EBAY STILL FLATLINED. Is the end near? What if sales drop below the cost of listings?

[darrellschweitzer_pa]

I am concerned I will not be able to pay for my listing and subscription fees out of declining eBay sales. With over 1300 listings I have sold one $3 item this week.

So I am thinking of, at the very least, a reduction strategy, which is to invite friends and customers over and sell them books from my eBay stock, deleting those listings as I go. If am am still losing money by having listings, I may have to cease selling altogether. Is this what eBay wants? I fear they may be suicidal and in denial about what they are doing.

The promotions seemed to help momentarily, but sales have collapsed again. The change is in eBay, not me, because I did far better with the same listings or the same type of listings before GTC. It wasn't even that Good Till Cancelled itself was a bad idea. I manually relisted most of my listings every month. Something has happened to make them invisible.

[goldrushfinds]

Politics are really a no no! Nobody wins that argument!

You are right, and I am sorry. It just causes me such deep inner pain and fear to see people being manipulated and the fabric of our country being torn apart. Sometimes it's hard to not challenge others on issues you feel so strongly about. I will try to take my battles to more appropriate forums.

[rock_crushers_unlimited]

Oh no trust me ebay knows same problem here. My sales are gone. My invoice for the last month from Ebay was $2.90  They are pushing all the small sellers out. They want to try and force you to go sponsored ads. AKA PAY US MORE. Little do they know its pushing buyers away also. Buyers dont want to see sponsored ads most of that dont even come close to what your looking for in the first place. 

[laurabeardsley]

Like I said before, the next quarterly earnings report will tell all.

[dtexley3]

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@laurabeardsley wrote:

Like I said before, the next quarterly earnings report will tell all.

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Sorry, but that prediction is made.... about every three months...

[sakic92710]

eBay only works well if you get 'hot' items.  The Toronto Raptors were winning & I had a nice May simply because I was selling team flags.  Also, I bought a collection of Boy Scouts Canada items & they were selling well.  It made for a better than average month.  After I sold out of flags & my listings became less exposed, my sales for last week dropped down to 8.  Previous 2 weeks - 42 & 43 sales.  Without hot or new in demand items, eBay is a complete hit & miss now.  If you don't get that 1 buyer who wants your item(s), your sales will dry up here.  Even selling items of high value is difficult anymore.  Most of my sales go for less than $15-20.   Good luck getting a buyer to spend $200 on something that NO ONE ELSE has listed.  Zero competition does not equal an easy sale anymore.  Good luck to us all.     🙂

[cs497kcpope]

I hate those sponsored adds! And you are right buyers do not want to see them either! And it certainly does not help us eBay sellers it just takes buyers away from eBay! eBay will try to make money anyway they can even if it is throwing their sellers under the bus!!

[rograc-37]

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@dtexley3 wrote:

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@laurabeardsley wrote:

Like I said before, the next quarterly earnings report will tell all.

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Sorry, but that prediction is made.... about every three months...

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And how sad is that?

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[laurabeardsley]

About as sad as my sales right now!

[rograc-37]

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@laurabeardsley wrote:

About as sad as my sales right now!

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I hear you. I can't believe the people I'm dealing with these days. It's like the paupers wanting to own the castle and not pay for it. Unreal.  I don't sell garbage, I sell antiques. It used to be a great site for collectors. Many knew more than I did and I probably sold a lot of very expensive stuff at bargain basement prices.

That being said, my life has been a learning process for decades and I'm not going to give away my business for the sake of thieves let alone customers.

[moonbloodstone]

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@darrellschweitzer_pa wrote:

I am concerned I will not be able to pay for my listing and subscription fees out of declining eBay sales. With over 1300 listings I have sold one $3 item this week.

So I am thinking of, at the very least, a reduction strategy, which is to invite friends and customers over and sell them books from my eBay stock, deleting those listings as I go. If am am still losing money by having listings, I may have to cease selling altogether. Is this what eBay wants? I fear they may be suicidal and in denial about what they are doing.

