Did anybody else have an epically poor sales day? 7/26/22

[paraquip]

Today I will have my worst sales day EVER since selling on the platform for 23 years.     As of 6 PM tonight I have had a $9.17 sales day.    Which was 98.8% less than the same period last month.

This again has me questioning what exactly is going on with the Ebay selling platform.  Sales down now well over 70%, listings and impression down in excess of 60%

No changes to to my product mix, advertising and I still have the lowest pricing in the category.

Is anybody else seeing this?

HK

[worldwide_ship]

Welp! Officially 24 hours without a sale. First time in over 10 years. I seriously feel like crying. eBay was most of my revenue 

[whereruladybug]

I have had zero sales for the second day in a row. Nothing has changed in my listings or promos. 

[kathieskorner]

I have 4 accounts each with different types of inventory about 1000 total listings - I have had a total of 2 sales - both fabric - in the past week - an all time low in 22 years.  Like Mr. Lincoln I have a monthly spreadsheet of ebay sales from the beginning, and 2022 is the worst by far.  

As the weather has been so hot I have spent some time tracking impressions and views.  While the new view system supposedly eliminating bots is helpful - it has exposed some worrisome trends.   What is most disturbing is that 96% of my listings for the past 3 months have no views for the first week, and I have had only 2 sales total in the first week items are listed.  That is far from normal.   And at the end of 30 days - 43% of my listings have 0 views,  36% have only 1 view,  only 19% have 2 or more views, and 2% sold.  

The five years prior to 2022 without a store - my average monthly sold rate was 8.75% despite being closed 12/4-12/25 each year.    And before the views and other spring changes January to April 2022 average monthly sold rate was already an anemic 5.3% with each month worse than the last. 

Since I don't use promoted listings, rarely list "free" shipping or items over $20 - I suspect that I am getting little exposure from the constantly changing eBay search algorithms especially since the new view counting system shows that my items over $20 almost always show more views than lower priced items. 

[njrtsr]

My sales have been great this week! Summer is the slow season for what I sell so it's all comparative to prior years' July sales. I've found that the general browser doesn't buy as much in the summer, but the specialist collector buys as much as usual, so I like to list more niche things (like railroading) in the summer.

[meme6253]

Are You Serious Or Joking??

[rugerskick]

Thats exactly what it is like.  Tap turns on, normal store behavior.  Tap turns off, store goes bye-bye.

[paraquip]

I have been witnessing the on / off tap since late last year.  

We I list an item I'll sell 2 immediately then nothing for 3 weeks then the remaining 48 in 3 days with no change to a listing

HK

[bonddm_07]

I'm still working on attaining multiple streams of income.  It is hard or maybe I just don't have the correct information and resources.

[laststopgeneralstore]

Even at that I still average about a 20-25% margin. Also my average order size is 3. I make most of my money on my higher priced items and vintage stuff where I average about 50% to 60% on. Multiply that by 25-30 sales per day & I do pretty well. eBay fee's are 12%, shipping cost is on average $4.50(we charge $6.95) COGS is $3 or under & photographing/listings takes under 3 minutes to do & shipping is a breeze because I pre-pack/weight all of my items so can ship up to 100 individual orders in under an hour. On average shipping take about 15 to 20 minutes per day. I make about $125 to $150 per day working under 5 hours a day 5 days per week, so around $30 to $35 an hour but I could care less about hourly rate, it's the freedom of time to do other things I enjoy that is worth more to me than the money or some hourly rate plus it's only going to keep going up anyway, by next year that should double. Really isn't that bad at all. I still make money on the clearance stuff but most of my money comes from other higher priced items. Our organic to promoted sales are 70% & 30% respectively so we don't spend a lot in promoted listing fee's either. Things get much easier when you nich down into a single category.

