100's of reasons. Well, maybe not 100's, but there are quite a few reasons. From competition to eBay changing things constantly that don't really need changed. I used to have an answer for competition. That no longer works though. Search needs to work and filters need to work in order to battle competition. So, that's on eBay, not so much competition. Throwing competition all over my listing page? I can handle that with one big exception. That exception being it's more difficult to find my Info/Item Description. Too easy to bounce away from my listing and too much clicking to find your way back. Takes way too long to type up listings having to fill in information that's only relevant to a percent or two of buyers. It's just a mess, and that's eBay's fault
Since I have very few listings active and sell something every single day, I would say it is still the best site on the planet. Try adjusting your prices to what people are willing to pay.
E bay made some "improvements" last year around April with their search algorithms and let AI get involved into the mix ...The results of course have been nothing less than total carnage for sellers . Before , you might get 40-60 item views within the first 48 hours , if you list something good , unique , and priced below it's value , now , you might get 5-10 views . After the first 48 hours , no views . Potential buyers can only see items you list for a few hours . If your item does not sell within 1 or 2 days , it's probably not going to sell ...unless a buyer happens to click on "view sellers other items" or if you have a store . If you are a small time seller just listing 20-50 items , your sales are probably down 95 % since last April . Another thing hurting e-bay is this..most people are now trying to do their searches on their phone , and the results you see on a phone are just a fraction of what you can see when you do the exact same search on your home computer . The way it used to work , I would sell 90 % of everything I listed within 7 days . Now I am lucky to sell 5 % of what I list . In a nutshell , e bay took a well oiled machine and screwed it all up . Potential buyers are not able to see the items we have listed .
I think one of the worst decisions ebay ever made was simply to ignore sellers. Management should have been working closely with the top sellers in every category and asking those sellers what they need from ebay to help grow their business and then actually implementing changes that would help. This would have helped ebays overall growth. Instead ebay choose to push new policy down sellers throats and continue to find ways to skim more off each transaction. And they still haven't figured out that Sellers know what they need and ebay is still ignoring them.
These categories & the amount of competition means nothing to a seller like me. I do not sell any of those. My best 2 weeks involved 86 sales. For over 2 years, I was unable to get 10 per month! How much competition exists has no bearing on the overall downfall of eBay being a great place to sell. As it has been said in this thread, poor management is to blame for several people trying to earn money here. Failed decisions after failed decisions. Nothing has improved on behave of the sellers.
These categories & the amount of competition means nothing to a seller like me. I do not sell any of those. My best 2 weeks involved 86 sales. For over 2 years, I was unable to get 10 per month! How much competition exists has no bearing on the overall downfall of eBay being a great place to sell. As it has been said in this thread, poor management is to blame for several people trying to earn money here. Failed decisions after failed decisions. Nothing has improved on behave of the sellers.
Nobody disputes that this place has been badly managed - though a lot of this is 20/20 hindsight - the worst decision being trying to take on Amazon (as I've repeatedly said) instead of developing eBay as a distinct entity. But even if they had gone this route, there is absolutely no guarantee that other, younger, more agile sites wouldn't have been taking chunks out in competition by now, anyway. eBay trying to be all things to all people in its way might have as much focus creep as trying to ape Amazon. However, someone other than a Bain drone like Donohue would have done a better job overall, I think. At least Jamie is trying to turn the ship around, though I'm not sure that going in an asset-heavy direction (again) is a great idea.
Anyway, I thought you'd folded your tent and were not going to have anything to do with eBay any longer?
I planned on using eBay only on an occasional basis. See if I can get a few extra bucks here & there. Not going to focus on trying to get 2500 listings & hope for 10 sales a day. I'll put my energy elsewhere. Also - use .ca & see if it brings sales inside my borders so I don't have to deal with impatient cross border buyers looking for tracking on an $8 purchase. 🙂
I planned on using eBay only on an occasional basis. See if I can get a few extra bucks here & there. Not going to focus on trying to get 2500 listings & hope for 10 sales a day. I'll put my energy elsewhere. Also - use .ca & see if it brings sales inside my borders so I don't have to deal with impatient cross border buyers looking for tracking on an $8 purchase. 🙂
@sakic92710 That's a great idea! It never needs to be all or nothing and being flexible really matters.