The promotions seemed to help momentarily, but sales have collapsed again. The change is in eBay, not me, because I did far better with the same listings or the same type of listings before GTC. It wasn't even that Good Till Cancelled itself was a bad idea. I manually relisted most of my listings every month. Something has happened to make them invisible.

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I did look at Your listings. I buy mostly Non-Fiction, research related items. When I went into Your store I mostly saw Science fiction. I did go to the left and try and find the books that I would read OR collect. One the left I see it is possible to put a TOPIC in the Item Specifics. I did not see any of your books listed by TOPIC. Perhaps that would help You in search. I did know some of the Authors of the science fiction You had, but normally For research and Non-fiction books, I don't know the Author. I then do a search for topics. 

One of Your published works the listing was confusing to me. At first, I did not realize that YOU were the Author of the book. Then You said..."

Normally unsigned, but I will sign it for you. (You could show a picture of the title page signed by You.) I can say, objectively because I am not the artist,  You don't consider writing as being the ARTIST?  I DO! that this is a beautiful book, exhibiting the master illustrator FABIAN at the height of his powers.  ( show me pictures ofsome of Fabians illustrations, I have bought books because I like the drawings.)I can also point out that for all I may do a lot of conventions and sign everything in sight, he does not. (Despite my long professional relationship with him I have only met him twice.) Therefore his signature is a lot scarcer than mine. Now, as for the actual content, this is, I believe, and was certainly assembled at the time to be my best collection. 19 of my very best stories, from the 1990s mostly, ( what are the best stories? I don't care where they were first published I care about the stories themselves. How about a picture of the chapter page?) originally published in MASQUES IV, INTERZONE, MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY'S FANTASY MAG, FEAR, WEIRD TALES, DARK DESTINY, PULPHOUSE, etc. I can give you my Personal Guarantee, which is that if you can read this cover-to-cover and not find anything you like, you have my permission to given up reading my fiction and I won't bother you again. I can honestly speculate that this probably would have made the World Fantasy Award ballot if it had been submitted to the judges. It wasn't because 1) Paul Ganley was one of the judges and there would have been a conflict of interest and 2) NECROMANCIES AND NETHERWORLDS (see the previous listing) got on the ballot and we decided not to compete against it. But this is my best. No kidding. THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION said of this book, "The real imaginary country is where all fantasy writers are this good." Yeah, they liked it.

The price being asked is the publishers' list price. The publishers are both semi-retired these days so I've got the remaining stock in my garage. So this book doesn't get much distribution anymore, alas. Note that the copy in the picture shows the jacket in a mylar protector. The one you receive will be like this."

ALL OF THIS SEEMS SO RUN_ON and Not saying much...I struck through what was not important to selling the book. I don't read science fiction very much so You need to convince me that I want to read THE BOOK.  I added in red MHO which might not be worth much...I do buy books. 

1. So, I would reword some of Your descriptions in the listing. It is better to use Lists in the listing.
2. Take out Nonrelated opinions.
3. I would add more pictures. More pictures seem to get more views from eBay. (People say to use ALL 12 Pictures)
4. I would add somewhere that YOU are the Author selling YOUR OWN BOOKS. (always a plus)
5. I would add that YOU will do personal signatures for gifts. [example: Pam ?????, (another plus)]
6. Be sure and ADD topics. (I did see that You did have topics listed but they did not come up when I tried to drill down a search.) Perhaps that feature is broken! 
7. You do combine orders on shipping...why don't You state something about how You figure out the prices...for example 2 books are $6.00, 3 books is $8.00, etc. 

I like many people do not read many books now. I do read and BUY some books but mostly research books. Sinch Your Own books are NEW, You can sign them,  and can be possibly be sold on another venue. try a book dedicated site. I buy more of My books on book dedicated sites. 

