November 2021 sales way down as compared to the previous years???

[online.target]

Has anyone else been experiencing slow sales in November 2021? The first 2 weeks were pretty good but since the 17th, my sales have dropped to a constant 0. I barely sell around $20-$30 worth of goods everyday, and I have been getting faulty returns to make things worse. Buyers simply open a SNAD request to get the seller to pay for return shipping & Ebay customer service is of no help even if you tell them that buyers sent you a used item, altered item etc. They never help out these days. I am relying on ebay to make ends meet & I have tried everything. Even been listing new items everyday. I have checked my impressions & traffic & it all looks good but it seems that there are no buyers? Can someone please help me out here? Even today I have 0 sales. Thank you

[postingid7659]

Yes, they screwed up search badly and people are unable to find things.   Time to start putting some of your eggs in another basket. 

[*_forum_id_*]

The category isn't a problem for users that are strictly buyers.   If your titles are correct, they will find your item when they do a search.   Searches are by title and/or description - not category.

No one can knows why sales slow at certain times of the year.   You do sell a very specific item and most users don't need to buy a new one every year.   

[hopefamilythrift]

Such has been the case for about a month now. I don't know whether search terms had been changed, or whether people just aren't buying stuff that they don't need. I've had good luck with selling electronics and related items, but most of our inventory is along the lines of discretionary items that are nice to look at or are collectible. Sales had been pretty consistent until some time in October; then they slowed. (Also got our first negative feedback, from a deranged buyer, recently. What a month.)

[katzrul15]

Yes.  It is a very slow November, so far.  Slowest, for us, ever.

[organicqueen]

YES!!! My sales keep going down in this portal consistently. I do not think it is my products. EBay has become obsolete. Sellers are not appreciated at all and they keep "changing" and re-inventing the wheel CONSTANTLY! The changes they made last year where terrible! I do not know where their head is, but Amazon will end up leaving this portal "out of business" pretty soon. There is NO traffic here! And they drive small Sellers crazy with "NEW"
 ideas that impose us spending yet MORE of our hard earned money. I am debating on leaving in January of 2022 when my subscription is over. 

[inhawaii]

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@organicqueen wrote:

YES!!! My sales keep going down in this portal consistently. I do not think it is my products. EBay has become obsolete. Sellers are not appreciated at all and they keep "changing" and re-inventing the wheel CONSTANTLY! The changes they made last year where terrible! I do not know where their head is, but Amazon will end up leaving this portal "out of business" pretty soon. There is NO traffic here! And they drive small Sellers crazy with "NEW"
 ideas that impose us spending yet MORE of our hard earned money. I am debating on leaving in January of 2022 when my subscription is over. 

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That's the problem right there.  My sales are down. It can't be my fault.  It can't be what i'm selling. I used to sell this much and now i'm only selling this much. 

Let me ask you this, if you took a seller who's sale were UP 50% from last year and you were selling the exact same things as that seller for the exact same price, do you think your sales would still be down? 

[forward-motion]

No, my sales are up. November has exceeded my highest sales month ever and we still have 4 days left!! 

[frugality_inc]

Walmart and Amazon up. eBay in the toilet. Nothing new to see here.

Think about it from a customer's view. eBay doesn't have much of a competitive advantage over Walmart and Amazon.

eBay will continue to decline until they focus on the customer experience. Until this happens, expect more pain.

[chapeau-noir]

My sales are down because I'm almost out of stuff - except for about 5 listings, it's all left over from last season. 😣

[vickyaa]

Yes Horrific sales ever since they messed with the darn categories!

[powell-memorabilia]

Crazy how low inventory = low sales.  I’ve been feeling it lately - super low inventory.  Got a shipment in today, upped my avail quantities, and sales are coming back.

[fbscomics]

Ive noticed this. When are they going to fix the search function. These category tabs we use for selling
now are just plain dumb. Ive seen sales drop for the last few months and buyers are complaining to because they have to weed thru so many searches because of all these check boxes now. Terrible idea.

[chapeau-noir]

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@powell-memorabilia wrote:

Crazy how low inventory = low sales.  I’ve been feeling it lately - super low inventory.  Got a shipment in today, upped my avail quantities, and sales are coming back.

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Exactly!  There's only so long I can keep juggling and renewing the same items before they're really just obviously the same items. I finally sourced some more items but man, it's like dribs and drabs. Clothing is one of the most common pre-owned items available, but finding the GOOD stuff is another universe of issues.

[jlstanton]

I've been a seller for almost 23 years now.  100% feedback.  $40,000 in inventory, 3300 items.  The last two years I've doubled my inventory, added better inventory, priced pretty much the lowest and sales continue to crash.  I list every day and after nearly 8 or 9 months of working on it, almost have all my items updated for the item specifics eBay wanted.  I'm doing sales, promoted listings, all the crap they tell me I should do.  And sales continue to crash, as if someone has flipped a switch and turned off my store.  

I'm working on an outside project and will be turning off my store around the 20th of next month for at least two months to concentrate on that, as it's an actual source of income compared to what eBay has become.  It's sad when someone comes in who apparently has zero  experience doing the job he was hired to do and tries to reinvent the wheel.....when the wheel worked perfectly fine.  After I get the other project up and running, and the income coming in, I don't believe I'll ever come back to eBay as a main source of anything, leaving it up and adding very infrequently and using the funds for my granddaughter's college fund and nothing else.  It's grown silly at this point on eBay.  The changes are crushing sellers but the Board doesn't really care.  Success or failure, it doesn't really matter.  They'll get paid.  It's just sad watching the trainwreck in slow motion...