eBay

3peeks · ‎11-18-2017

I have been on ebay since 2005. I have ridden the ups and downs of the economy. This is my only living. I have 6800 reasonably priced itens & have gone from an average of $150-175.00 to $30-60 a day and some days zero? Am I really going to have to get a job? I just signed up for SSI. I am totaly disgusted with ebay. All their wonderful changes they promised to make sales better has ruined our business. Putting us all out of business. Still no hurricane relief they promised. I have called at least once a month & they just keep shining me on.

ncplates · ‎11-18-2017

I'm in the same boat that you're in. I've been on eBay since 2000. Walked off the job in 2012 and decided to do this full time and that is when things here started going south. I went to a basic store and sales began dropping almost immediately. 5 Years later this past April, my sales were so low, my basic store fee was most of what I paid for what I was invoiced for February and March.

I've found out that ebay, although still the giant, is not the marketplace it was 5 years ago. Free listings have flooded most all category markets to the point that nobody is browsing anymore. Social media and other websites like Craigslist and Facebook are picking up on the local scene and other online marketplaces like eCrater have offered better coverage on the Google/Bing searches where eBay has cut back. Not to mention that eBay wants to be the next Amazon which means a lot of items that built eBay are getting placed on the back burner because of the lack of UPC/ISBN barcoding.

Calling eBay to complain doesn't get you anywhere. The support people are just as clueless as we sellers who can't understand why eBay would want to compete against Amazon. The only answer to the problem of no sales is going to be some multi-billionaire building a marketplace site like ebay was 6-7 years ago when we all were making money. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen anytime soon.

3peeks · ‎11-19-2017

Thanks for your input. I never heard of ecrater and Amazon is pricey to list. What ebay doesn't understand is that all of these sellers with vintage items don't have bar codes. it's no realistic to think we can have a bar cod if thats what drives it. This was useful info. I am going to build facebook page to link in but ebay is truly now being geared to sell cheap new china junk when most sellers sell vintage . They will be sorry they did this. Thanks

dano1155 · ‎11-19-2017

SAME HERE; SALES HAVE PLUMETED IN NOVEMBER. MANY DAYS ZERO SALES AND I HAVE HELD A CONSISTANT $3500- $5000 IN SALES EVERY MONTH FOR YEARS. MIGHT BE TIME TO SHUT MY STORE DOWN. EBAY COULD CARE LESS.

jeweloftheheart · ‎11-19-2017

I have been here for 10 years, and this one is the worst. No sales this weekend. That is unheard of even in the past down times. 😞

drinkwine1204 · ‎11-19-2017

Hi 3peeks

I am sad to hear of yet another seller dying a slow death. I am not familiar with the prices of your items since it is not my line but I think your pictures are beautiful.

I can only suggest that you try free shipping on your items over $30, might give you a boost in search. You (and I and lots of others) are in competitive markets, anything is a help.

Best of luck to you. I have been here 10 years and changed with the times, used to be a book seller. I dropped last April from premium to basic store, have had 2 months in the past year where I went Negative -- less then $0 profit. Am trying to get into new categories to sell, maybe another category will help you as well. Variety of items does reach more buyers.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

indianaflatlandersales · ‎11-19-2017

We too have had big drop in sales. We have trippled our listings,lowered prices,extended returns, included free shipping. Yet sales are half of what we usually do. We can only use 250 of our basic store listing. 250 in clothes and other categories we don't use. So we pay per listing for any over 250. We are a business and pay an employee to list and ship our parts. At current sales we will have to shout down eBay soon. Which will lead to said employee being out of a job.

Surley eBay sees the Drop in revenue. Hope they can help, soon. Breaks my heart to have to fire a good employee due to lack of sales on eBay. I only post this hoping some where some eBay employee might see they are loosing sellers.

jeweloftheheart · ‎11-19-2017

Please everyone, contact eBay and share with them your sales decline. They are actually documenting it and reporting it according to a very kind understanding representative I spoke to today. We can only hope.

kevin*cedar · ‎11-19-2017

In reply to your message here in the UK it has been exactly the same as in the USA with Slow sales or no sales and lack of views on your listings and this has been happening since mid september and it does not make any difference on how many times you call customer service all I get is that there is nothing wrong and that my listings are are showing correctly strange its happening on both sides of the Atlantic and no one will take any responsibility the amount of complaints on UK seller discusion boards are showing the same as in the USA Totally Unbelievable !!!! Merry Christmas to all looks like there has been a Christmas Grinch

jeweloftheheart · ‎11-19-2017

Wow, it is across the board then. I am sorry you are seeing the Grinch too. It is not us for sure. We can only hope there will be a recovery!

ron_blount · ‎11-20-2017

Hi,jewellery is the hardest to sell has the chinese cover the market,unless you sell hallmarked gold,switch to selling something else and sell lots off different items or buyers get bored.

turningtides15 · ‎11-20-2017

You need your ice cream and umbrellas. Sell a more diverse range of goods so that when sales of jewellery are low post Christmas you can clean up with some different kinds of sales. We all want a store that generates huge income but fits in a shoebox. We all want to buy from one dealer cheap and sell expensive but it is better to diversify. When adding other goods you need to buy lots of that thing. Not one or ten but lots, customers want choice. Then wait for it to soak a few months before people start buying. And try to sell stuff you are interested in. It helps a lot.

One little tip is to reduce all your prices one penny or cent. Everyone who looked at the item gets an email to say the item has been reduced.

inthepastcollectibles · ‎11-20-2017

Eloquently put turningtides15...... I looked at your listings, diversely similar to mine. Loved your "generates a huge income, but fits in a shoebox" analogy. Started there myself with coins, now I keep my coins for a rainy day, but sell many other things too! In fact, I've become quite the encyclopedia of what sells for what and have learned how to make a buck or two on just about anything (which makes me independent of a W-2 paycheck). Now if I could just work off of multi-channels (which I am currently working on) I would be set regardless of the day to day goings on on eBay. Sometimes living outside the shoebox is all the comfort I need and the rest I figure out!!

tomssisales · ‎11-20-2017

Me too, Going broke! It's like a race car that ran out of gas. What I've noticed is when I click on items on eBay then I go to a news site or even Facebook there should be eBay ads on the sides of the pages, Adchoices, algorithms, whatever, did they stop advertising this way?