These categories & the amount of competition means nothing to a seller like me. I do not sell any of those. My best 2 weeks involved 86 sales. For over 2 years, I was unable to get 10 per month! How much competition exists has no bearing on the overall downfall of eBay being a great place to sell. As it has been said in this thread, poor management is to blame for several people trying to earn money here. Failed decisions after failed decisions. Nothing has improved on behave of the sellers.
It ABSOLUTELY does; I'm sure your 'sports' stuff category has also seen a '10x the competition' the past 3 years.
Those that fail always look for someone...something... to blame.
Those that succeed find another way to get it done.
All of the sites. Nobody has the monopoly on anything anymore. Used vintage pottery, can only sell on ebay, Poshmark, etsy, if it is handmade, ruby lane, facebook marketplace on and on.
ALLOWING competition - Not doing anything about it when they still could - Thats on the site managers - Reduce service, quality and confidence while you raise prices and headaches - Nope - thats not the way to combat competition my friend...
There's no way to prevent competition, particularly in etailing which was growing exponentially from the mid-90s. If competition could be prevented, we would have one brand of car, one brand of breakfast cereal, etc. and one big monopoly on everything. There is always competition. There were some big failures along the way, but we're fooling ourselves if we ever believed eBay would be the only site getting in on the auction. You may not have been around, but a site called Wagglepop was taking off pretty well in the very early oughts, and had the CEO not been a drama king, probably would have done very well.
Yes, people were all fed up and mad at eBay even then and going off onto Wagglepop.
There's no way to prevent competition, particularly in etailing which was growing exponentially from the mid-90s. If competition could be prevented, we would have one brand of car, one brand of breakfast cereal, etc. and one big monopoly on everything. There is always competition. There were some big failures along the way, but we're fooling ourselves if we ever believed eBay would be the only site getting in on the auction. You may not have been around, but a site called Wagglepop was taking off pretty well in the very early oughts, and had the CEO not been a drama king, probably would have done very well.
Yes, people were all fed up and mad at eBay even then and going off onto Wagglepop.
I didnt say you could prevent competition - Of course that's impossible - What I did convey was that doing nothing about it, or worse yet, ALLOWING competition to get a leg up on you by having a default strategy of reducing service, quality and confidence while raising prices and headaches is not the way to combat competition in a competitive market...
Has anyone figured out a way to reduce or nullify competition?... ummmm... Amazon?....Thing is, ebay could have very easily been in Amazon's current position - And that goes back to management...
Donohoe already tried the beating Amazon at its own game thing - neither realistic nor desirable, really. eBay would have to acquire and then build out a huge logistics infrastructure as well as growing organically a catalog for a cohesive search - hard to do with a lot of pre-owned tchotchkes and clothing (you'll remember they tried) - support natively grown brands, white label brands and fulfillment services, develop AWS and cloud services. We're looking at two different beasts.
ETA: I agree though that in general companies fail due to bad management more often than due to lack of capital.
Donohoe already tried the beating Amazon at its own game thing - neither realistic nor desirable, really. eBay would have to acquire and then build out a huge logistics infrastructure as well as growing organically a catalog for a cohesive search - hard to do with a lot of pre-owned tchotchkes and clothing (you'll remember they tried) - support natively grown brands, white label brands and fulfillment services, develop AWS and cloud services. We're looking at two different beasts.
ETA: I agree though that in general companies fail due to bad management more often than due to lack of capital.
