ARE YOU KIDDING ME, LOOK AT THESE NUMBERS!!!?

[honestabe411]

Seller rant here about sales. But this time, I'm uploading graphs as proof!

WHAT IS GOING ON!!!? I have 1,200 items for sale and the last 4 days in a row I've sold under $40 a day!? 2 items yesterday, nothing today! 2 years ago, with half the inventory, I was doing 10-17 items a day, every day. Only 1 blackout in 2 years...a few weeks ago I had TWO, in a week!!

I have lower prices, double the items, better photos, etc.! I called eBay and they said everything looks good to go. They made sure my setting were ok and I was accepting payment, etc. They said I'm good to go!

Sales were strong for years..I quite my job, had a baby girl with a second child on the way, asked my gf to marry me, moved into a bigger places, mainly because sales were consistently GREAT at over $6,000 a month for a decent amount of time...

Fast forward from 2015 to 2017, and sales are TANKING!! I'm WAY behind on bills (never have before) and am just sitting here scratching my head...I haven't done ANYTHING different than before. And not I'm at about $2,600 a month, minus fees and taxes...

ebay says it's not them! I call out a straight up lie!!! Sure, the market changes, categories over Saturated or whatever, but going from 10-17 sales a day to 1-5 is far more than 'the trend'. 

Any help is is greatly appreciated. I know the rep said my listings look fine, and last week I posted and others said it looks good.. but any other advice would save me a lot of stress, because it looks good to me. 

Here are my sales in 2015 and 2017

[coolections]

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@z50com wrote:

Answer: Too Many Clothes Sellers

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I figured as much. Now I don't need to look.

[pjcdn2005]

I'm still curious why the op is comparing summer sales to those around Christmas time. 

[retrose1]

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@themagicmountain wrote:

You are not alone. Things have dropped drastically for many, not just the clothes category

The maine problem seems to be that our items arent being seen, but honestly I try to figure out what is going on and nothing makes sense

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Actually it's prety easy to understand. 

If you are listing an item and there are a 1,000 others already listed - but only 50 buyers, then there are a lot of tems that will not be seen or sold.

[mindless-illusions]

I have been complaining about a sudden drop in sales as well, but the replies I get are always geared at it being something I'm doing wrong.  I've been here since 2001 in my other ID, and there hasn't ever been this kind of shut down in sales.   When I asked customer service, I was told that they can see my products so it's not that they aren't showing up.  They also said that sellers' items are rotated "giving everyone a chance" and that they have gone through some "slow times" too.  

This isn't a slow period.  This is a sudden drop from doing $4-500 a month to $40 a month?  44 sales in 12 months?  I used to be a power seller!  (my other ID).

There is definitely something on eBay's end that is causing this, I don' care if people agree with me or not.  This is not a natural summertime slump.

[mindless-illusions]

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@z50com wrote:

Answer: Too Many Clothes Sellers

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It's not just clothes.  I sell baking products in one ID and home decor and gifts in another.  All of my ID's have stopped having sales. 

[dubiousgain]

To anyone, who does not believe that ebay [GREATLY] reduceces some seller listing visibility...  WAKE UP! You are in *dream land*.  For those of you, who feel your listing hits/sales are abysmal... Try this experiment: (This only works well with more unique, limited availability, items)  Find a completed clone/similar version of what you are selling.  Note it's hit-ometer count. List your item, using the same, exact wording, punctuation, etc., as the control, completed listing.  If your sales and listing vsits are pathetic, I can guarantee you. that your visit count will be GROSSLY LESS, than the one that sold, for a respectable/good price.   As I said, those who do not believe that cloaking of listings is happening, need to spit out that ebay Kool-Aid, and see the proof, that's in the pudding.  And don't say "ebay wouldn't do that, as it would cut in to the money they make on listings."  Because if you have your ability to [unequivocally] second-guess why ebay does ANYTHING it does, honed to that degree....You need to write a book!

