My sells dropped drastically..
In the past four years I used to have great sells. Suddenly it all changed and I experienced zero sellings in a month. I even have 0 views on any of my products. What's going on?? What am I doing wrong? is anybody experiencing the same thing?
32 comments
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years ago@assorteditemsnow eBay free? LOL. That really is funny! If you didn't intend a joke, you may want to familiarize yourself with your selling costs chart on your SH>Performance. Now, personally I don't agree with everything they put in that pie chart & it's also missing some of what makes up your selling costs, but it's a good starting point for anyone who thinks eBay is "free".
assorteditemsnow
·3 years agoHello! Many sellers have the issue and many sellers don't. I'd like to share with you what I have found out about this. In eBay there are several niche's that sell more than others. There are trends of people searching for certain products. eBay is almost free. But, they still need to make money. If your item has few details on it or isn't a promoted listing past 6.5% you most likely will not be in the top 15 search results. I know is sucks but eBay needs to make a profit too so they can pay their staff. Message me if you have ANY questions!
lawnmowerpartsstore2
·3 years agoeBay is almost free
Sorry but i stopped reading when i got to this sentence 🤣😂 . I don't care who you are. Now that's funny 😆
assorteditemsnow
·3 years agoBut, it is very true. Wouldn't you agree?
old-child
·3 years agoI buy 3 T-shirts per year for Christmas. That's it!
Funny graphic or saying or whatever for my daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law. This year it was Queen Bee, Honey Bee, and Bee Keeper - if I run, you run. I thought it was pretty clever. Oh, and I had to go to 3 different sellers to get them.
grandmasjewelry123
·3 years agoYes. I have sold on ebay for 25 years and much of it with no advertising. Now with a blog, seo work, guest posts etc my sales are less than no advertising and I think there are a few reasons for this. Whether ebay will listen to us is another story
First, bring back PayPal. It helps buying and selling.
Second stop with all of the repetitive criteria for listing items. Its almost like the number of times you have to fill out name, address telephone number on an application. Its not necessary. The added details are creating more complications. They do not help. They hurt. They take more time and create unnecessary blocks.
Third, whatever ebay is doing with the share button at the top of the listing is a waste. I used to list an item, click Facebook pinterest, instagram and immediately got more traffic to the listing. Now nothing. Ebay says its bots well bring back the bots because the bots spent more.
It is at the point where its not worth selling on ebay. I have inventory so I am here for awhile and ebay is a more known entity than I am on my own, but I am wondering why I am spending money building ebay. Its not bringing a good return on the dollar.
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years agoThe bots never went away. They just are no longer counted in views b/c bots are unable to buy, since they are not human beings.
Buyers can still use PP, so bringing back PP wouldn't make any difference.
chapeau-noir
·3 years agoAnd no changes on eBay are going to mitigate an over-saturated market - everybody and their dog is selling online, with greatly expanded presence by the big thrift chains like Goodwill - they have their own vintage jewellery store on Etsy, for instance, many stores here and several large stand-alone sites (a new one Goodwill Finds just started). Many more platforms to sell on including locals. Competition is stiff.
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years ago@chapeau-noir All true. And yet, this woman found a $50-60K necklace at a thrift. Made it to Antiques Roadshow. I keep meaning to post a thread on this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ThriftStoreHauls/comments/1125s0p/thrifted_necklace_final_update_we_made_it_to/
chapeau-noir
·3 years agoPeriodically there is a unicorn, but that's always been one of the great things about eBay. There's always that one thing.
krazzykats
·3 years agoPeople copy to make quick money.
It could be a home print operation, but I think a lot more sellers are using PODs with copyrighted designs/characters.
Nothing wrong with using a POD, if it's your own design/characters.
chapeau-noir
·3 years agoOver and above the possible copyright issues, the world is FLOODED with T-shirts, and a graphic on a generic white T is not one of the better sellers these days as they're so common, even if the graphic is nice (I'm seeing a lot more gray, black, etc.).
yuzuha
·3 years agoNot to mention that if you've got a printer, you can make your own with any design you want-- just get some transfer paper.
rugerskick
·3 years agoFor me its like a switch gets thrown and I don't see orders for days, then its turned back on. Regardless of the fact I am doing the same normal things to keep the wonderful algorithm happy.
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years agoLots of spelling errors or typos in the titles too. I noticed 3 with just a quick glance. Nobody's gonna find them if the names are spelled wrong. Though the copyright infringement is the bigger problem.
reallynicestamps
·3 years agoSales not sells. "Sales" is a noun - a naming word. "Sell" is a verb - an action word.
Looks like you are dropshipping from an overseas supplier. You have thousands of competitors.
Look for a different product. That one is sucked dry.
inhawaii
·3 years agoMy sells dropped drastically..
It's "sales" not "sells".
But we knew what you meant. 😉
krazzykats
·3 years agoPeople are not the same as four years ago. The world is not the same as four years ago.
T-Shirts? Seriously. So many t-shirts, so little time.
ed8108
·3 years agoWhat's going on ?
Inflation may have hit more than a few buyers very hard, who now may be focused more on needs rather than wants.
Prayer & Patience for a better
tomorrow.
pjcdn2005
·3 years agoIf you are going to offer various sizes than you should set up size variations in your listings.
If someone wants a Large tshirt they are going to scroll past your Medium listings and not click on it to read the info about other sizes. You need to set up the listing properly, not just mention it in the listing that they can message for other sizes.