Wow...I feel like I am talking to Mam in this conversation between us - You are far beyond some of the talking points you are presenting - You are taking givens and presenting them as gold nuggets... EVERYONE knows you cannot prevent competition - and preventing competition was in no way shape or form the point I was making in my first post - In this response, you miss the point again - I am not saying ebay should try to be like Amazon in its current state - Its too late and its been too late for a long time - I am saying ebay WAS at the top of the heap with Amazon barely a known brand for many years - an online bookstore started out of Bezos garage - If ebay had made the right business decisions, there is no reason they could not have been the venue that has 40% of the domestic online sales market - They had every opportunity - And even today, knowing what it takes to succeed in online sales, with proven formulas, strategies and technology, they continue to cede market share like they have it to spare... seemingly always working within their short-sited revenue generation model of "oh we dont have to give people a reason to come to us, we just have to take more money from those who do"...
One of the best comments I've read on the community board. It is exactly true. All they do is take & treat seasoned eBay veterans like they are newbies who need restrictions, etc. to prevent scamming. It started with taking a % of the shipping fees. They got away with that so they can move on to other ways of dipping into sellers' pockets.
Donohoe already tried the beating Amazon at its own game thing - neither realistic nor desirable, really. eBay would have to acquire and then build out a huge logistics infrastructure as well as growing organically a catalog for a cohesive search - hard to do with a lot of pre-owned tchotchkes and clothing (you'll remember they tried) - support natively grown brands, white label brands and fulfillment services, develop AWS and cloud services. We're looking at two different beasts.
ETA: I agree though that in general companies fail due to bad management more often than due to lack of capital.
Wow...I feel like I am talking to Mam in this conversation between us - You are far beyond some of the talking points you are presenting - You are taking givens and presenting them as gold nuggets... EVERYONE knows you cannot prevent competition - and preventing competition was in no way shape or form the point I was making in my first post - In this response, you miss the point again - I am not saying ebay should try to be like Amazon in its current state - Its too late and its been too late for a long time - I am saying ebay WAS at the top of the heap with Amazon barely a known brand for many years - an online bookstore started out of Bezos garage - If ebay had made the right business decisions, there is no reason they could not have been the venue that has 40% of the domestic online sales market - They had every opportunity - And even today, knowing what it takes to succeed in online sales, with proven formulas, strategies and technology, they continue to cede market share like they have it to spare... seemingly always working within their short-sited revenue generation model of "oh we dont have to give people a reason to come to us, we just have to take more money from those who do"...
"Has anyone figured out a way to reduce or nullify competition?... ummmm... Amazon?....Thing is, ebay could have very easily been in Amazon's current position - And that goes back to management..."
I was answering this particular question. Two.different.beasts. Trying to chase Amazon did not work. I'm not sure how to make this more clear.
If I use the site at all, it will only occasionally. Much like how my sales have been - occasional. 1 active listing right now. Might just use the Canadian site & see if I have luck within these borders instead of relying on expensive cross border S/H. Also FED UP with buyers getting refunds because there is no tracking. Although, they get refunds with tracking anyway!!! eBay is the only site where I've had that kind of difficulty.
eBay management is totally responsible for the current state of eBay and all of their moves seem to indicate they have thrown in the towel.
I'm 99% certain the eBay help chat has no real people at all anymore. Even if it says you are connected to an agent, they are now chatbots. The exchange I just had demonstrated a level of stupidity that could not have been generated by a human. I frustrated it to the point it disconnected the chat.
redlinear
·2 years ago100's of reasons. Well, maybe not 100's, but there are quite a few reasons.
From competition to eBay changing things constantly that don't really need changed.
I used to have an answer for competition. That no longer works though. Search needs to work and filters need to work in order to battle competition. So, that's on eBay, not so much competition.
Throwing competition all over my listing page? I can handle that with one big exception. That exception being it's more difficult to find my Info/Item Description.
Too easy to bounce away from my listing and too much clicking to find your way back.
Takes way too long to type up listings having to fill in information that's only relevant to a percent or two of buyers.
