Big slowdown in Sales

[leerob538]

I am a small seller of sports cards, & I have been selling on ebay for over 15 years. The drop off in sales is dramatic. If anyone has a suggestion to boost sales let me know. I am going to breakdown & give promotional listings a try. I'll let you all know How that goes. !

[mthbill]

I have been an intermittent Ebay seller for well over 20 years, stop for a year or two, go heavy for a few months, stop and go selling...

Been noticing things are selling very slowly this latest go around. 

The only explanation I have to the bad selling environment is a really Bad Economy!

People are worried about feeding their families, buying Gas ($4.59/Gallon Yesterday), paying utilities, finding baby formula plus their rent/mortgage.

Unemployment is at a forty year high!

Probably more people selling to raise extra cash in extremely tough economic times.

Ebay **bleep** off sellers regularly by bad billing practices Fees on shipping charges and Sales Tax.

[gemfire59]

I have 2 items that I use promoted listings. When I first started the promotion years ago I set the percent higher then eBay recommendations. Did very well for a long time,. Last year eBay recommended that I increase the promoted listings percent higher.  I had already changed prices for shipping cost, fees which also increased what they receive from me. The fact that their recommendation was double what I am using says hey this item sells very well and we need more of a cut. Last two months I have sold hardly any of those items. I realized the economy is slow and people are not spending the money but to drop from selling over 20 of the same item a month to nothing makes me feel that not raising the promoted listing per eBay request that eBay has put my items on the back burner. 

[comicscauldron]

My sales also dropped since last week and i also sell collectibles so we are in the same page. Habits die hard.. so people will not stop buying cards or comics or another collectible. . But... right now people are afraid of the economy, that fear will go away in a couple of weeks or maybe less. Its a good time to rethink the business. I created tons of listings this week with more "affordable prices" and i improved my listings with 1 day handling. Ebay wants me to become a "Top seller plus" by giving free returns but i am totally against that business model. 

[dnasilver]

"Unemployment is at a forty year high!" Why make such a false statement that is so easy to verify? 

[m60driver]

---

@mthbill wrote:

The only explanation I have to the bad selling environment is a really Bad Economy!

---

It is far more complicated than the economy and the economy itself is a very, very complicated massive leviathan.  People are getting out and about after being in some version of quarantine for two years.  They are not sitting in front of a computer shopping.  From what I hear, brick and mortar stores are busy.  The inflation is partly a result of increased demand as a result of a booming economy from higher wages and lower unemployment.  As I said, the economy is very complicated and further complicated by people believing in the really big lie, a lie perpetuated by people on both sides of the political aisle,  that somehow capital trickles down when, in our system of capitalism, it relentlessly percolates upwards.  Those on the upward flow of the capital are not bothered by the inflation while those at the bottom are, well they are joining the throngs of the homeless.  Don't ask what in your wallet, ask what type of society do you want to live in.  Do we really need billionaires who inevitably morph into oligarchs?

[dnasilver]

First three months were record breaking by a large margin. Yep things have slowed. We removed two thirds of our listing and decided the next 4 to 6 months would be great for traveling. So off we will go Sunday and see where the roads lead.

[kensgiftshop]

@leerob538 

Don't know how it is in other places, but around here, people are tired of all the **bleep** coming from sports teams last couple years.

Myself, I haven't watched a football game in about 3 years.

[ozwyzard59]

My sales have dropped off dramatically since February ,2022.  I agree with the comment by  "m60drvr" that it is a complicated climate. Inflation is high. There is a war going on between Ukraine and Russia which is affecting global food and energy prices. I believe it is " fear of the unknown " which is prompting people to spend their money only on essentials at the moment. Most eBay item for sale I consider to be non-essential; hence the drop in sales.

[genv]

In our B&M... Sports Cards, save for RARE which the super flush wealthy will plunk down cash for, (after asking for a discount) are DOWN, big time, from last year... TRAFFIC in B&M died once Holiday Shopping was over... People are blowing big money on trips, shows, eating out... Reveling in NO MASKS as the Covid Variant rises, again... People will stuff themselves at a restaurant where you can't get out for less than $25 a meal... Yet, whine when you ask $10 for an item... GAS is up, yet, so is TRAFFIC & SPEEDING, which uses more gallons... Cars are up 30% in price, yet, LOTS of new ones being driven... POSTAGE & FEES on the WHOLE PAY is KILLING selling affordable items... There is resistance to paying $9.99 for an item & $9.99 for postage... And, selling an item for $9.99 to net $4.00 makes it more appealing to sell it for $5.00 at the local Flea Mkt... It is a perfect storm & a changed economy... Athletes & CEOS are making tens of millions a year & most of us are struggling more than ever... eBay is simply a mirror image of what is the world, today.

[flashtone]

All other platforms doing well for us, but ebay does a few updates and our 1600 listings get zero views and 1 sale over 2 days. Yeah it's not the encomy it's the algorithm. Happens every update, but never this bad.  I can't recommend ebay to any sellers anymore and there are 3 other platforms that are doing way better.

[d.amber]

Sports cards is a tough and very competitive market.  I'm not sure what real suggestion I have for such a busy field, but be careful about the fees added for promotional listings.  I would be interested to know if it makes a difference.  I avoid the extra fees, but in your field it might be needed.  Good luck

[onefootflipper]

I specialize in cards. Unfortunately low end sports cards are just terrible because the space is flooded with hobby sellers who value their time at zero and some who just straight up lose money on every sale. (Anyone selling and shipping a card in a top loader for 99 cents shipped is losing money on every sale and there are always people doing it).

I don't do a LOT of sports cards, but one suggestion is to possibly alter your pricing model. You seem to have a $1.99 free shipping minimum price. I find that it isn't worth pulling and packing a single card for the money left over from that, AND the free shipping model means you have customers who buy multiple cards buying them all in separate transactions hitting you with that base transaction fee every single time.

I do minimum price of $1.99 plus 73 cents shipping and I have shipping set up to autocombine cards for no extra shipping cost. It seems the same to the casual person who searchs a single card and sees your listing, and it encourages them to buy more than one card to save money. In fact I now have my minimum price cards set up to be buy 3 get 1 free to help turn a few of those $2 orders into $6 ones. 

Example, I got $1.99 plus 73 cents shipping for that same Archie Prototype promo card that you have listed for $1.99. That same card has managed to sell from $2 shipped up to $4.99 shipped from other sellers in recent memory.

[inhawaii]

My sales are down a little. 

I don't blame ebay. In 22 years I never have. 

If people want what i'm selling, they will buy it. 

If they don't want what i'm selling, they won't buy it.

It's all on me. I take responsibility if my sales are slow or if sales are good. 

Keep in mind that there are others sellers out there who's sales are UP.

You just won't see them on the boards complaining about it. 

Sales fluctuate daily/weekly/monthly/yearly.  That is normal.

[onlinecentral]

The NASDAQ is almost 30% lower than its peak in November of 2021. Cryptocurrency crashed this week. Those investors may be selling some of their collectables to raise cash. It may take a while for demand for non essentials like collectables to recover.