Ebay Sales completely stopped in last 2 months October 2022

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Hello, I have been on ebay for 20 years selling off and on. I opened my ebay stores in 2013 and have been having great sales until the last 2 1/2 years. Sales have been declining slowly and steady for the last year and a half. 2021 and 2022 have been horrible nothing but a downward spiral..

I have done updating, relisting, sell similar, new listings, new pics, updated coded listings, added promo, having sales 10%-15% off. new titles Nothing is giving. 

I know my listings are not being found on the search results. I'm pretty much ghosted even though i can see them myself. No page impressions.. Not to mention china sellers are always at the top of the search results because of multiple never ending new accounts from the  same seller and low prices.

This is it I'm calling it quits as the business has dwindled to $100 dollar weeks. 

I sell industrial filtering media so the demand will be there. I keep reading how online shopping  is down all around ebay, posh, mercari etc. This is an ebay issue.  Looks like they are weeding out sellers quickly.

ebay sent me a message to try the new beta marketing campaign $500 off **bleep**! to get listings at the top of search results. 

Anybody having a similar experience, I would like to hear from you. 

[hook-and-hanger]

Sale mostly clothes but other items as well. Had great sales, 98 items January and 95 in February, and from that point on sales went way down. Used to be most of my sales came from Ebay but now it completely flopped and most of my sales come from Poshmark.  Hardley any likes or clicks on Ebay and all kinds of likes and purchases on Poshmark.  I'm a top rated Saler, have a store front, list and re-list all the time and use promoted listing on everything. Not much more I can do except shake my head at the people selling items for $1 with free shipping and all the drop shippers taking over the site. Instead of Ebay the site needs to be called Ebayazon

[tjsoula]

First, thank you for posting this question, because at least I know I'm not entirely crazy :)! I've found it so weird that my sales have all but disappeared in the last month or so, when they were very consistent (especially on weekends) before. I wondered all of the same things that so many of those who've responded were wondering (do I need new photos? are my prices wrong? send more offers?). I didn't realize ebay internally was making changes to their algorithms. All I know for sure is that nothing is selling. I mean, this week I may have sold $30 worth, not taking into account ebay's commissions/fees (I don't have an ebay store, I'm just a small seller of mostly vintage and antique items).

I sure hope ebay figures it out soon, but in the meantime, maybe I will go look for another selling platform. I wish you the best, and thank you again for letting me know I'm not alone in the drastic sales reduction!

[dwtrading2015]

I started a thread re sales crashing again from start Sept in UK.  With occasional blips, I am now down to sales similar to when this was a hobby for holiday money.  I have an exit strategy looking to return to work and abandon the eBay shop.  

Some particular issue  I have found;

Overall impressions are directly managed.  They have dropped from 140,000 two years ago in distinct steps to then run at a steady plateau for some months until the next step down. Last month there was a brief rise from 40,000 to 60,000 but then stepped down again and now reduced to the lowest ever at 30,000.  This happens irrespective of any type of promotion (except pay per click which I once tried on Etsy and would never touch again - paying for people to browse wiped out all profit?).

I noticed with the impressions when ramping up the promotion % all that happened was the organic listing reduced and the promoted increased. In fact the promotion rate seems to have no impact on impressions overall.  I simply have a higher proportion fees on the same number of sales.

The next issue I have found is what seems to be a complete change in search methodology.  The other day I did a search or a new PC with a few processor type keywords like i3, i5, i7 and so on.  In previous years, I would see several hundred results that I could then filter and browse.  In computers the search result was zero, nothing, nowt!  Frankly that should be next to impossible (and yes it was all categories with no filters).   I've been doing many other searches on things I looked for over the years and now frequently get no match where before I would be expecting many.  It seems the search no longer complies part matches and attempts to match the entire search string.

Basically the new search is a complete failure and across a number of these threads the same comment is being raised, nobody can find anything anymore. 

Whilst there is disposable income issues, such downturns tend to be overblown and it is big ticket items like cars and white goods that are more affected.  

It should be blindingly obvious now to all levels at eBay that recent changes to the search methodology have been catastrophic to the business model.  If eBay do not role back the search algorithm to how it worked previously immediately then what should be the peak sales period will be disastrous.  Hundreds of thousands of buyers are being lost permanently as they move on to google search and then led to other platforms. 

[rosiecat11]

Yes, agree with all comments, my sales have declined to virtually zero in the last 6 weeks. 

Lost my premium rated seller status/top rated after issues with Royal Mail late deliveries, and deceitful buyers saying one of my items was not genuine, this was from someone that knows nothing about genuine fragrances. Nasty buyers  changing their mind when they don't want an item they have purchased, so they make up a false accusation in regards to sending the item back, so the seller pays for return postage after sending the item freepost to the buyer. 

Yet again the seller always looses out.

Ebay don't care about helping top rated sellers to maintain their account which I have had for 12 years, yes, 12 years of paying huge fees with no help from Ebay.

[craft-stash]

eBay is a joke...I had 1 sale in the last 4 days here in November!!!!

I have paid my store fee out of pocket the last 2 months with 1400 items with a value of 10k and cant even make $100 a week!

Ebay staff has ghosted this thread as all others on this topic too!

Hellooooooo ebay!

[craft-stash]

Hi kyle@ebay 

We need this problem addressed.

Many, many sellers are not seeing any sales at all. What is the real problems with ebay. We need real answers beyond some monthly CHAT.

eBay needs a REAL professional line of dialogue with sellers.

Today is the day. 

[tjm_creations]

I liked what I read and that's the way to go can't have all your eggs in one basket.

[dolcetreasures]

I don’t agree with the general consensus here that the slow sales are due to the economy. There are currently far more millionaires than ever before, and at a much younger age, meaning these people have significantly more earning potential for the rest of their lives. 

I can speak for some of the items that I sell as I’m familiar with the corporate entities. Some of these brands are experiencing extremely high in-store and online sales. In some cases, sales are at their highest levels in-store. 

[libr7934]

Yes I am having same problem. Horrible. 

[awlhobbies]

Same here.  Last year at this time I was getting 700+ views a day on my products.  I only have about 20.  I was doing about 10-15 sales a day.  Views as of last week were like 70 a day.  I have changed a lot of stuff, increased PL, and am close to 200 a day again.  Yesterday I sold 5, but that was after weeks of selling next to nothing.  Maybe 1 item every 2-3 days.  

I called ebay, and they said everything was normal with my account, and my views were on par with other sellers of the same items.  I tried to ask them to compare it to last year, but I just got canned responses.  "all normal, nothing to see here, be happy we let you sell with us."  Selling for 19 years.  It is a full time gig now, but not for long if this keeps up.

[2umbrellas]

Hi,

Just notice ebay is charging the commision on the total including tax. anyone having the same issue?

[awlhobbies]

Yes.  They started that a few months back.  Nice isn't it.

[femmefan1946]

does it make sense to pay more (20-25%) out of a sale

We can choose to promote at any level over 2%.

Paying 20-25%  for PL?

Again, eBay is not your friend, eBay is your landlord.

You can still choose to ignore PL and go for discounts to customers.

In fact, your PL rate can be successful at a price that would not interest a bargain hunting customer.

A 5% discount doesn't really attract buyers. A 5% Promoted Listing might be the one shown to the customer first.

[laserpartshq2]

I'm convinced that if you want to see more sales, you will have to sell all your items at under what you paid for them.  Just remember, it will be just a matter of time before your out of business.

[wheredidiputthatremote]

August & September were great.  Start of 4th Q (October and so far Nov.) not so much.