[laststopgeneralstore]

lol, you can't sit here and complain about slow sales when you only take 1 dismal photo & then don't accept returns on top of that. Not to mention you are not selling stuff that people want. If I came across something in your store and saw that it only had 1 single photo and on top saw that you don't even accept returns then I would leave immediately too. Buyers need to be confident when they purchase something online from a complete stranger & not having enough photos or describing it good enough & not offering returns is going to be a turn off for most. Put a little more effort into your store, source better items that people want & then maybe you'll see some more sales & traffic.

[kathieskorner]

First of all. I have not had an eBay store since 2017.   And for 22 years I have had listed a no returns policy (although I have never turned down a return request) and rarely take more than one photo.  I keep my descriptions short and don't include extraneous TOS.  I don't list items as rare or mint (or even new unless I was the original purchaser), and many of my customers find their purchase better than expected.     I have an extensive feedback history with 100% rating on all four accounts. 

As for sourcing better inventory - over 70% of my inventory are freebies from family and friends - many of whom have passed on.   The rest comes from charity thrift stores and the occasional neighborhood yard sale.   What doesn't sell on eBay in a reasonable amount of time usually winds up in the semi-annual neighborhood yard sale or a charity thrift store. 

I had a brick and mortar consignment store which I closed 20 years ago - I just finished listing the last tub of stuff leftover from the store.   This is now only a hobby for me (although still a business as far as the IRS is concerned) - an effort to recycle and find new homes for vintage and collectible items  so they don't wind up in landfills as well as a means to supplement my retirement income.  I have no desire to be a used clothes seller or a made in China outlet. 

What you view as complaining is merely some observations from my years of experience on eBay.  The continual changes eBay makes to their search algorithms, categories, and item specifics every time a new management team takes over while benefiting some sellers who buy into putting extra money into eBay coffers for a few more sales - often shuts out others who are not paying extra or selling the current favored items. 

Things get much easier when you nich down into a single category.   - That much is true because it usually increases visibility especially if one is paying a store subscription fee. 

[zamo-zuan]

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@inhawaii wrote:

Yes.

Zero sales so far today.

It's all ebay's fault.

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 Even if you don't believe eBay has problems, why would you mock people that are having problems? Seems pretty heartless.

This is besides the fact that it's been very well documented that eBay's tweaks, glitches, and algorithm changes have caused drastic drops. EBay even admit it.

I mean we can look at my own thread where in 2020, many of us saw huge drops and eBay confirmed it was a "test".

EBay admitted to this. A test, on live eBay data, that affects the livelihoods of sellers.

So why mock people and pretend eBay is blameless and that they haven't ADMIT to doing things like the OP explains? Is it really that much of a priority to defend eBay that we should dismiss their own behavior and what they have admitted to?

All regardless of the fact that throttling/limiting was admitted by eBay reps in the past...

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Wound up with 2 days of no sales.  I do very rarely have a no sales day, but it's been a long time since I've had 2 in a row.   Thankfully, woke up to a 2 sales so far today.  

[norskmediashop]

same issue here, no sales in 2 days and prior to that was a fairly constant flow. We reported the issue to ebay and they said :  this is a traffic algorithm update on our site, rest assured that we will do everything here to fully updated your account.   whatever that means, but he sounded like they have been getting multiple reports on this and a change was made resulting in sales being turned off. Hopefully it gets fixed fast, were all paying too much money a month in fees here etc for this to be happening. 

[mr_lincoln]

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@norskmediashop wrote:

same issue here, no sales in 2 days and prior to that was a fairly constant flow. We reported the issue to ebay and they said :  this is a traffic algorithm update on our site, rest assured that we will do everything here to fully updated your account.   whatever that means, but he sounded like they have been getting multiple reports on this and a change was made resulting in sales being turned off. Hopefully it gets fixed fast, were all paying too much money a month in fees here etc for this to be happening. 

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@norskmediashop   Well, at least on the phone rep level they are acknowledging an issue with their algorithms ... that is certainly a start ... hope the tech guys are hard at work trying to figure it out ...

Mr. L