economic swings every few years. I know in my area and in the areas of the US that I sell to, people have money, no matter what the economy is doing. To become a successful seller, you must choose your destiny. Do you want to be happy with clearing $3 on an item when it sells, or $50? How much is your time worth? It really isn't rocket science. I have gotten many friends and family members selling on different platforms. They all started with little savings or investment. All it takes is to start. I have been in my business for over 50 years. I try to help others do the same. It amazes me how deaf some people are to my suggestions. You can lead a horse to water, as they say. Making excuses will not get you anywhere. Gas prices, affordability, the economy, blah blah blah. These are all temporary things, as proven by history. Have a good one. I wish you the best!
grann-4629
·3 months agoActually, in my opinion, it depends on the type of buyers you go after. If you sell to the lower class, sure, their money dries up quicker during economic swings every few years.
I haven't looked at your listings, but I assume they include a statement that tells low class buyers they aren't allowed to bid on your stuff. Great way to increase business, especially considering there is no middle class anymore.
lakefor94
·3 months agoRegardless where you heard that, 50% of housholds are middle class.
grann-4629
·3 months agoRegardless where you heard that, 50% of housholds are middle class.
Not anymore. Two years ago, I could call myself comfortably middle class. With the ongoing increases in cost for everything we buy, mostly because of a certain politician who is allowed to ruin the world, I now consider myself upper low class. All of my peers feel exactly the same way ... can't afford gas, groceries, taxes, and on and on like we used to be able to not so long ago.
It may not be noticeable where you live ... there are still lots of rich people that didn't have to work for their money and don't care how it is spent. These are considered the upper class and the spread between what they have and what we have is growing every day.
Maybe you don't keep up with current events ...
tarotfindsandmore
·3 months agoWhere do you come up with this stuff?
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/05/31/the-state-of-the-american-middle-class/
There are fewer people in the middle class today than there were in the 1970s... because there are a lot more rich people, and rich people didn't get rich sitting around picking their noses. You don't honestly believe that the 8% increase was all Rockefeller money do you? You should probably do a bit more research on your favorite villains.
Maybe you don't keep up with current events?
grann-4629
·3 months ago😎
Rockefeller made his money by working hard ... the one I am thinking of started with a pile of money handed to him.
Perhaps the George Carlin bit about the classes, even back then, might explain it better. Check it out if you can find it. Basically:
* the Upper Class are those who run off with all the money and pay no taxes
* the Middle Class are those who pay all of the taxes and do all the work
* the Lower Class are just there to scare the <bleep> out of the Upper Class
gurlcat
·3 months agoEven if it is still that high, that's pretty sad for the richest country on the planet. And what percent of the Middle Class struggle as much as the Working Class, from the amount of their income that gets eaten by unavoidable expenses like health insurance and medical debt from bills not covered by health insurance?
lakefor94
·3 months ago@gurlcat
Health insurance takes a bite as I know. We had it since I was first married. I paid for it every year from age 25 and still paying $3k a year for Medicare though that is down from the $25k per year or more we were paying for BCBS at age 64. Crazy stuff right there. We are both self employed, still. I started paying taxes and perhaps paying into Medicare as well at age 14, pouring concrete slabs for a trailer park. (That was hard work but a riot, busted azzzz but had fun doing it. Get beefed up for 8th grade football. lol). I did get a full income tax refund every year back then and have filed income tax EVERY year since 1971.
I know what it is like to struggle working a 60 hour (hourly) regular job, a part time business and then mowing 4-5 lawns per week to make ends meet. Did that for soooo many years as a family of 6. Was thankful to do whatever it takes. Taught the same to the boyz starting at the Jr. High level and beyond. They were right out there mowing their own yards and providing other services, the youngest one was hustling on eBay as well, year 2000 and beyond. Making their own money, buying some of the things they wanted, like vehicles for example. That is what makes us all somewhat middle class or thereabouts, whatever. Work ethic. They all take care of their own business/needs, self-contained. Families of 6, 5 and 4.
I have never had aspirations to be rich, just comfortable right where I am. Took a lot of work and an understanding of how money works. Money management helps to obtain needs such as insurance. We live in a society where many folks spend MUCH more on Starbucks, nicotine, booze, restaurants and fast-food (to name a few) than medical insurance would cost. It is a choice many make.
The youngest has been with his company since a HS work program at age 16-17 and I explained to him about 401K’s and the “rule of 72”. He started in a 401k provided by his company at 18 years old. He is 39 now, can you imagine?😉 No college needed, just a strong, consistent work ethic. Went from changing lights bulbs and shipping/receiving to Data Center IT/Manager.
The middle son went to UT and he and his wife are both teachers. Neither has any college debt. They both worked quite a bit thru college and every summer.
The oldest worked in HS as well, went to the Navy, came home and started as a “green” structured data cabling technician (pulling/installing cat5e cables on construction sites. Anyone can do that) and now owns his own business and is one of my consignment accounts. He is hiring right now and has a VERY tough time finding people who actually want to work. He says the young guys, early to mid 20’s, are the absolute worst at showing up for work and having some remote type of work ethic. Most of them can’t make it 30-90 days. Pitiful lot, but here we are.
I did make sure that all 3 of them had a solid understanding/memorization of basic math in grade school. Worked those flashcards to the hilt and then they made more of them with bigger numbers, lol. The younger two were ate up with it. The oldest (business owner) said he hated that as a youngster but now fully understands why I did that. Math is very helpful no matter where you may land. Have to have that, imo.
Insurance and paying bills are not that big of a reach. The opportunities still abound for anyone wishing to make it happen. Self-reliance is obtainable if they are taught some type of decent work ethic and responsibility while growing up. Responsibility for “self” escapes so many these days.
