No Sales, There is something going on here No Sales, No Sales, NoSales

[chernobly41]

Hey Folks;

My sales are down by 50%. There is something going on here on ebay. Just read the current Q3 report release and sales off ebay has dropped 10%, Active Buyers Declined by 5% ,  GMV up 9%.  Ebay is making money off the backs of sellers with higher fees, 90% growth off Managed Payment systems, offside ads with no sales.  

Ebay is charging enormous fees with no sales off Sellers. This is bad news for sellers here.  This will result in sellers leaving and diversifying more to other sites, social media sites, their own SEO sites to make a living. 

What is ebay going to do to help sellers?

[soh.maryl]

If sellers are making significantly less money, doesn't it seem like eBay is making less?

"Ebay is charging enormous fees with no sales off Sellers."  

If sellers are not selling, what "enormous fees" are they paying? 

[dirk12955]

Tagging on:

January thru June were good months.     Nice steady sales showing a 19% increase over the last 6 months of 2020

July 1st somebody pulled the plug.

Monthly sales compared to January thru June 2021 average

July down 38%

August down 44%

September down 43%

October is down 44% so far for the month.

I have no clue what has caused this.      I've changed nothing.      I have gone thru 100s of listings spiffing them up and updating the promotion info as some of these were getting to be 2 years old.

No help,    No change,    No explanation.   

[dbfolks166mt]

     Ironically it doesn't work that way. A large portion of eBay's fees ae from the FVF collection so the GMV is a litmus test of what they collect in that regard although it's high level. EBay could actually sell nothing during a quarter and still make money of things like store fees and of course the infamous promoted listings as can be evidenced by the following pulled from the Q3 report. 

EBay’s Promoted Listings offering generated $207 million in revenue during the period, up 12% from a year earlier and up 9% when excluding currency impacts.

[soh.maryl]

OK,  so "a large portion of eBay's fees are from the FVF collection".  Yes, I know that.  And if sellers are not selling, doesn't that mean a decrease in the FVF? Otherwise, you are correct.  

[toysaver]

I would never knowingly order from outside the US.  I prefer to support US sellers, US families and the US economy.  My prefered shipping is USPS as well. 

[duncanvr]

You haven't heard of Pay Per Click it was in their recent update. Pay Per Click aka Promoted Listings Advanced Beta. You run a campaign on items or individual items to gain traffic. You pay for the clicks even if robot clicks and doesn't matter if you get a sale or not. Many sellers not using it. I had one item suddenly get 2300+ views imaging if I was using this pay per click on it! They were not real views. But sellers who use it will be getting ahead on best match results when sellers not using it will be pushed further down in the search results. Like everything else you now got to pay to be seen first its like paying for the buy box.

[chapeau-noir]

Fees are no more enormous than they've been for a while.  In fact, since GTC my fees are less.

[jack7rts]

I agree, my postcard sales have tanked over the past couple of weeks.

[yuzuha]

My sales were way, way down in July and August, but then in September they bounced back and have been pretty steady ever since. I don't use any sort of Promoted listings or anything like that-- there's no point when most of the things I list don't have more than a page or two of competition at most.

I find that when I list regularly, I sell regularly, so I've been making a point of listing multiple things every week to keep things fresh.

[dariudaudery_0]

Try ending some listings and selling similar - worked for some bigger stores.

[katzrul15]

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@kathieskorner wrote:

Actually eBay's conference call explained a lot of the changes being made but not announced during their fall update.  Please note this is what the exec said. 

1.  eBay is driving more traffic to stores.

2.  ebay is driving more traffic to promoted listings.

3.  eBay is focusing on higher value items.

Bottom line: if you are a small seller who can't justify the cost of a store or paying extra for promoted listings, you items will only be seen if there are no similar items available and maybe not even then.   That would certainly explain the huge drop in traffic I've noticed over the past couple of months, and why sports collectibles with no competition are the only thing selling with any degree of frequency.    It would also explain why higher priced items have been selling better lately - no more race to the bottom in pricing on eBay - your items won't be seen unless they are priced at the higher end.    Guess I'll be raising my prices when re-listing items so eBay can make more money and increase the GMV. 

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As far as item #2 - They must be driving more to PLA, not PLS - our sales are flat-lined since the launch of PLA.  Exactly what I was afraid it would be.

And on the STORES - why would you not give Sellers some time to adjust/tweak their Stores BEFORE a change like this vs just rolling it out and letting us try and sort it out for ourselves??

[beachychicd]

Sales are down for me as well. Just maybe 1 a day and that is from sending LOTS of offers. Not one sale directly from ebay or searches ect. Not one organic Ebay sale in over a week. My sales are down around 80% now. Every day lower and lower. Yes something is broken! I have been on Ebay a long time. This is my WORST stretch of the dead zone now since I started selling here.

[sakic92710]

What is wrong with ordering from Canada?  I ship to the US all of the time.  No problem.  If there is a problem, it is due to the terrible USPS snail mail in YOUR country.

[sakic92710]

For the first time in 5 weeks, I'm actually having a good week.  Of course, eBay put a stop to that today with no sales.  Fortunately, Kijiji & FB came through for me.

[katzrul15]

@sakic92710 

Good to hear you had a good week for once!  Hope the trend continues!!!