As another poster mentioned you may have a problem if you are using unlicensed graphics.
stainlessenginecovers
·3 years agoDo you have permissions to make/sell all those items from the folks that own the rights to those things (Hanna Barbara- Jetsons, for example) ? If not, they will probably have you shut down, if not outright sue you first. Every one of those are owned by some heavy big businesses (Lucille Ball, Beatles etc.)
retro_entertainment_collectibles
·3 years agoObviously not, licensing is expensive business. Warner Bros (Lucy), Disney... Others can be very aggressive about their brands, copyright and trademarks. That said, in instances such as this they don't tend to pursue via copyrights/trademark in direct lawsuits as they need prove damages. They hire external firms to do the dirty work and said firms then go after the costs involved in pursuing such matters, its very very expensive. I did a database migration back near 20 years ago for such an operation that dealt with regional corporations... Kodak, Xerox on and on and from what I could see in the database records the average recovery of expense pursuant to filings and hourly work was about $14,000 settlements albeit I saw some much much much larger. I presume that's up significantly from way back when.
In flagrant matters whereby someone is mass producing and/or mass multiple infringements they'll seek an injunction via State Attorney General effectively completely shutting the producer down via court order. Depending on what evidence is presented to the AG is directly associated to how it's lawfully taken up. For example, we've probably all seen matters of when matters move towards a DA and then the location is raided for evidence via warrant. The sports rights owners tend be more notorious about that due to the high popularity of their brands especially when a producer care make them seem like Official Licensed product.
krazzykats
·3 years agoI wonder if POD companies can be held liable as an accessory to the fact or something like that? Maybe POD services/companies need rules to operate on eBay.
POD companies allow people to easily use copyrighted characters to produce sales.
PODs make it too easy to reproduce copyrighted designs for resell. If you have original characters or designs of your own, then I'm okay with that. But it's not okay to ccpy. I still have an original floppy disk pinback that says "Don't Copy that Floppy". (A lot of youngsters may not get it, but most boomers will.)
There are too many "copies" in today's world. People copy other people's work and sell it as their own.
(POD=print on demand for those wondering.)
retro_entertainment_collectibles
·3 years agoInteresting thought... I figure most "cottage op's" be doing sublimation or direct to garment because the costs are now so low. You can buy printers under $200 that as long as you start w/ the proper inks you're good to go.
You'd think the POD Op's would know better but might make similar claim, "We are but a venue of the customer."
Wonder what happen if I walked in Staples with a Disney Poster and said, "Hey, I'd like copy of this printed up."
Indeed I do remember the "Do not copy the floppy!" I was a subcontract developer back in the day for Atari, Sierra, EA and others. Atari's copy protection was to not format certain sectors on a disk. So when program code be directed at said sectors the "intelligent" floppy drive throw errors, seek the head back to track zero do it again using the error responses to trigger authenticity. Of course hackers go into the code and rip all that stuff out, presto, pirated but it stopped mass copying.
simply-the-best-for-you
·3 years ago@retro_entertainment_collectibles I doubt they would do it, but it depends on the company. I had a local print/photo shop that refused to print a copy of an old Olan Mills picture of myself, even though the pic was clearly from the 70's & I'm sure I'd have been laughed out of Olan Mills, if they even still exist, trying to get a copy. It was a simple one-off photo & I'm sure most shops would have had no problem with it.
Also, for years, I was trying to get a t-shirt made with an image from the History Channel on the internet, but my own words underneath it, as a gift for my DH. Pretty much every one of the big online places refused to make it, as did many local places. But it depends on the shop, I was recently in a mall in AZ, with a POD shop in the mall, stopped in on a lark & guy was willing to make me anything I wanted & grabbed a suitable image from online & had the whole thing done in minutes. It appeared that the owner was not from the US, so that may be why he didn't care.
toomuchstuffagain35
·3 years agoReputable POD companies don't allow the production of copyrighted/licensed designs unless the person ordering can show proof they have a license to do so.
ckimodog
·3 years ago@farz2032
I think your shop is really nice and different. You have some really clever ideas for your shirts...however, I still think people are sticking to essentials these days. The rising cost of shipping and everything else may be why sales are stagnant and somewhat sporadic. I'm in the same boat as you on Ebay, but I do have other outlets where I do much better, as many do here on Ebay. Don't limit yourself to one selling platform. See what else is out there to increase your sales. You have a very specialized inventory, there may be other platforms that may benefit you and your hard work much more. Just a suggestion.
Good luck.
hartungcards
·3 years agoMaybe the market for homemade white t-shirts isn't what it used to be.
lawnmowerpartsstore2
·3 years agoAny ideas why ?
lawnmowerpartsstore2
·3 years agoLooking closer at your store. I checked out: The Farrah Shirt and as a buyer what turned me off is (1) you don't offer size large. Medium shirts wont fit most adults comfortably. (2) When i clicked on your 2nd picture that you offered it looks like Ebay lost your picture and it wont show it in the larger size on my desktop computer. I didn't look at any of your other listings after that.
buyologist-3
·3 years ago"I didn't look at any of your other listings after that."
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WHAT?!? You missed the Sexy Man's Chest Ripped Shirt?? OOooooooooo..... Got my attention..... Smiles.....
livetourtech
·3 years agoyup, you are definitely right. I am noticed that the item you sell may not be buyable anymore.