It’s better than it was but not as good as it used to be before it got to be as bad as it is.

[richard1rst]

According to Seller Hub my sales in the past 30 days are 22.8% above the previous 30 days. BUT the previous 30 days were way below average. So a 22.8% increase only sort of puts me back to normal.

BUT this is November and, in the lead up to Christmas, in past years November has always been way above average. So while I am of course pleased with the bounce back it really isn’t enough to get overly excited about.

Sales are not so bad that panic has raised its ugly head yet, but sales are down enough to give me some extra Think Time to consider alternatives.

But what are those alternatives?

Some other posters have mentioned a couple of sites where they seem to get better sales on clothing than they get here (I don’t remember the site’s names - and in any event I don’t sell clothes). Etsy exists but apparently only for artisan crafters, not conventional resellers. I tried Bonanza a while back and was dissatisfied. My own independent web site generated more sales than they did.

I sort of get the impression we are all adrift on the giant ocean liner Entropy in danger of sinking - and there are no life boats available.

If the new (or more correctly Returning) management team can not right the ship - where do we go?

Suggestions?

[monstertoybox]

You have a great store! So many cool things! You should be doing extremely well right now. This just shows you how bad it is (besides every other thread on this board).

Good luck to you! We're down by 73% from last year. This is usually our time of year, that we can count on to do well. But this year it's like we've been kicked to the curb.

[pink.fish.rule]

LOVE love love your thread title = )

[femmefan1946]

Be careful with those "previous month" statistics.

They are very literal.

Today the stats reflect Oct 15 to Nov 15, but tomorrow they will reflect Oct 16 to Nov 16.

Better are your own records.

I look at my (paper) records of my monthly sales and income, which are of course different things. 

That gives me better ideas of how things are going.

 I noticed this when my "previous month" stats went from865% or so up then dropped the next day to minus 10%. (Not exactly accurate but the first was a three number percentage jump and the second was a minus number.)

[richard1rst]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

Be careful with those "previous month" statistics.

They are very literal.

Today the stats reflect Oct 15 to Nov 15, but tomorrow they will reflect Oct 16 to Nov 16.

And that is as it should be. A comparison of 2 successive 30 day periods is perfectly acceptable regardless of the calendar date which is, after all, nothing more than a mark on the wall.

In fact you should do a comparison on the 15th, the 16th, the 17th, etc etc etc.

A series of daily comparisons gives what statisticians call a "rolling average"

A single comparison is just a statistic with a very limited useful life span. But a series of daily comparisons presents a trend which is infinitely more useful.

[gwzcomps]

I will be branching out to other sites next year for various reasons. eBay is no longer a good site to sell on unless a person is a masochist that enjoys being scammed by eBay.

[richard1rst]

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@gwzcomps wrote:
I will be branching out to other sites next year for various reasons. eBay is no longer a good site to sell on unless a person is a masochist that enjoys being scammed by eBay.

---

I have seen a large number of posts from sellers saying they were going elsewhere. But they never answer the underlying question- Where will you go?

[femmefan1946]

@richard1rst 

I agree, but I get the feeling that a lot of those panicked posts about drops in sales are because the poster did not understand that.

Which is why I have my own (paper) records.

And before you say "OK Boomer"  my records allow me to compare four IDs and two other websites, in two different currencies. 

I suppose that could be done on an Excel spreadsheet, but I am a technodolt.

[Anonymous]

Panic has raised it's ugly head FOR me!!! Good post and thanks!!

[kathieskorner]

 but I am a technodolt.

That pretty much describes me as well.   Since I learned basic math before hand held calculators and took accounting courses when computers were in their punch card infancy  I have been accustomed to keeping my own paper records of a financial nature for many years.   It may take a little time every month, but my numbers make more sense and give me a better picture than anything eBay provides.  

While I have daily numbers,  I generally view things from a calendar month basis which usually overlooks seasonal and holiday variations and weather events.  While October may have been slightly better overall than September - historically for me  that is normal.  Based on past years November sales should equal October's,  but I'm going to have a significant increase in sales over the next two weeks for that to happen.    

What is not normal is that every month from March 2019 to date have been 20 year historic lows - even worse than during the recession.    On a percentage basis my sales may have dropped more during the recession, but they also had a far longer way to go.    Every year since the recession sales increased a few percentage points each year until 2019 - January and February were normal but it has been a steep decline since March. 

Since I am closed half of December it is normally my slowest month of the year so I will wait until April to determine whether I will continue on or shut down completely.    IF sales don't begin to recover in the first quarter of the year then the downward spiral has no hope of turning around for me.  

[muttlymob]

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@richard1rst wrote:

---

I have seen a large number of posts from sellers saying they were going elsewhere. But they never answer the underlying question- Where will you go?

---

IMO, what is happening now is the Perfect Storm of real world colliding with eBay.

And everyone is getting crushed.

The world is moving away from the eBay model.  And eBay over the years has made a long succession of wrong moves in an attempt to copy other websites or otherwise predict where internet sales were going.

Other than some very specific websites for certain categories, I have not seen any general website which could fill the void as eBay fails to accommodate to the changing online retail world.

Hopefully others can find their way, for me if eBay goes down or I can no longer justify selling here I will not try to move to another site.  There is nothing that fits my inventory.

With all that said, it's not just eBay.  It's not just the internet.

I have been selling at a local flea market and a local group shop.  Both have been going down hill for years.  I will be bowing out of the group shop soon.  And will not be relying on the flea market for income - mainly for getting rid of stuff, as a hobby and not a business.

Trends change.  What I sell is not in as much demand as in the past and there is no way of telling if/when it will come back in style.  One of the drawbacks of this business.

[chapeau-noir]

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@richard1rst wrote:

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@gwzcomps wrote:
I will be branching out to other sites next year for various reasons. eBay is no longer a good site to sell on unless a person is a masochist that enjoys being scammed by eBay.

---

I have seen a large number of posts from sellers saying they were going elsewhere. But they never answer the underlying question- Where will you go?

---

That's because it depends on what you sell.  I've never, not in 18-20 years of selling, only sold on eBay.  I didn't even start my selling career on eBay, but on some other smaller niche websites back in about 1999.

[chapeau-noir]

eBay is still best for variety items due to being a variety website.  No other website is going to 'step in' and 'replace' eBay - doesn't work that way, especially nowadays - if that were the case, sites like Bonanza, eCrater and the like would be competing instead of being veritable ghost towns.  It's why people move to social media selling or open up their own website and do their own marketing, etc. 

[lex-talon]

I have to admit, your thread subject makes a good tongue twister. 

[richard1rst]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

eBay is still best for variety items due to being a variety website.  No other website is going to 'step in' and 'replace' eBay - doesn't work that way, especially nowadays - if that were the case, sites like Bonanza, eCrater and the like would be competing instead of being veritable ghost towns.  It's why people move to social media selling or open up their own website and do their own marketing, etc. 

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I tried Bonanza some time ago and, you are right, it was a ghost town. I get more sales from my own independent web site than I did from them.

BUT since Bonanza already exists as a somewhat similar concept to eBay what would happen is a new tech AND retail savvy team of executives took over? In the world of big business there are a group of people using the title “turnaround experts”. They take over a company, weed out the problems, institute new procedures and revitalize the core business. They are not always successful but when they do the results are outstanding.