SALES

[clemsantiques]

Good Morning    I am concerned     I have been selling with Ebay since 1998   a Long time.    However,  lately,  there are little to NO sales.     I use to do approx 7 items a week.....Now,  1 item every other week.   

   IS IT JUST ME...  or IS EVERYONE DOWN ????

  IF SO........What do you feel the cause is..???    

  Kindly jot a line    I  would appreciate it

[selsa84]

I use to get most of my sales in the Summer.  Before all the changes we would usually sell 5-10 items a day from June to Sept. It all depends on what you are selling 

[selsa84]

Ebay is focusing on high-end sellers not small sellers like you and me. They  already admitted this a few months back. Fees I'm sure will increase again soon seeing as their stock doesn't show any growth. Ebay has changed alot since we started selling and most of it for the worse. Customer service is essentially non existent and the tech issues and glitches are getting to be daily. 

[fuzzface50]

I mentioned in another thread earlier today I haven't look at listings here in quite a while. Saving my money for essentials and I think I am going to buy a newer vehicle next year so playing it safe by not spending money foolishly.

car repo's are starting to happen the last few weeks more than normal. the report says there are 1.5 trillion dollars in auto loans at 130% loan to value ratio.  They figure it will rise sharply and we will have a record number of vehicle repo's in 2023.  The feds claim the people losing vehicles right now were trying to make 900-1,000 payments. Average car payment are in the upper $600 range.

couples are no longer getting that $8,000 a month stimulis check  that they just blew foolishly on vehicles and toys and now they are starting to lose them because with double rent, food up 30%, gas up even though it came back down some, they just cannot afford those new vehicles anymore. instead of saving it, they spent the money foolishly enjoying it, now they need to pay for it. 

with the loan to value ratio getting worse, they expect people to walk away from so many vehicle loans and flooding the market. time will tell but I seem to agree with them why when you can pay $25,000 for the same car you are making $1,000 month payments on that you owe $40,000 on, why not walk away from the upside down loan?

happened with real estate in 2008 but that wasn't too bad because at least real estate appreciates in time so it didn't hurt the banks to bad but it is happening with vehicles now and we all know those actually go down in value so this really has the feds worried about the banking industry crashing over these car loans. 

[evry1nositswindy]

Summer is always slower for me.  During the quarantine, I was killing it with books and groups of books.  Now people are outside and enjoying nature.  It always picks up in the fall.  March is usually my best month for antiques/collectibles.

I sell at antique shows as well and we have been super busy.  People love getting out and shopping for vintage and antique items. 

[stoney45]

I too started with eBay 1998.   It was definitely the hay day for eBay.  Not having that much competition for one thing and everything being auction only.   Made a huge difference.   I only put on about 40 items a week and it was easy to do then.  They all sold and for far more than asking price.   That hay day fell apart the day eBay changed to the BIN's.   Both prices and number of sales fell off.   But nothing like now.   It's a business nightmare.   Too many sellers and too little excess money in people's pockets.

[bearswatching]

Wow! You have some gorgeous items. But, your sales fall into the ..”wants” column, not needs. I’m in the same boat so this is a good time for a break.  Inflation is killing it for a lot of people. 

[onefootflipper]

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@selsa84 wrote:

Ebay is focusing on high-end sellers not small sellers like you and me. They  already admitted this a few months back. Fees I'm sure will increase again soon seeing as their stock doesn't show any growth. Ebay has changed alot since we started selling and most of it for the worse. Customer service is essentially non existent and the tech issues and glitches are getting to be daily. 

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Ebay wanting to draw in high end customers in no way stops people from buying or listing medium or low end items. The overwhelming majority of sales on ebay are under $20, that isn't going to change any time soon. 

Vintage and collectibles just isn't good right now at all, particularly if you are the type of seller who "Knows their prices" does zero price research or posts things at higher prices than the competition. I have not looked at your store or the original poster's store, but nearly every time someone posts one of these threads and I go look at their store I find that literally anything I can easily search for comps for has other people selling the item at half the price.  In the case of the original poster they have very few items that would be easy to find comps for, but I saw poor title issues all over the place. Particularly there were a lot of books that didn't even have the actual name of the book in the title of the auction, instead they seemed to describe what the book was about as the title.

[theteamsetguy]

44% of the respondents have not cut back and after being cooped up for Covid many people would rather be going out with friends than buying more stuff. Just look at Target, Walmart and others indicating the have too much inventory. It not just affecting eBay. 

[luckythewinner]

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@clemsantiques wrote:

 IS IT JUST ME...  or IS EVERYONE DOWN ????

It is not just you and it is also not everyone. 

[purple-rain-store]

For me it's gone down hill from the start of July for some reason. 

I was at least getting something almost every week & even

on multiple occasions when I had my store on "time away," still available

to shop, I was still getting sales. 

I'm now on a streak of nothing sold for 7 days straight! 

Very depressing.

I now feel I made the right decision when I down graded my store

a couple months ago from a Premium Store to a Basic Store. 

Sales just weren't/aren't there for me to justify a Premium Store. 

 

[purple-rain-store]

I just found this out per a YT channel: Angela in Resale Land. 

Maybe this could part of the issue?

Check your "business policies," for default payment. Especially since

you started selling on here before managed payments, (like I have)

when it was Paypal processing all payments. 

You might have items getting put into an old 

payment policy, "paypal default!" 

I'm hearing if this is happening to some or most

of your listings & you've been having little

to no sales, this could be a reason why! 

I just checked mine; by going into Seller Hub, clicking 

"site preference's," then "business policies" & sure enough

there was a payment policy, "paypal default," which had

listing shown for it.

So I went into the each of the listings, fixed 

the "payment," policy to "buy it now" & was able to delete the "paypal 

default" payment policy.  

I would be curious to know if anybody else finds this 

in their payment policies & sees active listings under 

"paypal default" payment policy as well.  

[coolections]

Learn to NEVER compare how much you made 20 years ago to what you make today. Regardless of Ebay or any other job. Only worry about today and forget the past or it will drive you nuts. Looking at your feedback over the last year the numbers seem to be fairly consistent. The only thing you can do to increase sales is to increase the number of listings you have. You also cannot try comparing your sales with anyone else on Ebay as everyone sells different things. The answer can go in all directions depending on what you sell, the prices your are asking for your items, the demand of your items, etc.

[Anonymous]

I am currently on Day 18 of NO sales and I have never seen this before!!!  I always sell at least 2 to 4 items a week?!?!  I know my items are being seen and I even checked on my phone for them.  Yep, they're there, just NOT selling?!?  I'm beginning to wonder if there is a payment issue and buyers can't purchase.  This has gone WAY beyond frustrating.

[treasuresquirrel]

I haven't been selling very long, but I was getting about a sale a day until lately.  I just broke a 9 day no sale streak, thankfully but sales are absolutely down.

[fallgold4031]

In my opinion, here are three things that are happening: (1) The market is changing.  Younger people no longer are that interested in older items or collecting things.  This has changed even over the last 5 or 6 years. (2) There are way more sellers than buyers out there.  I always look at how many listings there are for a category and compare that with items sold.  Not a perfect relationship, but it gives you an idea of turnover.  If there are a thousand items listed and 100 sold, it gives you an idea of the level of interest.  Also, if you want to go deeper, look at the number of items sold in a category over say the last week.  (3) Also, the high cost of everything has to be having some effect.  Now that the Post Office has raised prices again, it is going to be that much harder to sell with even higher shipping costs.  It is hard to sell a 4.00 item when the shipping is even more than that.  I don't blame Ebay, they are providing an excellent selling platform, much more organized than some of the other sites I have reviewed.