Ruining The Small Seller

[ourancestorsattic]

With The Latest Robbery Committed By ebay as soon as I read that message telling me that I would have to pay more than 1% for Promoted Listings I ended the promotions on the 63 items I have currently listed. I guess it's time to completely close my account. Their recent changes make it Impossible for a Small Seller like I am to get anything sold or even seen. They never should have changed the way they count views becasue the bots did help get our listings to at least show up in Some Google Searches & possibly sold. I joined July 18, 2003 & started selling soon after that. If I close my account I have to find another site to sell on I just don't know where that will be. I am so tired of ebay's constant changes that always hurt the Small Seller. They just don't care at all about the Small Sellers that were the backbone that made ebay. I know they don't care about me but they will lose an Excellent Seller who owns every item I ever sold, shipped items within my stated time frame or faster, always packed items to get there safely, when buying from other Sellers always paid immediately & Using My 55 Years As A Photographer Always Created Excellent Photographs Of My Items.  ebay's stock closing price was $ 80.59 on October 22, 2021. June 13, 2022 it is $42.58 & That Says It All.

[ourancestorsattic]

I too old to put up with this. Yes I sold some items through promoted listings but I Will Not Give Them Any More Money Than They Already Take From Me. The  Do Not Care At All About Small Sellers Anymore.

And You Still Didn't Read My First Sentence.

[m60driver]

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@ourancestorsattic wrote:

2 Sales In May None So far In June. That is not doing well.

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No that is indeed doing very poorly.  Clearly it is time to rethink your business model and even reconsider whether Ebay is the best platform for you.  For example, you have lots of vinyl listed yet there are other platforms that specialize in vinyl that are primary destinations for true collectors, which defines just about anyone looking at 78s and 45s.  If you are paying more than $2 for any vinyl listing then you probably are not going to be able to sell at a competitive price and make much net profit..

By the way, I certainly consider myself to be a small seller as well and although my sales are down a tad I am still getting decent sales every week.  Instead of using promoted listings I aggressively use offers to watchers and, knowing the current economy, I have been more focused upon cash flow rather than on higher profits and have been dumping older inventory, just netting at about cost.

[coolections]

Well, you have underestimated what you said. I have 4x more selling experience then you and if you were very smart you would take the advice form the 30 or so people here that are trying to help you out. The whole point is Ebay is NOT ruining small sellers. Ebay does not care how big, how tall, how little, how small you are. It is up to YOU to get your items sold. Good Luck !!!!

[joseh1445]

I feel your pain.  Having said that.  You have options, like I do, and other people.  Do make a choice and stick to it.  It might be moving away from this platform, or staying.  Don't make excuses.  Just make it happen.  That simple.  When I am saying this, I am also telling my self the same.  Some times, I need to put it in writing what I need to do personally.  

Good luck on your seller journey!

[stainlessenginecovers]

Since you sell "1 of kind" type items; Promotions was doing you little good in the first place. 

Other 'sellers' items will be shown on YOUR listings (as 'other sponsored items') well before a buyer gets down to your 'description'.. but again, would not really matter as your items are different than theirs. 

Therefore, eBay is NOT ruining the small seller that sells 'used 1-of items'

....you were doing that all by yourself (spending $ you didn't need to be spending in the first place). 

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Couple things.  You have 63 items listed.  You'd be lucky to get 1 sale every week or 2 with such few items listed.  That's just the way it is.  

No one else has addressed your comment on the Views change.  There has been NO CHANGE to the bots or the way they work.  They are simply not in the count anymore.  Nothing has actually changed except the way they're reported.  

I can speak for your clothing.  Your prices are ok, but the pieces are out of season & not particularly desirable.  On your jacket photo, do not use the tags as your main pic, use a pic of the jacket.  No one cares that the MSRP was $70, unless they want the jacket first.   Same with the Lands End.  A tag photo won't sell the item.  Your listing for 4 purses, only shows 1 in the main photo, you need to show all 4.  But like I said, they are all way out of season, those need to be listed in winter/Xmas.  

I'm a small seller, doing it all myself.  I don't feel like eBay is trying to force me out.  Prices everywhere are going up, why wouldn't they go up here too? 

[onefootflipper]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

Couple things.  You have 63 items listed.  You'd be lucky to get 1 sale every week or 2 with such few items listed.  That's just the way it is.  

No one else has addressed your comment on the Views change.  There has been NO CHANGE to the bots or the way they work.  They are simply not in the count anymore.  Nothing has actually changed except the way they're reported.  

I can speak for your clothing.  Your prices are ok, but the pieces are out of season & not particularly desirable.  On your jacket photo, do not use the tags as your main pic, use a pic of the jacket.  No one cares that the MSRP was $70, unless they want the jacket first.   Same with the Lands End.  A tag photo won't sell the item.  Your listing for 4 purses, only shows 1 in the main photo, you need to show all 4.  But like I said, they are all way out of season, those need to be listed in winter/Xmas.  

I'm a small seller, doing it all myself.  I don't feel like eBay is trying to force me out.  Prices everywhere are going up, why wouldn't they go up here too? 

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That is very true. 63 items listed, 2 sales in a month. I price extremely competitively. I am usually always lowest when I post the item unless it means I go below $1.99, which I won't do.  With my current sell through rate I would only be getting 6 sales a month if I was piloting the original posters account.