It's just a mess, and that's eBay's fault
coolections
·2 years agoSince I have very few listings active and sell something every single day, I would say it is still the best site on the planet. Try adjusting your prices to what people are willing to pay.
glwradioman
·2 years agoE bay made some "improvements" last year around April with their search algorithms and let AI get involved into the mix ...The results of course have been nothing less than total carnage for sellers . Before , you might get 40-60 item views within the first 48 hours , if you list something good , unique , and priced below it's value , now , you might get 5-10 views . After the first 48 hours , no views . Potential buyers can only see items you list for a few hours . If your item does not sell within 1 or 2 days , it's probably not going to sell ...unless a buyer happens to click on "view sellers other items" or if you have a store . If you are a small time seller just listing 20-50 items , your sales are probably down 95 % since last April . Another thing hurting e-bay is this..most people are now trying to do their searches on their phone , and the results you see on a phone are just a fraction of what you can see when you do the exact same search on your home computer . The way it used to work , I would sell 90 % of everything I listed within 7 days . Now I am lucky to sell 5 % of what I list . In a nutshell , e bay took a well oiled machine and screwed it all up . Potential buyers are not able to see the items we have listed .
ladyindecadence
·2 years agoI think one of the worst decisions ebay ever made was simply to ignore sellers. Management should have been working closely with the top sellers in every category and asking those sellers what they need from ebay to help grow their business and then actually implementing changes that would help. This would have helped ebays overall growth. Instead ebay choose to push new policy down sellers throats and continue to find ways to skim more off each transaction. And they still haven't figured out that Sellers know what they need and ebay is still ignoring them.
stainlessenginecovers
·2 years agoJust a couple categories
sakic92710
·2 years agoThese categories & the amount of competition means nothing to a seller like me. I do not sell any of those. My best 2 weeks involved 86 sales. For over 2 years, I was unable to get 10 per month! How much competition exists has no bearing on the overall downfall of eBay being a great place to sell. As it has been said in this thread, poor management is to blame for several people trying to earn money here. Failed decisions after failed decisions. Nothing has improved on behave of the sellers.
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoNobody disputes that this place has been badly managed - though a lot of this is 20/20 hindsight - the worst decision being trying to take on Amazon (as I've repeatedly said) instead of developing eBay as a distinct entity. But even if they had gone this route, there is absolutely no guarantee that other, younger, more agile sites wouldn't have been taking chunks out in competition by now, anyway. eBay trying to be all things to all people in its way might have as much focus creep as trying to ape Amazon. However, someone other than a Bain drone like Donohue would have done a better job overall, I think. At least Jamie is trying to turn the ship around, though I'm not sure that going in an asset-heavy direction (again) is a great idea.
Anyway, I thought you'd folded your tent and were not going to have anything to do with eBay any longer?
sakic92710
·2 years agoI planned on using eBay only on an occasional basis. See if I can get a few extra bucks here & there. Not going to focus on trying to get 2500 listings & hope for 10 sales a day. I'll put my energy elsewhere. Also - use .ca & see if it brings sales inside my borders so I don't have to deal with impatient cross border buyers looking for tracking on an $8 purchase. 🙂
chapeau-noir
·2 years ago@sakic92710 That's a great idea! It never needs to be all or nothing and being flexible really matters.
stainlessenginecovers
·2 years agoIt ABSOLUTELY does; I'm sure your 'sports' stuff category has also seen a '10x the competition' the past 3 years.
Those that fail always look for someone...something... to blame.
Those that succeed find another way to get it done.
angelno9
·2 years agoeBay used to be the site, and now it's not
What is the site for dishes and pottery these days?
vintagecraze50
·2 years agoAll of the sites. Nobody has the monopoly on anything anymore. Used vintage pottery, can only sell on ebay, Poshmark, etsy, if it is handmade, ruby lane, facebook marketplace on and on.