I am so sorry that You are losing sales. I do think books sale are slowly dying. My Son who is 31 only keeps textbooks, research material, and some collectible books. (he does like science fiction. ) My daughter who is 30 does not have any books in her house except for a few cookbooks I have given her. She does listen to books on apps that read the books to her. Times are really changing. Have You thought about READING YOUR BOOKS TO Sell on some of the book reading apps? I do genealogy and read many "old" books on Arcivers.com. 

[turquoisetulips]

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@goldrushfinds wrote:
And there's the rub . The Washington post is commonly referred to as '' fake'' news . Tulips

Oh please. You are not buying into the Trump mantra of "Fake News" are you? He calls the media the 'enemy of the people. He is a total nut and trying to spread mistrust in the media and our intelligence agencies. He is destroying our relations with our allies. He has exploded the national debt, given huge tax cuts to the rich, cut consumer protection and environmental regulations, and begun cutting interest rates when we have a supposed strong economy. This will not end well. But first and foremost, I do not like a president who undercuts our media. He is like a despot/dictator. He is the pot calling the kettle black (one of the biggest cons and liars of all time).

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I buy into the most legitimate source there is  whose stats prove the Washington post is fake news . The current U.S economy is in very good shape  in spite of one reporters partisan  opinion . Tulips 

[turquoisetulips]

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@goldrushfinds wrote:
And there's the rub . The Washington post is commonly referred to as '' fake'' news . Tulips

Oh please. You are not buying into the Trump mantra of "Fake News" are you? He calls the media the 'enemy of the people. He is a total nut and trying to spread mistrust in the media and our intelligence agencies. He is destroying our relations with our allies. He has exploded the national debt, given huge tax cuts to the rich, cut consumer protection and environmental regulations, and begun cutting interest rates when we have a supposed strong economy. This will not end well. But first and foremost, I do not like a president who undercuts our media. He is like a despot/dictator. He is the pot calling the kettle black (one of the biggest cons and liars of all time).

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The national debt tripled during the Obama era ..  I can easily provide the statistics  for that  by  bi partisan sources . Tulips 

[turquoisetulips]

You lost me at "The Washington Post... is fake news." tools  

The  Wa . post opinion piece  regarding  the U.S  economy   was fake news . What was written flies in direct contrast to reality .  The statistics I provided were from the most reliable source there is. Tulips 

[goldrushfinds]

The national debt tripled during the Obama era ..  I can easily provide the statistics  for that  by  bi partisan sources . Tulips 

I have to respecfully disagree with your conclusion. One very big difference was that when Obama entered office he inherited an economy in disaster (recession bordering on depression), while Trump entered office in a healthy and improving economy. Obama had no choice but to expand the debt somewhat in order to stimulate the economy and try to pull us out of the recession. Trump on the other hand did what is not generally considered wise, which was to stimulate an already healthy economy with tax cuts, increasing debt and cutting of regulations. Just my opinion and no hard feelings.

[rixstuff]

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@goldrushfinds wrote:

The national debt tripled during the Obama era ..  I can easily provide the statistics  for that  by  bi partisan sources . Tulips 

I have to respecfully disagree with your conclusion. One very big difference was that when Obama entered office he inherited an economy in disaster (recession bordering on depression), while Trump entered office in a healthy and improving economy. Obama had no choice but to expand the debt somewhat in order to stimulate the economy and try to pull us out of the recession. Trump on the other hand did what is not generally considered wise, which was to stimulate an already healthy economy with tax cuts, increasing debt and cutting of regulations. Just my opinion and no hard feelings.

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Yep.  If the economy had been at normal levels we would have had a serious surplus given how deep the hole was and how high the economy was when Obama left. But Trump promised an ill-advised tax cut - that REALLY DID benefit mostly the wealthy* - and that tax collection shortfall is gonna bite us SOON.

*I know SO MANY PEOPLE who not only didn't get tax refunds but also OWED taxes.  And these are lower and middle income people so coming up with the money to pay is gonna be hard.

PS-There was a surplus when Bill Clinton left office.  But then came  W's tax rebates followed immediately by 9/11 and poof that was gone.