Abrupt Stop in Sales...........................Why?

[getitright1234]

On my other selling account I was doing find, I was selling items regularly, which kept me motivated to list more things which promoted even more sales,   Friday came and nothing but crickets, someone had turned off my faucet, unpluged my power supply or better yet but a padlock on my store.        

Hey, ebay I need my sales to come back, I miss them!!!!!!!!

[myjunqueyourtreasure]

You've never sold retail in a B&M, right?

[buyselljack2016]

There is strange stuff afoot with eBay.

Listings are not holiday, seasonal, vacation, weather affected items.

Virtually no changes in items listed, but huge change in impressions. Not in sales, but with the impresions jump I at least know the page is being seen.

[getitright1234]

Your point is:  What?

[zamo-zuan]

On approximately the 15th, eBay was doing a change to enable their new catalog more heavily in the primary search engine.

I would guess this is likely what affected you.

I would check to see how well your items are appearing in the new catalog (with the "group similar" button on the top of search).

It's a constant struggle to be added to the catalog... I've got 3+ cases open with SDsupport for months and they have not resolved a single one. I posted on the Catalog forum a week ago and have not even received a response. 

[myjunqueyourtreasure]

My point is that even in a B&M store, some days it's busy, others you can hear a pin drop.

[tunicaslot]

At least on this acct - you are selling mostly clothing and accessories and only have 60 some listings. Clothing is an oversaturated category - I know - that's what I mainly sell. Some of the items don't seem to be very good sellers. The Berek trench coat only has 2 other listings besides your own - there have been none that have sold in the last 90 days - so you're going to have to wait for that special person to come along and buy it.

You also have some sized clothing that is not sizes for the general population. I have a hard time selling 30" inseam - and no longer buy it. Try revising a few listings each day and if possible add a couple of new listings. Hanging the clothes is often a better way of presenting them. Although your photos look good - many buyers won't buy items lying on a floor.

Good luck!

[getitright1234]

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@zamo-zuan wrote:

On approximately the 15th, eBay was doing a change to enable their new catalog more heavily in the primary search engine.

I would guess this is likely what affected you.

I would check to see how well your items are appearing in the new catalog (with the "group similar" button on the top of search).

It's a constant struggle to be added to the catalog... I've got 3+ cases open with SDsupport for months and they have not resolved a single one. I posted on the Catalog forum a week ago and have not even received a response. 

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Thank you for you post/response, now that seems very plausible.    

[getitright1234]

@tunicaslot wrote:

At least on this acct - you are selling mostly clothing and accessories and only have 60 some listings. Clothing is an oversaturated category - I know - that's what I mainly sell. Some of the items don't seem to be very good sellers. The Berek trench coat only has 2 other listings besides your own - there have been none that have sold in the last 90 days - so you're going to have to wait for that special person to come along and buy it.

You also have some sized clothing that is not sizes for the general population. I have a hard time selling 30" inseam - and no longer buy it. Try revising a few listings each day and if possible add a couple of new listings. Hanging the clothes is often a better way of presenting them. Although your photos look good - many buyers won't buy items lying on a floor.

Good luck!

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My post was 100% regarding my other account, not  this account.   No advise was sought on this account  and FYI, I only have (1) item with a picture taken on the floor.    Whenever, I have chose to respond to  a topic on this board, I  have always addressed the issue the OP post, this was not the case with your post. 

[myjunqueyourtreasure]

Is 30" too long or too short? I'll be bleeped if I can find what I want which is a 32" inseam. Most women's wear seem to be either 30" or 31"

[mommadukestreasurehunt]

This happened to me also last week; you have to be a little patient. We are all in different "data centers" I guess you would call them; I'm no techie - lol. They could be moving data centers around and what not in addition to programming other things. eBay does have a tech blog online you can read if you want to try to learn the ups/downs and ins/outs of the website. I don't understand most of it but it helps.  

[tiramisu41]

Well, @getitright1234 about 5 million people are without power, under water, or not in their homes on the East Coast at the moment. The beginning of that started the end of last week.   Just sayin'....

[softersilk]

Every conspiracy theory about eBay and servers, blackouts, throttling blah blah blah - it's just paranoia.  These theories get repeated and believed but they're not true.

If your sales crash? Use the time to make them better and learn new things to get them moving.

[softersilk]

Read up on mobile optimization and search terms.  You're using the dreaded centered alignment, which is horrible to read (yes, I know, many people do it. It's wrong.).

Add some search terms to your listings and more information. I opened up your most recent one and you don't mention fabric and you use some word "lent" and I have no idea what that means.  You also yell and people to look at all of your photos which does nothing helpful.  

Browse around some mainstream sites and see how those look.  THAT is how to write, not copying eBayers.

[zamo-zuan]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

At least on this acct - you are selling mostly clothing and accessories and only have 60 some listings. Clothing is an oversaturated category - I know - that's what I mainly sell. Some of the items don't seem to be very good sellers. The Berek trench coat only has 2 other listings besides your own - there have been none that have sold in the last 90 days - so you're going to have to wait for that special person to come along and buy it.

You also have some sized clothing that is not sizes for the general population. I have a hard time selling 30" inseam - and no longer buy it. Try revising a few listings each day and if possible add a couple of new listings. Hanging the clothes is often a better way of presenting them. Although your photos look good - many buyers won't buy items lying on a floor.

Good luck!

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While clothes is definitely oversaturated, a huge abrupt change is likely due to the changes in search algorithm.

In this case, CSR's 100% confirmed with me that approximately the 15th was scheduled changes to make the new catalog more important. So I would definitely try to make sure items are appearing in the new catalog. At the very least, the new catalog helps exposure, so even if it's not the cause of this issue it will help.

This might be problematic for clothes, especially if the clothes is a unique make, or a brand that is not very prevalent.

Might I ask, since you are in the same category as the OP, did you have any abrupt changes in sales as well recently? 

If the new catalog does not solve the issue, it may be a good time to research what statistics might be weighed more or less heavily by the recent update.

After June, I did notice that free returns had a pretty noticable boost in search results (in our category at least). Although I 100% understand that free returns is an extremely iffy subject in the Clothes category (easily exploitable).

I haven't found any other variables that seem to be weighed very heavily since June aside from that. Although we likely had some weights of search variables change in the update alongside the new catalog in September. It's just too early to tell.