[allstar-comics]

Ebay has more sellers than buyers.  Its been this way for many years now.   More inventory than demand for it.  I feel your pain.  I have built my ebay store to 28,000 items and am doing less in sales than when I had 12,000 items years ago.  Search engine is terrible.  The mobile app is limited (hard to get combined shipping on it) and moore and moore of the ssales are on mobile. Also having top rated makes a difference in visibility but they make it almost impossible to keep if you have a large amount of items/transactions.  That said , I still do way more business here than on other e commerce platforms.  I have heard younger buyers (millenialls) are shopping more in the social media platforms.  I dont have the time or inclination to try selling on those groups but maybe that would be lucrative for you.  Sellers are all facing the same issues and more problems and pratfalls seem to be popping up every day.  Sigh,,,,,,,,,,,,

[mindless-illusions]

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@allstar-comics wrote:

Ebay has more sellers than buyers.  Its been this way for many years now.   More inventory than demand for it.  I feel your pain.  I have built my ebay store to 28,000 items and am doing less in sales than when I had 12,000 items years ago.  Search engine is terrible.  The mobile app is limited (hard to get combined shipping on it) and moore and moore of the ssales are on mobile. Also having top rated makes a difference in visibility but they make it almost impossible to keep if you have a large amount of items/transactions.  That said , I still do way more business here than on other e commerce platforms.  I have heard younger buyers (millenialls) are shopping more in the social media platforms.  I dont have the time or inclination to try selling on those groups but maybe that would be lucrative for you.  Sellers are all facing the same issues and more problems and pratfalls seem to be popping up every day.  Sigh,,,,,,,,,,,,

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I don't have the money to pay Pinterest, FB and Twitter for business listings, but what I try to keep doing is to at least add my listings to all of my social media accounts.  However, even with that, I get lots of hits, but no sales.  And the only watchers I seem to have, are people who might be selling the same or equivalent to my product and want to see if I sell and how much I get.  lol

[yuzuha]

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@retrose1 wrote:

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@themagicmountain wrote:

You are not alone. Things have dropped drastically for many, not just the clothes category

The maine problem seems to be that our items arent being seen, but honestly I try to figure out what is going on and nothing makes sense

---

Actually it's prety easy to understand. 

If you are listing an item and there are a 1,000 others already listed - but only 50 buyers, then there are a lot of tems that will not be seen or sold.

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I actually passed up several things in the thrift store the other day because while there were about 200 of them listed on eBay, only 3 had sold in the past 90 days.  That's another factor that a lot of sellers fail to take into account.

[jobs-7]

Funny, because I remember a couple years ago when things were good for you that every time someone would post about slow sales you would tell them they aren't listing enough, it's not Ebay's fault, they don't work hard enough, it's all in their imagination, etc etc.

So, maybe you should list more, since we know it's not Ebay's fault.  Right?

[honestabe411]

Yes I agree! I am currently starting to list more which may be a factor. After having my daughter last year and being a stay at home dad, I am usually pretty busy. And when it's her nap time the last thing I want to do is start working. But I do agree I need to hustle more.

Decent sales today so far. Changed half my inventory to best offer, seems to be working good so far.

Especially because I am accepting all reasonable offers.

[odditiesandantiquities1]

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@honestabe411 wrote:

Seller rant here about sales. But this time, I'm uploading graphs as proof!

WHAT IS GOING ON!!!? I have 1,200 items for sale and the last 4 days in a row I've sold under $40 a day!? 2 items yesterday, nothing today! 2 years ago, with half the inventory, I was doing 10-17 items a day, every day. Only 1 blackout in 2 years...a few weeks ago I had TWO, in a week!!

I have lower prices, double the items, better photos, etc.! I called eBay and they said everything looks good to go. They made sure my setting were ok and I was accepting payment, etc. They said I'm good to go!

Sales were strong for years..I quite my job, had a baby girl with a second child on the way, asked my gf to marry me, moved into a bigger places, mainly because sales were consistently GREAT at over $6,000 a month for a decent amount of time...

Fast forward from 2015 to 2017, and sales are TANKING!! I'm WAY behind on bills (never have before) and am just sitting here scratching my head...I haven't done ANYTHING different than before. And not I'm at about $2,600 a month, minus fees and taxes...

ebay says it's not them! I call out a straight up lie!!! Sure, the market changes, categories over Saturated or whatever, but going from 10-17 sales a day to 1-5 is far more than 'the trend'. 

Any help is is greatly appreciated. I know the rep said my listings look fine, and last week I posted and others said it looks good.. but any other advice would save me a lot of stress, because it looks good to me. 

Here are my sales in 2015 and 2017

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Abe, I can show you my same graph's from April and I was down 67% from the previous period. Nothing had changed. Absolutely nothing on my side that is. But views were non-existent. I was sure that someone was maybe upset at me and did something to the account. When I talked to one of the US reps, he checked out all my charts and graphs and said he couldn't see why this was happening. He said he loved my stores, pictures, price points. Anyway, he said he'd send this information to the teck team to see if anything could be done.  Within two days, I started having sales again.

