Worst month in ,ore than 10 years. We usually do 400+k a year. Last June we were on target to have a 600k year but with the summer update, our sales just dumped.
Its not us as the "apologists here will be quick yo point out. Our website with no SEO is coming up in front of ebay in many searches so IM starting to not care. I never did much with the website besides build it because we have 55k months on ebay. rarely below 45 for a long time.
We have decided to take our 4000+ listings down to 1000 and drop our store subscription to the $79. That will save us a few thousand a year in fees and the new listings and work go into our website. This place is trashed and everything they say we need to do to makes it worse.
We have a special usps pickup route that comes daily and were going to lose it since we have days with 3 packages. Once that happens we close completely here, and play around more on others or just start writing and doing a lot on our site.
We were killing it month over month until last June and its been mostly down but a few moments where ebay seemed to be working ok but now its terrble as buyer and seller.
Now were getting saturday small sales that are asked to be canceled sunday so were losing money on stuff were not selling. Paypal is going to e boycotted by us. We use braintree on our website out of ease but its going away this week. Weve put 8 million dollars through paypal over the years.
This is not us, we didnt overnight have a decline in interest of what we sell. Half the people I see saying "supply and demand" here sell $10 items and are pushing their commenst as absolute knowledge. Our average sale price for years is $130 approximately. Rarely a day below $1000. My partner and I both at least took micro and macro econ in college. Doesnat make us geniuses but we can clearly see what happening. Lots of political science and were pretty big political junkies and the word salad and lack of actual trasparency here is just like the government and the terrible political campaigns that are only meant to mislead and protect the status quo.
These companies all being bought up by private equity kills them and ruins many great small businesses. Many will survive and move elsewhere but for some the momentum and timing has passed. It is killing the american economy and hopefully we see change soon and large investigations of whats been happening everywhere. There is a big political change happening. This is politics.
Its a great disservice having people here that I suspect are "social care agents" but not identifying themselves as that, who are attacking anyone with real issues. Meaning they work while on these boards, maybe not directly for ebay but maybe Khoros/lithium, maybe even another sub-contracted party. No issue with company reputation specialists but when the dont identify themselves, its gas lighting. The youtube videos have blown up compared to last year about whats going on here.
Weve done everything ebay has asked for over the years, reluctantly many time sand with dire consequences many times. Now we will downsize and sell off what is listed and promote ourselves elsewhere. Other than the corrupt political environment, dealing with this has just been so infuriating and to be told its not happening when we are not even close to your average seller in inventory or sales. It takes all of our energy to deal with the amazonification where returns quadruple almost overnight and to be led on by ebay with platitudes and non acknowledgment of errors and issues and the cheerleaders here constantly reaching in to the TOS/UA to quickly tell everyone. Nope ebay isnt responsible for anything. If the site is down, its our fault. If the tools dont work, its our fault. If our sales dumped 80% overnight, its seasonal and noone wants what we sell anymore. Many times coming from real people selling collectable staues for $10 (no offense to anyone successfully doing that but you dont speak for the markets that you dont understand and items that are highly sought after in both function and collectability) Thats a double whammy, a useful item that goes up in value.
The first thing to go in times of recessions and hardships is "beanie babies" unless people are storing their wealth there. Things that sit on mantles. Not rare original auto parts that wealthy people need to keep their 100k cars moving. recessions make those people more money. Those are the unfortunate dips where they buy stock and property becasue they can hang for 10 years. In 10 years that almost useless but functional auto will be worth more to be traded between the wealthy collectors and hobbyists. Those markets slump from time to time but, most functional design and art stands the test of time and is generally a safer bet than individual stocks.
Sorry, I dont post often but, the negativity around watching everything being destroyed and knowing its happening, whether through neglect, bad leadership, or low end algorithms that arent working as intended but noone will acknowledge it who had a hand in it is a bummer. We dont ahve to know the specifics of why or even how to see the end result is not just 10 of us complaining of catastrophically lower sales. Im sure if someone were to count accounts here and a few other places, it would be a significant number. Perhaps a poll of how much people are down this year against several other years.
I wouldnt even doubt that this could be an intentional way of cleaving the company apart, devaluing it and it being purchased cheaply to be hoolwed out and polished up and resold at a phenominal amount to unsuspecting buyer or buyers who just want to get rid of the competion but cant legally do so. Smashing companies is profitable. You can short its stock on the way down, sell off chunks, and then PR it to death.
When people say why would ebay do this. There are many reasons and it may just be whos controlling ebay. I pay under 9% when selling 45k a month and I'm guessing this months pitance will be at least a couple % higher.
This morning Im seeing europeans that I keep and eye ons listings in ebay search but, when I click on "sellers other items" , I see only 1 or 2 listings. When I click on their iD it says 100 listing. I can see 4 listings advretised on the bottom of their ID page. The sidebar is missing the "worldwide" tab. Ive been told in the past, that this is becasue they are not selling on ebay.com but only their countries sites but im literally seeing some of their listings on ebay.com when searching ebay.com but cannot access any of those listings through "sellers other items". The items advertised on ebay.com are available to eb shipped to the US but they are not findable through the seller at all.
Ive seen this for years and at certain times our international sales dry up. I cant understand how the format of looking at sellers other items changes and how we can search. The sidebar could still say worldwide and then just not bring back listings not spec'd for worldwide shipping. Im sure I'll get several responses from the same peopel as usual but there is no consistency. Its like 2 different ebay page layouts almost. Is today the day where I have the option of seeing the "worldwide" box in a sellers searches or the one where i cant see their listings.
There is no conspiracy, Ebay is screwed up for a myriad of reasons and maybe that dip in items sold is from us big sellers who buy and flip on ebay stopping spending due to having very little faith in selling what was not long ago very easy. Noep not seasonal, out of vogue goods.
I would rather write a bunch vs everyday. My blood pressure literally goes up.
