Returned from vacation and...

[carlharrison43]

Hello, I put my store on vacation mode and was gone for a few days.  I then turned the store back on once I returned.  Now, for what seems like an eternity (actually a week or so), I have not had one sale since with over five hundred items listed.  It feels like a punishment of some sort.  In the past, sales would pick back up pretty quickly.  Anyone else experience this?  And why would this happen?   

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

  If you read around on here, you will see that many sellers, actually everyone, has experienced a huge drop in views, impressions, sales since 7/16/23. Everyone tries to figure out why and eBay doesn't respond. Just creates tickets(like for going to a fair).

  Meanwhile, if you promote your listings at 20% and spend $20 a day on promoted listings advanced and participate in Promoted Display Beta and Offsite Ads, I'm sure you will see some traffic. Still worse than the traffic you were used to.

  Also, it's July, many families on vacation, as you were. And the economy sucks.

[whatmorefabric]

Last night , for the first time ever in the 20 years that I have been selling on line,   I had no sales.     This is not only Ebay, but every site I sell on.

My BM store is crickets too.

It is too hot and people are trying to cool off.     It is just starting to register with customers that the economy is is not going into a recession and inflation is cooling.

People are traveling.     New Hampshire is set to have it's best year since Covid.

It is a wait if out.     It will get better. 

[carlharrison43]

Thanks so much for your quick reply.  Patience has never been a virtue of mine, due to working in fast food for thirty tears.  Maybe one day.... 

[carlharrison43]

Thanks so much for the encouragement!  Appreciate you!

[b86fiero]

Hello, 

I fully understand the frustration you are feeling.  I take 2 vacations of three weeks each per year.  And a few mental heath days here and there when I need a break from all the excitement of selling.

It used to take a day or two for eBay to index some of my listings to get sales going again and up to three days for all of my listings to be active.

Not any more.  With a couple of billion items listed on the site it takes longer, sometimes much longer for your listings to index and once again appear in search results.

One thing I found a bit helpful is to end all promotions before I put my store on vacation. When I return I immediately start new promotions. Doesn't have to be a high percentage, just 2 or 3% to get them moving. eBay does like to get that extra money from your sales   🙂

Another small helpful thing is I end 10 or 20 listings before I close my store. After I re-open I start listing them again using Sell Similar as it shows seller activity on the site.  eBay likes active sellers. 

Hope your sales pick up soon!  

[mike_jayroe]

Compared to last year my sales are way down. I have grown so frustrated, I am doing something crazy.

I am taking all the NASCAR and railroad related items and changing over to auction with buyer paying for shipping. I have lowered the price as far as I am willing to go. If this doesn't work I will de-list all of those items after the auction ends and give up trying to sell them by the end of August..

I will then try to sell other odd ball items I have found in my home and try to sell that stuff. If it don't work I will give up on them to.

My guess is buyers don't want what I am listing.

Best of luck to everyone else out there.

[carlharrison43]

Thanks for your thoughts.  Hope your plan works and in a fantastic way.  I mostly do this as a hobby (retired now), but I have a lot to sell beings I have been a pac rat for a long time.  Good luck and happy selling! 

[joseh1445]

Drop or increase your prices by $1.  And post more stuff.  That's what I did when I came from my vacations.  I hope it helps.

[chapeau-noir]

It's not the economy, vacation travel is booming. Who wants to hang out online? Us poor saps of sellers, I guess.

Just keep going, be consistent. No one is punishing you for going on vacation, but sometimes it takes a while for sales to pick up. I used to not even keep my store open late July through August because it was such a danged waste of time.

[mam98031]

@carlharrison43 

No Ebay would not do that.  They would have no reason to do that.  You don't harm anything by going on Vaca where the site is concerned.  We just seem to be having an extremely slow summer for sales.  Many sellers are feeling it.

It is concerning and frustrating.  I firmly believe it will get better, but it may take until Mid September.

[inhawaii]

I see 2 sales today.

I guess ebay turned your switch back ON.

[psfhobbies]

whatmore is correct  it will get better summer slump is here...I have been here 24+ years selling its been bad since Biden took over. Trump years and Obama years were better than the last 3 which I have had days under 100.00 which has never happened in the past since opening a store here. China stuff flooding the site Pople using Amazon drop shipping from here is not helping at all either.Its a waiting game I suspect August to be a slower month this year too.

[pennysdream]

Store stuff has to get re-indexed.  It takes longer than normal. 

[aldelbertmatthew]

This is exactly my problem. Ever since the 16th of July my sales have plummeted badly. Even on a slow day, I get between 15-20 watchers. My views are down over 75% and I get maybe 1-5 watchers in an entire 24 hour period.  Even on high value items with 100%+ sellthrough rates. (Items with sold listings outpacing new listings showing up.)

The worst part is you get goofballs that want to blame the seller, stan for eBay and claim it must be your inventory even though there's Youtubers heavily documenting how busted and broken the entire site has been for the past two years with streaks like this lasting a few days all the way up to weeks where it's barely functioning causing it to bleed customers like crazy.

The times I post evidence of the daily level of errors and bugs on eBay, the supporters scatter or pretend like it's an isolated one time incident. Hardcore top to bottom terminations of CEOs and workers are needed to get this site back to normal.