Abe, I can't tell you what they did or what was wrong but I certainly no it is not a co-incidence that my sales returned after my account was looked at. 

Here's just one of the reports.

Mon, Dec 1, 2016 - Wed, Dec 24, 2016
16.3%Up Compared to same period November

Sun, Jan 1, 2017 - Tue, Jan 24, 2017
sales
49.4% Down Compared to same period December

Sun, Feb 1, 2017 - Tue, Feb 24, 2017

91.3% Up Compared to same period January

Wed, Mar 1, 2017 - Fri, Mar 24, 2017

12.7% Up Compared to same period February

Wed, Apr 1, 2017 - Fri, Apr 24, 2017

64.7% Down Compared to same period March

Now January is easy to explain because I had several illnesses that month and had to put myself on vacation a few times.

[pacificgroveinnkeeper]

I agree with just about everything @retrose1 said.  I sold lots of random things until I finally stumbled into something that clicked.  Ironic that it was Girl Scout collectibles is what DID work perfectly for me. Lol

Perhaps try seeing the world through EBay Colored Glasses as I did for years.  Every garage sale, store clearance aisle, storage closet in your house.... look through them with the perspective of "Could someone be looking for this online and I'm the one person that has what they need?"  You never know what you might stumble across and find the perfect nitch.  Discontinued, truly collectible or HTF items are still the way to go on EBay, in my opinion.  Don't be one of 1,000 people selling the same thing.  Just my two $.02. 

[odditiesandantiquities1]

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@pacificgroveinnkeeper wrote:

I agree with just about everything @retrose1 said.  I sold lots of random things until I finally stumbled into something that clicked.  Ironic that it was Girl Scout collectibles is what DID work perfectly for me. Lol

Perhaps try seeing the world through EBay Colored Glasses as I did for years.  Every garage sale, store clearance aisle, storage closet in your house.... look through them with the perspective of "Could someone be looking for this online and I'm the one person that has what they need?"  You never know what you might stumble across and find the perfect nitch.  Discontinued, truly collectible or HTF items are still the way to go on EBay, in my opinion.  Don't be one of 1,000 people selling the same thing.  Just my two $.02. 

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That is very true. You do have to mix it up to bring in new buyers and views.  I do try add more varied items than just jewelry and I will keep that going. The more I expand into other categories, the more my primary items will get seen. I will take credit for some of that for the increase in sales. 

[retrose1]

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@pacificgroveinnkeeper wrote:

I agree with just about everything @retrose1 said.  I sold lots of random things until I finally stumbled into something that clicked.  Ironic that it was Girl Scout collectibles is what DID work perfectly for me. Lol

Perhaps try seeing the world through EBay Colored Glasses as I did for years.  Every garage sale, store clearance aisle, storage closet in your house.... look through them with the perspective of "Could someone be looking for this online and I'm the one person that has what they need?"  You never know what you might stumble across and find the perfect nitch.  Discontinued, truly collectible or HTF items are still the way to go on EBay, in my opinion.  Don't be one of 1,000 people selling the same thing.  Just my two $.02. 

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But once you find a niche, it's a good idea to go with the flow there instead of continuing to experiment on a grand scale.  There are some things that well sell like hotcakes for one person and another person can't give the items away. 

A couple of friends of mine and myself compare notes on a regular basis and we often trade merchandise, because I know that one friend can spend a year listing a garment for $10 and no one will look at it, she can give it to me and I can list it for $20 and sell it the first week.  It's the same with music books for her, and the third can flip any doll or doll related item and we can't.

And you have to watch trends.  There is an estate sale that has been going on all week that I have checked in on every other day.  They have tons of stuff, some priced right and some a little high.  But there is a lot of genres the owner collected, like Longabarger baskets, thimbles, and quilting sewing books.  There is no interest, as they are all still sitting there with the high prices still on them on the last day.  Ten years ago they would have had interest and brought some cash, but not anymore.

Sellers have to be aware of what is happening and adapt or they will stagnate and if they have blinders on about their line of merchandise, their business can die and they will never figure out why.

Some of it is ebay, but a lot more is being smart about what you are buying to resell.

ETA: @pacificgroveinnkeeper I got some GS badges that just aren't moving that quick for me. are you interested?  Check my unsolds and if so I can make a listing for you.