Had enough of eBay...

[sangetsu03]

This year I received my 10 year anniversary badge as a seller on eBay. I have done about $700,000 sales on eBay over that time, but have gotten tired of the nonsense which eBay keeps dumping on sellers which they call "improvements." 

The COVID crisis has been troublesome, I sell from Japan, and because of the restrictions in flights I am forced to use a shipping service which eBay does not track. As a result, none of my sales can be tracked through eBay, and therefore I cannot meet eBay's shipping time requirements. And because of this, my listings are buried or not promoted, and sales have dwindled to almost nothing.  Way to go eBay, in punishing me for doing nothing wrong, you are now not receiving the $700 in monthly fees you used to make from my sales, last month my fees added up to a whopping $28. 

Thankfully I started selling on Etsy some time back, and am getting better sales there than I ever got on eBay. I then set up my own web store which I linked to a Youtube channel, and my first month's sales are nearly 4 times what I sold on eBay during the same month. 

I will not add any more listings to my eBay store, when what I have is sold out, that will be it. I will keep my account for an occasional purchase. 

It is quite sad, it looks like eBay will be the Sears of internet retail. Thankfully sellers have other options. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@sangetsu03 wrote:

This year I received my 10 year anniversary badge as a seller on eBay. I have done about $700,000 sales on eBay over that time, but have gotten tired of the nonsense which eBay keeps dumping on sellers which they call "improvements." 

The COVID crisis has been troublesome, I sell from Japan, and because of the restrictions in flights I am forced to use a shipping service which eBay does not track. As a result, none of my sales can be tracked through eBay, and therefore I cannot meet eBay's shipping time requirements. And because of this, my listings are buried or not promoted, and sales have dwindled to almost nothing.  Way to go eBay, in punishing me for doing nothing wrong, you are now not receiving the $700 in monthly fees you used to make from my sales, last month my fees added up to a whopping $28. 

Thankfully I started selling on Etsy some time back, and am getting better sales there than I ever got on eBay. I then set up my own web store which I linked to a Youtube channel, and my first month's sales are nearly 4 times what I sold on eBay during the same month. 

I will not add any more listings to my eBay store, when what I have is sold out, that will be it. I will keep my account for an occasional purchase. 

It is quite sad, it looks like eBay will be the Sears of internet retail. Thankfully sellers have other options. 

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Would it work for you just to create your listings on the Japanese version of eBay? Then any shipping services provided should still be traceable through eBay.

-Lotz

[sangetsu03]

I am replying to my own post as an update. Nearly 2 years ago I started a Youtube channel promoting my products, mainly to drive traffic to eBay and my other stores. The channel has done well, and I have gotten about 5000 subscribers, and Youtube is paying me around $300 per month in ad revenue fees. But Youtube traffic has not helped my eBay sales much, last month I got only $300 in sales. 

However, Youtube has caused a great increase in traffic to my Etsy and online store. Etsy sales were more than $9000 last month, sales at my online store were $7000. Etsy's fees are higher than eBay's, and I pay them nearly $1000 per month, but at least they are giving me sales. My online store has no fees, other than the annual hosting charge. 

For those who want to escape from eBay, it is certainly possible