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoCompetition.
isaiah53-57
·2 years agoALLOWING competition - Not doing anything about it when they still could - Thats on the site managers - Reduce service, quality and confidence while you raise prices and headaches - Nope - thats not the way to combat competition my friend...
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoThere's no way to prevent competition, particularly in etailing which was growing exponentially from the mid-90s. If competition could be prevented, we would have one brand of car, one brand of breakfast cereal, etc. and one big monopoly on everything. There is always competition. There were some big failures along the way, but we're fooling ourselves if we ever believed eBay would be the only site getting in on the auction. You may not have been around, but a site called Wagglepop was taking off pretty well in the very early oughts, and had the CEO not been a drama king, probably would have done very well.
Yes, people were all fed up and mad at eBay even then and going off onto Wagglepop.
isaiah53-57
·2 years agoI didnt say you could prevent competition - Of course that's impossible - What I did convey was that doing nothing about it, or worse yet, ALLOWING competition to get a leg up on you by having a default strategy of reducing service, quality and confidence while raising prices and headaches is not the way to combat competition in a competitive market...
Has anyone figured out a way to reduce or nullify competition?... ummmm... Amazon?....Thing is, ebay could have very easily been in Amazon's current position - And that goes back to management...
chapeau-noir
·2 years agoDonohoe already tried the beating Amazon at its own game thing - neither realistic nor desirable, really. eBay would have to acquire and then build out a huge logistics infrastructure as well as growing organically a catalog for a cohesive search - hard to do with a lot of pre-owned tchotchkes and clothing (you'll remember they tried) - support natively grown brands, white label brands and fulfillment services, develop AWS and cloud services. We're looking at two different beasts.
ETA: I agree though that in general companies fail due to bad management more often than due to lack of capital.
isaiah53-57
·2 years agoWow...I feel like I am talking to Mam in this conversation between us - You are far beyond some of the talking points you are presenting - You are taking givens and presenting them as gold nuggets... EVERYONE knows you cannot prevent competition - and preventing competition was in no way shape or form the point I was making in my first post - In this response, you miss the point again - I am not saying ebay should try to be like Amazon in its current state - Its too late and its been too late for a long time - I am saying ebay WAS at the top of the heap with Amazon barely a known brand for many years - an online bookstore started out of Bezos garage - If ebay had made the right business decisions, there is no reason they could not have been the venue that has 40% of the domestic online sales market - They had every opportunity - And even today, knowing what it takes to succeed in online sales, with proven formulas, strategies and technology, they continue to cede market share like they have it to spare... seemingly always working within their short-sited revenue generation model of "oh we dont have to give people a reason to come to us, we just have to take more money from those who do"...
sakic92710
·2 years agoOne of the best comments I've read on the community board. It is exactly true. All they do is take & treat seasoned eBay veterans like they are newbies who need restrictions, etc. to prevent scamming. It started with taking a % of the shipping fees. They got away with that so they can move on to other ways of dipping into sellers' pockets.
chapeau-noir
·2 years ago"Has anyone figured out a way to reduce or nullify competition?... ummmm... Amazon?....Thing is, ebay could have very easily been in Amazon's current position - And that goes back to management..."
I was answering this particular question. Two.different.beasts. Trying to chase Amazon did not work. I'm not sure how to make this more clear.
sakic92710
·2 years agoIf I use the site at all, it will only occasionally. Much like how my sales have been - occasional. 1 active listing right now. Might just use the Canadian site & see if I have luck within these borders instead of relying on expensive cross border S/H. Also FED UP with buyers getting refunds because there is no tracking. Although, they get refunds with tracking anyway!!! eBay is the only site where I've had that kind of difficulty.
sumsum70
·2 years agoeBay management is totally responsible for the current state of eBay and all of their moves seem to indicate they have thrown in the towel.
I'm 99% certain the eBay help chat has no real people at all anymore. Even if it says you are connected to an agent, they are now chatbots. The exchange I just had demonstrated a level of stupidity that could not have been generated by a human. I frustrated it to the point it disconnected the chat.