Is eBay dead?

[thriftnaddiction]

Have y'all been having unusually low activity, views, watchers, sales?  I normally sell at least 3-4 items per day on average and I have had 3 days in the past week or so with a big fat goose egg.  Just curious if there's a glitch in the infamous algorithm or something?  Thanks for your input ahead of time.

[tarotfindsandmore]

Yep! After a very nice Sunday, Monday was complete crickets and yesterday was also very quiet.  I've been watching the down detector and the technical issues board.  There definitely was something amiss Monday and the down detector shows a couple of big spikes today as well.

https://downdetector.com/status/ebay/

[gac-stop]

Until the end of January, things were okay. But once February kicked in, sales started dropping. Surprisingly, this has been the worst Valentine's Day week we've ever had. It's tax filing season, so let's be hopeful. And if Elon's DOGE $5,000 gets approved and hits consumers' bank accounts, the economy will be stimulated for quite some time

[inhawaii]

Slow sales?

It must be a glitch in the algorithm.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

I have had a slow month, this month. It happens.

[reallynicestamps]

I ship from Canada, and January to March is normally my busiest time of the year.

In 2024, there was no down time even over the holiday period.

And 2025 has been normal (that is - busy) until this past weekend.

My sales are usually 80-85% USA, 10% Canada (domestic), and 5-10% overseas.

This past weekend, I had NO sales to the USA, Canada made up 80% of the shipments, and the rest went overseas (UK ).

My shipments today were 50/50 Canada and USA.

No drop off in number or value, just in destinations.

[reallynicestamps]

Did y'all know that we can see your sales over the last 90 days?
And that you can see your own, for the same period in more detail, on your Selling->Orders-> All Orders list?

I wonder if some sellers get the number of their sales and the value of their sales confused and think sales are off when they get a run of low value sales?

DH used to get in a fuss thinking that sales were off when he had not dealt with some of his regulars for a few days. He dealt with the high rollers.

We started keeping paper records showing that Shop sales were ticking over nicely, he just never saw the $1000 a day in $5 to $50 sales that the rest of the staff handled.

[tarotfindsandmore]

What I typically do is look at high volume sellers when I see a steep drop in sales all of the sudden.  I have about a half dozen very high volume sellers favorited.  If their sales are normal, I know it's just me.  If they too suddenly see a drop, I look at the down detector and the tech board. 

I never automatically assume it's "the algorithm" but I also don't believe that 2 days of no activity following a month without a single "goose egg" day means that "it's just slow."  I check my Performance page daily so I know exactly how I'm doing. 

The OP has a sell through rate similar to mine with a slightly larger store.  I suspect he/she has a pretty good sense of what is normal for him/her.  It's pretty easy for those of us who typically sell 100-150 items a month to see when there's a sudden drop, regardless of what the cause is.

I don't think ebay is dead but something definitely did go sideways on Monday.  

[annadryl]

Only three days and ebay has died? Watching some national news I've noticed some slight (extreme) weather events here and there lately...

[worldwide_ship]

How do you find out a sellers sell through rate?

[tarotfindsandmore]

You look at your solds page, versus your number of items listed.  

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&iconV2Request=true&_blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=tarotfindsandm...

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&iconV2Request=true&_blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=tarotfindsandm...

Obviously, you have to keep in mind your listing habits as well.  If you suddenly add a hundred new items to a small store like mine in a week, it's going to make it appear as though the sell through rate has dropped since the "solds" show your last 90 days.

[fbusoni]

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@thriftnaddiction wrote:

Have y'all been having unusually low activity, views, watchers, sales?  I normally sell at least 3-4 items per day on average and I have had 3 days in the past week or so with a big fat goose egg.  Just curious if there's a glitch in the infamous algorithm or something?  Thanks for your input ahead of time.

---

@thriftnaddiction 

I have been having the best first quarter I've ever experienced on eBay.

BUT... after 7 weeks of steady, consistent daily sales, I woke up this morning to find nothing, zip, nada.  Not a single sale.

I know that eBay is not punishing me by limiting the visibility of my listings:  I ship same day and offer paid 60 day returns, I have perfect metrics, perfect feedback from adoring buyers, and I have checked all the boxes recommended by eBay and am ALWAYS polite in my exchanges with buyers who message me.

So what the heck could be the problem?  In my opinion, its borderline-pointless to speculate... just as it is pointless for mortals to try to predict the stock market.

I will give it a few more days, and if the no-sales trend continues, I will shake things up, as I outlined in a previous discussion here.

[meme6253]

If they did die, I wish someone would have told me, I've been here for awhile i would have attended the funeral.

[puzzled.kangaroo]

HAHA,

If you find out, please let me know.

[lux.ra_14]

Whenever there's an auction item I'm interested in, there are usually multiple bidders -- and I often end up getting outbid.

Conclusion: eBay is not dead.