January will be the worst month yet...

[datemike1]

Thought I'd post some metrics to see how everyone else is doing this January.  This will end up being the worst month of sales since I started selling on eBay 5 years ago.  And before anyone chimes in and says well there is no demand, don't bother.  I opened an Etsy shop end of November 2019 with the same exact listings and not only did I outsell my eBay account in December by about 30%, I'm currently at 55 sales on Etsy mtd and i'm outselling eBay by about 500%.  Yes, i'm sure some people aren't selling because maybe the demand isn't there for their particular items, but in a very crowded sea of tv memorabilia, there is still plenty of demand it seems everywhere BUT eBay.  

The issue is traffic.  If you're wondering why your sales are down so drastically and haven't looked at your traffic metrics, I'd suggest you do so...

Impressions are down 55% this time period last year and down 63% compared to 2018.  Page views down over 60% from 2019 and down 70% from 2018.  

There simply aren't enough people shopping on eBay anymore.  But, this decline in traffic is drastic.  eBay has to be aware that this is an issue and their lack of action has me struggling to justify continuing on with eBay.  I guess I keep hoping they'll get their heads out of their a$$&$ and start getting people back to shopping on eBay but I fear it's just too late.  

[flyingmvp]

Congrats for your success with Etsy!
Q4 2019 numbers came out today.
It seems that Ebay is being driven to the ground intentionally, there is a bigger reason, "justification" to the self inflicted damages the venue is causing itself while diminishing sales, sellers and buyers.

There  is no way to explain or comprehend the current way things are mismanaged here.

Keep the good work and don't waste your time struggling here while your items are being successfully sold somewhere else.

[datemike1]

I'm curious, why would a company WANT to run itself into the ground?  This has actually come up before in my own career (outside eBay) where a company I was dealing with was just so horrendously bad at what they did, I couldn't shake the feeling they were intentionally that bad.  And I never could figure out why a company would want to be so bad at being a company lol...

edit, thank you for your kind words, Etsy is so much easier to use and customer service has been PHENOMENAL every time i've needed to ask questions, and their interface is wayyyyyy easier and comfortable to use than eBays...  This is my side hustle, so I wouldn't be dead without it, but thank god I decided to move ahead with Etsy, I had been contemplating it for over a year and finally pulled the trigger once my September and October were just complete busts here on eBay.

[coolections]

Good for you on Etsy. Different sites such as that attract different types of buyers. Even though you are correct there is "some" demand, looking at sold listings the ones sold where for a little less than you are asking. Stick with what works for you.

[datemike1]

Unfortunately you can’t compare a lot of the posters on eBay price wise because they come in all different sizes.  An 11x17” poster can be printed on most regular home printers much cheaper and a lot of the cheaper ones you may see sold for less $ than what I have listed are smaller than mine.  Plus, I pride myself on quality prints too, so my buyers know they’re not getting a letter sized home printer version of what I’m selling.  I have compared same sized items to mine and purposely priced them middle of the pack.  And that used to work here but I won’t lower my prices just to sell on eBay if I’m getting sales at those prices on Etsy.  

[gwzcomps]

I wish I understood how to find and interpret these metrics. My sales are doing ok, but not great. I am doing better growing my business away from eBay as well. With minimal effort I am making better sales and more money. Plus I don't have to worry about unreasonable customers ripping me off.

[datemike1]

Seller Hub - Click on "Sales" box - on the left side of the page click on "Traffic."

At the top of the Traffic page, set your date range you want to look at.  If i'm comparing say this month to last year the same period, first set your dates and then copy the data with copy and paste or a screenshot.  Then change the dates to the same time period a year prior (or two or three or whatever) so you can compare the numbers to a different time period.

Impressions are just how many times all of your listings appeared on an eBay page.  Lets say i'm a buyer and I search "widget" and you sell widgets.  An impression means your listing showed up on a page that I was on.  That doesn't mean I saw your listing, it only means your listing was on a page.  

