Nothing sells on eBay anymore what's up with that !

[4659655]

I remember when things used to get bids on eBay . Now nothing sells that I put up there unless it's so cheap I make nothing then all the fee's it just not worth bothering . Swap meet seems a better option at this point . Anyone else having same issues ?

[thatsallfolks]

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@4659655 wrote:

The fact is nothing sells on ebay anymore

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LOL. $80 billion of merchandise changed hands on eBay last year. That's quite a nothingburger.

I think what you mean is that nothing YOU'RE offering sells on eBay any more.

[theguitarpartsguy]

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@4659655 wrote:

The fact is nothing sells on ebay anymore , its just a fact as Amazon has crushed them , if you have a specialized product like yours or willing to sell for nothing then you maybe ok , however thats a small amount of sellers .

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You couldn't be more wrong if you were intentionally trying.  There are a LOT of sellers who sell what I do, WAY more now than there were 10 years ago, so a bunch of them must be having good luck like I do or they'd be leaving instead of hanging around.   I have a couple of advantages over them, however, that I won't divulge here as they're trade secrets I have developed over the years of sourcing custom manufactured products.  The parts I sell with my name attached to them, I control the manufacture of, they're made to my specs, and I have nearly 30 years of experience in my field.  I have very little trouble moving product, and it's not because my stuff is inexpensive or that there are fewer sellers now, it's because I'm considered an expert in my field.   Further, I buy and collect vintage hi-fi equipment as a hobby.  I usually get outbid on items I'm trying to buy because there are TONS of people here who buy the stuff, so it's not just specialty or cheap items that sell here.  Experienced buyers like to buy from experienced sellers, however, and a lot of sellers who also buy here know what to look for in how a seller lists and describes items in order to tell whether someone is a quality seller or not.

As far as auction houses go, the local one here usually has cars lined up and down the road for half a mile on auction day, and they sell a LOT of small, inexpensive items.  The auction houses around here are ALL busy as they want to be, so apparently a LOT of people still use auction houses.

[monagilardi]

I have been a seller since 2008, I have over 5000 positive feedback and I assure you  that traffic on ebay is low and sales are way down. 

[monagilardi]

I accept offers but set the listing to automatically refuse the goofy bids

[dadsfloridatreasure]

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@4659655 wrote:

Well of course , who uses an auction house unless your selling something really expensive in this day and age . 

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When some mention the words "auction house", they're not necessarily refering to the large, big name houses that sell Vincent Van Gogh artwork.  There are many smaller auction houses out there that sell things that come from estates, closed businesses, and the common person on the street consignments.  Many of these do sell artwork, coins, fine jewelry, Oriental rugs, antique furniture, and autos, but they also sell lot boxes of more inexpensive collectibles, antiques, household, clothing, etc.

[theguitarpartsguy]

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@dadsfloridatreasure wrote:

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@4659655 wrote:

Well of course , who uses an auction house unless your selling something really expensive in this day and age . 

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When some mention the words "auction house", they're not necessarily refering to the large, big name houses that sell Vincent Van Gogh artwork.  There are many smaller auction houses out there that sell things that come from estates, closed businesses, and the common person on the street consignments.  Many of these do sell artwork, coins, fine jewelry, Oriental rugs, antique furniture, and autos, but they also sell lot boxes of more inexpensive collectibles, antiques, household, clothing, etc.

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 Yep, exactly the type I am referring to.  And the ones here in southern Illinois are ALWAYS crowded with a line of cars.  And they charge 35% selling fees.  

[theguitarpartsguy]

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@monagilardi wrote:

I have been a seller since 2008, I have over 5000 positive feedback and I assure you  that traffic on ebay is low and sales are way down. 

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 And you sell clothing, which is one of the most oversaturated categories on eBay, so in reality, it's likely that you just have WAY more competitors now than you used to.  Ebays numbers are actually up, not down.  You have to sell at competitive prices with the other sellers in your categories.  The secret of making money on eBay is what you pay for your items initially, not in what you sell them for.  If you pay too much for them initially, you'll never be able to sell them on eBay and make money.

[theguitarpartsguy]

Also, looking through some of your other posts here, I'm not the first to tell you that you're selling in a category that's WAY oversaturated with sellers. The fact is that there are too many sellers and too many people desperate enough to give stuff away in your selling category. If you want to sell more stuff, you need to switch up what you sell or figure a way out to outprice your competition, those are really your only two options with selling clothing. Buy it cheaper, too, so you can sell it for less. This is going to mean buying in bulk. I often buy guitar parts and shipping supplies several hundred pieces at a time in order to compete. That's just the reality of selling online, regardless of where you are selling online.

[cplank2012]

I started selling on ebay back in 2011 - first of all my old stuff, including kids clothes, toys, household goods, electronics etc... everything went at auction first time.  It was great!  I moved on to buy overstock items and resell on ebay - went well, nice little side line on handbags, women's clothes etc... I was making 20-25% on most items but became quite time consuming.  I got up to $25K sales in 2015 and then stopped when I moved state and started a new job that took all my time.

Now I have a bit more time and have returned to ebay and I am very disappointed - it most definitely is not what it was.  I started up again selling some of my old stuff and nothing moves, no bids, nothing - just relisting every week or 10 days.  Then I got some of my old stock and did my research on pricing etc.. and listed it - again not many views, watcher or sales - very very slow compared to a few years ago. Appears to be the same when I look at sales for most sellers - very slow compared to how it used to be and only specialised, higher end or collectible items selling in many categories.

I will continue my research but first indications are that this is going to be very tough to get regular sales and an income from ebay compared to 5 years ago - much harder.

[thebookee]

programmers?

[thebookee]

if you do not know what a swap meet is I do not think you are a seller

[thebookee]

how rude

[thebookee]

and time to be a ebay Rockstar too. omg

[theguitarpartsguy]

Looking through your listings, I see clothing, which is a category that is really oversaturated here. There are TONS of sellers, many from China, who are willing to sell for really low prices to move goods. I would suggest trying different categories. The secret to making money on eBay is NOT in what you sell an item for, it's in what you pay for it initially. You absolutely HAVE to remember that when selling here these days. I buy most of the guitar parts I list in bulk, and usually several hundred pieces at a time, so that I can get pricing down to where I can be competitive. In all honesty, even though it's possible to have free listings now, it was a much better marketplace for USA sellers when you had to pay for EVERY listing you put up, because that kept a lot of the stuff from places like China off the site. Now days, the Chinese government subsidizes the cost of postage to the USA, but we don't have it that way for shipping to China, so that allows Chinese sellers to undercut everyone else.

There's a really interesting documentary about this type of activity, it's called "Death By China" that talks about the economic war China has put up against our dollar. It's worth the couple hours it takes to watch. You'll learn a LOT from it, or at least I did.

[annadryl]

Death By China is currently on Prime. The trailer alone is pretty depressing... looks worth a watch though.