Best to all.
gurlcat
·3 months ago@lakefor94 So you wrote all that bragging to "prove" that "Insurance and paying bills are not that big of a reach" because a decent work ethic gave you that reach, while apparently anyone struggling is just doing drugs and whatever. Couldn't possibly be that some people with great work ethics aren't given as many opportunities as you think are just there for the taking, because you can't imagine why anybody would be denied them (I can), OR that even people who had (and took) opportunities by the horns could lose everything they had worked for, due to any number of catastrophic events.
If none of your children were born with debilitating conditions, if you didn't have to take care of an elderly or disabled parent for decades, if you never had your home destroyed or your body destroyed by some accident and denied compensation, if you didn't have to raise any of your children's children, if you didn't lose your home or retirement due to ridiculous mistakes made by greedy idiots in 2008, who got away with it and stayed rich by the way, if you didn't get cancer or some other massive health problem that your insurance refused to cover treatment for, or countless other things I'm forgetting ..... why not just be amazed at how lucky you are? Or if you must feel proud, why not just feel proud? Why isn't that enough, that you need to also look down your nose at others and smirk about how their lives suck because they must suck?
What never ceases to crack me up is, no matter how many times I see the bootstraps assertion made with self-anecdotal "evidence" .... it ALWAYS includes lawn-mowing. With. Out. Fail. Like it's one of the pointers in some handbook, 'How To Prove To A Libtard That Their Empathy Is Incorrect' or something.
I remember a hilarious one in a Youtube comment -despite the guy framing himself as Texan, his lawn-mowing story that started with a borrowed mower when he was 16 and grew to a full-scale landscaping business with multiple trucks and employees, and he claimed he now made "500,000$" a year. So I informed him that in America we put the dollar sign before the numbers, and he should pass it on to his troll farm comrades.
grann-4629
·3 months agoAs a buyer, the thing that is stopping 'Buy It Now' for me is shipping costs. When I add the cost of shipping to the item I am looking at, even 'honest' costs, the total price is often more than local retail price for the same item. I know there is not much a seller can do about shipping costs these days, and they just keep going up.
Maybe that's why sales are down ....
chapeau-noir
·3 months agoeBay's strength isn't selling what one can buy anywhere else, though.
gurlcat
·3 months agoTRUE. And even items that I could find cheaper locally, considering gas prices and how much I hate driving anyway, if I need something but it could wait a week or whatever, the further away the "local" source is, the more I am willing to pay for shipping.
Let me think ...... if the store is 10 stoplights away, would I pay $1.00 more (10 cents per stoplight)? HECK YEAH I would. Maybe even $2 or $3 more, if they're not open late enough to drive after traffic has diminished a lot.
lakefor94
·3 months ago@gurlcat
We buy a LOT online and most of it has the shipping wrapped up in the price anyways. There are ~about~ 17 residences on our road and every delivery service runs on our road 5 days a week. Amazon, probably 7 days a week. Just does not make sense to go to many of the stores when they have ~free~ delivery, same price.
(what are these 10 traffic lights?) ha, j/k.
I don’t drive enough for higher gas prices to be an issue. My 02 Civic and my wife’s TSX get really good gas mileage. Civic is right at 32MPG. I don’t care if gas is $2 or $4 a gallon here, I only drive the truck when needed. Been that way since I bought the Civic in 06. Some of the best money I ever spent.
You ought to see the stacks of boxes I have from personal deliveries, eBay deliveries and what I get from a shut-in neighbor. Every size imaginable. The perfect fit for anything and can double box effectively when needed. We out-purchase what I sell, though I do buy a lot of 6x4x2 and 6x4x4. I recycle every box possible.
Having items delivered has some advantages. Can be considered energy and environmentally friendly in a lot of cases these days.
Best to all.
gurlcat
·3 months ago@lakefor94 Well in case you or anyone has ever wondered why I do most of my sourcing right here on eBay ... I actually have an A-MAZ-ING source right in Mobile, but it's at the far opposite end of town, in fact it's on the side of its road that technically puts it in the town of Semmes. The store is 14 miles from my house, and if we had an East-West freeway like a more modern city as big as Mobile would have, 14 miles would be no big whoop. But we don't ..... and one time I counted the stoplights to get to that store. Make a guess before you scroll down.
53. No I'm not joking. Just think of all that braking, idling, and getting moving again. Of course they're not all red lights, but plenty enough are red to get sick of looking at the same hind-end of the same car in front of you, and use a lot of gas.
Incidentally I drive an '03 Accord! One year newer than your Civic, but bigger and thirstier, ha.
lakefor94
·3 months ago@gurlcat Wrote: "53. No I'm not joking." Incidentally I drive an '03 Accord! One year newer than your Civic, but bigger and thirstier, ha.”
That is a legit freakout. No possible way to even comprehend in this head. Can’t even remotely imagine 53, no way.
Though, You are driving the luxury liner. The chicks have to look good in their ride.
grann-4629
·3 months agoeBay's strength isn't selling what one can buy anywhere else, though.
It used to be, but now it's more like a giant shopping mall with many sellers listing common items hoping to get retail for them. The additional cost for shipping puts most of this stuff way out of line.
chapeau-noir
·3 months agoI suspect the commodities have a lower sell-through rate than the one-off, etc., though.
shire123
·5 months agoNot here. Small seller here but averaging 2 sales per day over the past 2 years. Probably happens because of the niche items I sell and pricing.
soh.maryl
·5 months agoAveraging 2 sales per what? Day? Week? Month? Glad to hear you are doing well, but your message is not entirely complete.
shire123
·5 months agoThanks for pointing that out. Corrected to per day. Thoughts were going faster than the typing fingers.