Click-Through Rate is the percent of how many people clicked on one of your listings vs how many times your listing appeared on an eBay page.  So if your listing appeared 100 times and 10 people clicked on it, your click through rate is 10%.

Listing Page Views is just how many times your listings were actually clicked on and viewed.

Sales Conversion Rate is how many sales you had vs how many views your listings had.  So if you had 100 listing views and you had 10 sales, your conversion rate would be 10%.  For reference, online sales the general average for conversion rate is about 2%.  But you're better served comparing your own conversion rate to prior periods of time rather than a generic 2%.  

[gwzcomps]

Thanks that makes more sense now.  I have a feeling my stuff is really bad based on my graph and numbers.  I have kinda ignored that side of eBay since it is all gibberish to me.

[div_style]

Sales in my two stores in January are the highest ever for me, up about 25% over December.  I have no complaints.

BTW, I care not what eBay makes, nor their stock price.  As long as I am selling none of that matters to me.

[datemike1]

Unfortunately it's hard to determine if your click-through rate and sales conversion rates are on par for you historically if those are just this January's numbers.  How do you fare on average?  If you're not sure, and if your sales are down for January @gwzcomps, put the date range from 1/1/2020 to 1/29/2020.  Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, you'll see every listing you have along with what the stats are for those items as well as a sum total of all of your listings impressions, click thru, conversion, etc...  Then change the date range to 1/1/2019 to 1/29/2019 and see how the totals compare.  I haven't looked at your listings but for me, my listings are essentially the same from prior years so I can compare traffic easily to prior years.  If you have lots of different listings, it becomes a little more difficult to compare, but you can still get a general idea of your metrics vs how many listings you had January 2020 vs Jan 2019.  For example, if you only had 10 listings in Jan 2020 but had 100 listings Jan 2019, you can reasonably assume your metrics should be about 1/10th what they were the year prior.  If you had a similar number of listings from one year to the other, you can see how much more or less your listings are being seen and your conversion rates.

[datemike1]

That's fantastic that your sales are up!  I also don't care about eBay's stock price, I care that i'm down over 80% in sales vs 2019.  You seem to be one of the rare few who are actually experiencing higher than average sales, so that's awesome.  Unfortunately, a lot of us aren't.  And we're trying to figure out why.

[gwzcomps]

Looks like I am doing worse than previous years for the same date range if I understand this right? @datemike1  Also my traffic numbers are down this year.  I am still selling the same types of computer related items.  Different model numbers, but otherwise the same.

[datemike1]

Good, so what it looks like is you've got a very consistent click through rate and sales conversion rate each year (the difference between 1.4% and 1.7% isn't a drastic difference).  I'd say you're right on par each year, there just isn't much of a variation in your metrics.  Since your click through and sales conversion rates are essentially the same, now you want to look at your total impressions.  If you compare the impressions and total page views for those three years, you'll probably see something similar to what I posted, that 2018 and 2019 had significantly higher impressions and page views, and then in 2020 my impressions and page views are less than half, as much as more than 70% lower than 2018 & 2019.  So if you have similar click through and sales conversion rates, but you have lower impressions and page views, then you can assume your dip in sales is because there just aren't as many shoppers as there were in prior years for your products.  Though i'd say it's a much bigger issue for eBay as overall I think there are just way less people using the site than in prior years.  The reasons for that, i'm not entirely sure, but I do know for a fact there just aren't the same amount of searches done for my stuff.  If you want to post your impressions and click thru feel free to do so and I can help you understand them as well.

[datemike1]

@gwzcomps look right below that graph you have been using to see your listing impressions and page views, in case you're looking for it and not seeing it.  Then change the dates to see how those numbers compare to prior years.  

[corvettestainless]

That thing (traffic page)  has been a mess (glitch, wrong etc)  for almost the entire 2019 year. I sold more last Mar/April (our big months) than I did in 2018; and yet all those 'measurables were down almost 50% and have been the entire balance of the year. My sales were off 15% for the year, but not 50%; and that is due to a downturn in our niche. 

Those numbers cannot be trusted. Remember where they are coming from. Glitch City.