Profitable?

[allthings-collectible]

Before I begin, let me first acknowledge those of you who have been unaffected by all the glitches, all the down time, and all the effects of eBay's "exciting new features!", that we've experienced in the last 6-months or so. In fact, you may even be unaffected by our slumping economy. If that describes you, then congratulations! Does this mean that you have achieved some kind of eBay seller "guru" status? Well, um....nope. Because if anyone followed your advice, then they would see their sales normalize, improve, or maybe even increase right? Unfortunately, that ain't happenin'.

So, if in fact your sales are normal or even increasing, great, but you cannot expect that the majority of sellers represented here are less experienced or doing it all wrong. As a 24-yr seller, I've endured countless changes, including policy & platform changes, buying trends, changing market values, 2008, and I sold a few things along the way. But this year is significantly different, especially as a "for-profit" business. The numbers speak for themselves.

In fact, below you will see the YTD sales data from one of my stores. What do notice? Anything stand out to you?

 

 

[ekmadonna]

What I notice is you most certainly have to be using Promoted listings and paying extra to sell your items for your SELLING COSTS to balloon more than 20%

[theteamsetguy]

@allthings-collectible ,

Looks like your sales are up almost 10% year over year which isn't bad. Your number of items sold is up 43.5% which is very good. 

[allthings-collectible]

Correct. Store is set to 7.5% PL. Also, used "Send Offer" feature on all watchers. 

[allthings-collectible]

Yep. Have to work twice as hard to sell nearly twice as many in order to achieve that. However, I'm not in this just to move items off the shelf. Notice my net?

[slippinjimmy]

Stand out? Not sure about that but I did do a quick analysis comparing 2023 to 2022

These are clear

Sales are up

Unit Sales are up

Average sale price is down

This one is obvious but hard to draw conclusions

Selling Costs are way up

I don't know why they are up as they may or may not include the shipping variable and optional fees.

They could be up because any or all:

Lower average selling price and more units sold increases the impact of the fixed transaction fee

More units sold (not combined) could also mean higher shipping costs

Greater use of options such as PL

If your point is that it's possible to maintain or even increase your total sales during "hard times" but it comes at a cost of higher expenses I totally agree.

Of course not every seller has to spend more to hold or grow while for some sellers spending more is just flushing money down the drain, they are on a long (or not so long) spiral to the end.

[allthings-collectible]

Yes, it is possible to increase sales, but at what cost? That's what every seller must reconcile as we enter the bowels of today's eBay. For myself, the profit hemorrhage has forced me to diversify to other platforms and other venues. For those fairly new at selling or thinking about doing this full-time, I would strongly suggest looking closely at your costs and net profits. The easy reselling days are over.

[bill.purvis2012]

Yes. Mine look the same: Ebay is getting a bigger slice of my pie.  While I try to stay in business and keep selling, I'm doing mark downs, offers, and promoting.  Some of the issue is the economy and while almost everything else is increasing in costs (housing, food, etc.) buyers still expect a real deal on Ebay. Accomodating them takes a bite out of our profit.  

[slippinjimmy]

One of the current buzzwords on Wall Street is "Pricing Power", it's becoming more important the older/similar "Moat" theory, companies that can raise prices without losing sales have Pricing Power, find those companies and invest, stay away from companies that don't.

[joliztoyco]

What's noticable is the glaring fact that despite increasing your sales, you brought home LESS income.

I'm not going to play the obtuse fool and ignore the point of your post.

To maintain their level of sales in Ebay's shrinking share of  ecommerce, many sellers have had to resort to PL's. Which also means less profits.

For them.

But they're working exactly like eBay wanted them to.

Not a bad way for eBay to line it's pockets with more seller dollars IF the seller pool was expanding. 

But it's not.

And despite what some of the cheerleaders think, Ebay's own numbers show it's seller pool is contracting. Smaller sellers than you are seeing the same results.

And have to decide if it's even worth selling here.

And many are deciding not to.

I'd like to tell you things are going to get better.

But they're not.

Good luck.

[chapeau-noir]

---

@joliztoyco wrote:

What's noticable is the glaring fact that despite increasing your sales, you brought home LESS income.

I'm not going to play the obtuse fool and ignore the point of your post.

To maintain their level of sales in Ebay's shrinking share of  ecommerce, many sellers have had to resort to PL's. Which also means less profits.

For them.

But they're working exactly like eBay wanted them to.

Not a bad way for eBay to line it's pockets with more seller dollars IF the seller pool was expanding. 

But it's not.

And despite what some of the cheerleaders think, Ebay's own numbers show it's seller pool is contracting. Smaller sellers than you are seeing the same results.

And have to decide if it's even worth selling here.

And many are deciding not to.

I'd like to tell you things are going to get better.

But they're not.

Good luck.

---

This was never meant to last. Never. It's the nature of evolution. We have an over-crowded seller space and a buying public no longer interested in what it wanted 25 years ago. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand.

[cardxcraft]

Yes, I note a 220% increase in selling costs with only a 17.8% increase in total sales. 

I used to think it was the economy until I started selling on Hip.  Ebay's stamps category audience is massively larger than Hip, yet, more sales come from Hip.  There's definitely something amiss with Ebay.  The simple way to put it is the feeling of being stymied.

[brandonsvsu]

Those numbers are a bit deceptive though.  I noticed a big jump in costs for this year for me also, until I actually dug into the numbers.  SHIPPING LABELS.  My shipping labels purchased through ebay costs show ZERO all the way up until mid-November of 2022 and that accounted for the vast majority of my apparent cost increase (Shipping labels prior to that were purchased through Paypal and thus not reflected in the numbers).

I put my numbers (from the same source report like you're using) from the past 3 years except I adjusted for shipping labels.  But I had to do some extrapolation here since I don't have shipping label cost data pre-Nov. 2022.  I was able to do this using the data Ebay does give me for the amount I collected in shipping and handling.  Since I use Ebay's shipping calculator and don't offer free shipping (for every one of my listings), this was easy to figure out using the November onward average difference between actual shipping cost and shipping collected (I actually profit 26.6% on shipping since I pay less for labels than UPS/USPS published public rates) and assuming that same percent held for all 3 years.

I was surprised that my shipping costs didn't go up really at all the past year, but I suspect that is because I started using UPS around the time shipping went up, so now my UPS rates are probably comparable to what I was paying through USPS previously.

And I stay away as much as possible from promoted listings, and even when I do use them, I keep my ad rate at less than 4 percent.

[bill.purvis2012]

I hear you.  The one part of this equasion we're missing is HOW we can influence our bottom line more than any other.  That is through "cost of goods".  That's where we make it or break it. Buy low and sell as high as possible.  

So, I am very selective on my buying inventory.  I can no longer pay $10 and sell for $20.  I seek out deals, am more selective. I buy for $.25 and sell for $20.  Or $10 and sell for $100.  Yes. It's a buyer's market.  Example: Just bought an item for $6 and sold overnight for $80.  There's always a way to roll with the punches.  

[allthings-collectible]

"This was never meant to last. Never. It's the nature of evolution. We have an over-crowded seller space and a buying public no longer interested in what it wanted 25 years ago. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand."

Wow. You really think you have it figured out in 3 profoundly apathetic and condescending sentences?