[sakic92710]

"I have 4x more selling experience then you"  (than)   -  No one has seen any proof of that.  "Ebay does not care"   (eBay)   You are correct!    🙂

[sakic92710]

No matter what you tell them, they won't understand your comments are about how dysfunctional eBay has become; not about your pricing.  I will not adjust my prices to appease the blatantly cheap nor will I give eBay another % over what they already grab up.  Especially because of the greedy shipping fee they proudly TAKE for providing absolutely no service what so ever.  Best of luck to you!

[onefootflipper]

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@ourancestorsattic wrote:

With The Latest Robbery Committed By ebay as soon as I read that message telling me that I would have to pay more than 1% for Promoted Listings I ended the promotions on the 63 items I have currently listed. I guess it's time to completely close my account. Their recent changes make it Impossible for a Small Seller like I am to get anything sold or even seen. They never should have changed the way they count views becasue the bots did help get our listings to at least show up in Some Google Searches & possibly sold. I joined July 18, 2003 & started selling soon after that. If I close my account I have to find another site to sell on I just don't know where that will be. I am so tired of ebay's constant changes that always hurt the Small Seller. They just don't care at all about the Small Sellers that were the backbone that made ebay. I know they don't care about me but they will lose an Excellent Seller who owns every item I ever sold, shipped items within my stated time frame or faster, always packed items to get there safely, when buying from other Sellers always paid immediately & Using My 55 Years As A Photographer Always Created Excellent Photographs Of My Items.  ebay's stock closing price was $ 80.59 on October 22, 2021. June 13, 2022 it is $42.58 & That Says It All.

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Ebay was definitely a different planet when I started in the 90s. However it really doesn't seem significantly much different to me now than I did when I started this account in 2003.  The sky was falling in these forums then too.

[tkrliquidations]

Be careful with this. Selling or promoting the selling of items outside of eBay through eBay is against their terms of service and they will ban your account or suspend you if they suspect you're doing this.

[tkrliquidations]

As soon as I see any message from eBay with the header "pricing/fee update" I know its going to be bad news. I recently updated all of our 1200+ listings to the 1% promo and have noticed a decent increase in sales, judging by the "sold via promoted listing" it seem so to be doing its job. The increase to 2% won't really make me change my promotions, that's only an extra $0.01 per $1.00. Yes its more money out of my pocket, which sucks, but our margins are good enough to absorb that amount.

Judging by others' comments, you don't seem to want to listen to any criticism or helpful tips. No one thinks an increase in the amount we pay is a good thing. It sucks for everyone. But we have to deal with it. Like they say, "roll with the punches". If your small business can't adapt, but others can, that isn't necessarily the platform's issue, but yours. Personally, when I buy anything on eBay I always sort by price "lowest to highest" and snag the first one that looks good and is from a well-reviewed seller. I keep this in mind when listing my items and try to always be the lowest price or close to the lowest while beating out any seller with lower ratings or worse photos/descriptions. 

When it comes to sale numbers, try to look at it as a percentage instead of a strict number. You say you have 63 listings and average 2 sales/week. That's about 3% of your inventory sold every week. We have 1200+ listings and sell around 40/50 items per week on average, which is also about 3% of our inventory every week. The more items you have, the higher your sales. Its pretty simple. If you feel like you aren't selling out fast enough, lower your prices, diversify your inventory, increase the number of platforms you sell on. There are plenty of options. Mercari, offerup, facebook marketplace, discogs (for your vinyl albums), poshmark (for clothes), amazon, and more. 

Either take others' advice and adapt to the changes, or don't. But don't lump all small businesses into the same "helpless" category.

[onefootflipper]

Yep, if I was say looking for a specific vintage comic, I would sort lowest to highest and grab the first decent looking one from a seller that didn't look sketchy. Usually that is not going to be one from someone with premium pricing. If I wasn't even looking for a specific issue then I would go with a broader search and still go lowest to highest and in that case I would absolutely never even encounter an item from someone with premium type pricing, and I know for sure that a lot of collectors shop that way. 

I can even back that up. About 2 years ago I had about 20 different copies of the Dungeons and Dragons adventure Module "The Keep on the Borderlands", all different printings and conditions. The cheapest ones in general sold first, then the highest grade ones of the least valuable printings sold. Today I have ONE COPY LEFT, and that is the true first printing that I priced up a bit on. 

Whenever I have multiple copies of some valuable Magic the Gathering card priced by condition they will always sell in order from cheapest to most expensive. If I have a mint one for $20 and a scraped up one that looks like it has dog poop on it for $10 then the $10 one will sell first.

[dbfolks166mt]

     With regard to the stock price the DJIA on 22 October 2021 was 35,677 and on 13 June 2022 it was/is 30,516 so what exactly says it all? On the good side since 2003 when you started there have been 100's of other ecommerce sites open up and they really surged during the pandemic. I diversified across multiple forums and platforms long ago and only sell about 20% of my items on eBay these days. 

     With the inflation out of control you can bet you will see more fee increases from eBay and other ecommerce sites as their own costs begin to rise. They may absorb those in the short run but in the long run they either have to increase revenue or lower their costs. 

[rugerskick]

Ebay is going through what Apple went through when they fired Steve Jobs.  They brought in the mucky-muck from Pepsi to run Apple and he almost destroyed Apple entirely in just a few years.  He would have if they wouldn't have been able to get Jobs to come back.

This current guy is from Walmart.  And bringing in other walmart people.  They are doing to ebay what the Pepsi guy did to Apple in just a few years.