eBay

partsman330 · ‎04-01-2019

I saw an incredible drop in sales in March. I cannot figure out what has happened. The change was so drastic it is almost catastrophic. I see a lot of talk about GTC and I even thought my listings were being hidden somehow but I did some searches on a different user ID and there they were right as they should be in search results.

Its not like people's appliances suddenly stopped breaking... also, the quality of the buyers I DID get last month was awful... it was a lot of scammers trying to pull fast ones (buyers choosing Local Pickup to get free shipping/buyers returning their old/installed parts/buyers from other countries buying under a Domestic address then saying they need it shipping out of country to avoid paying international shipping/etc)

Very confusing how such a drop off happened so suddenly. I understand there are ups and downs and have been selling on this platform for nearly 20 years but I have never seen anything so drastic and sudden as what has been happening the last 4 or so weeks. It is very concerning. I sell products that are one a "need" basis and make sure when listed my items are the lowest price that exists online... anywhere. The "need" is there 100% so I am confused as to what is happening. Items that I would sell 5-10 weekly for months just suddenly died... as did everything else.

What are your sales like for March? Up? Down? Non existent?

gamersbaystore · ‎04-01-2019

Go read the economic reports, its all there. U.S. economy is in a mass decline. I'm hoping it improves as we get closer to the summer. Its likely it will with higher wages taking hold.

I had a whopping 3 sales over the entire weekend, the worst I've done so far this year. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried. While I can't speak for others, I definitely cannot cut my bills right now. Yet, I put up over 150+ new listings over the last week and half, and have close to $5,000 of stuff for sale.

I noticed I have over 50 watchers right now, no one is buying, they just sit and stare.

myjunqueyourtreasure · ‎04-01-2019

Up

Reality is the leading cause of stress.

knappys_komics_and_kollectibles · ‎04-01-2019

Down, by a lot - I do not feel that eBay is the buyer's first option anymore. Also, the social media selling sites are turning online buying in general into one giant garage sale - mentality speaking. They will buy...if you practically give it away.

ifyouloveit · ‎04-01-2019

Exactly. The only items I manage to get a sale on are give aways. I have two accounts here, pretty much give up. My best sale on my other account just went to a scammer, I will lose of course. I always lose, scammers always win here, always.

I put up some .99c auctions. Saw some end last night with the ONLY view being my own. It was clear they were never on the server, I didn't even bother to figure out why they had 1 view.

weschurch · ‎04-01-2019

Noone uses Ebay anymore. The buyers are gone. The ones left just wait for someone to come along and give stuff away because when nothing sells thats usually what happens.

Ebay has ran off the majority of the sellers that brought vast selection and unique inventory to this site. Very littlke here that interests people anymore and if it is its so jacked up to cover the ridiculous Ebay fees its not a good value

partsman330 · ‎04-01-2019

I agree with this. There are so many options it seems the "one site" for everything idea is going by the way-side. I sell other items on a different platform and I do quite well, but said platform is tailored to my product. The buyers are so spread out due to the vast variety of current platforms that platform selling is becoming very difficult unless specialized. The idea of paying for a platform is that the platform drives the traffic/sales for you, otherwise why not just have your own platform? When the traffic/sales decline the platform no longer has a use to sellers. I use this account to liquidate old inventory for my workplace so its not my life's blood. I can see there are probably certain products that will sell well on Ebay still, but the idea of a "one-site-with-everything-AND the kitchen sink" is something that i don't see lasting much longer with so much competition and platforms emerging that narrow themselves to and few/certain products.

I will keep chugging away until its too much of a hassle or completely unprofitable as it is of little consequence to me currently... but the sudden drastic drop has been really puzzling.

weschurch · ‎04-01-2019

@partsman330 wrote:
I agree with this. There are so many options it seems the "one site" for everything idea is going by the way-side. I sell other items on a different platform and I do quite well, but said platform is tailored to my product. The buyers are so spread out due to the vast variety of current platforms that platform selling is becoming very difficult unless specialized. The idea of paying for a platform is that the platform drives the traffic/sales for you, otherwise why not just have your own platform? When the traffic/sales decline the platform no longer has a use to sellers. I use this account to liquidate old inventory for my workplace so its not my life's blood. I can see there are probably certain products that will sell well on Ebay still, but the idea of a "one-site-with-everything-AND the kitchen sink" is something that i don't see lasting much longer with so much competition and platforms emerging that narrow themselves to and few/certain products.

I will keep chugging away until its too much of a hassle or completely unprofitable as it is of little consequence to me currently... but the sudden drastic drop has been really puzzling.

You are correct. Ebay has no platform. In a sense, Ebays demise has almost single-handedly built the other platforms however.

Ebays platform will only work as an "anything and everything" type place. Thats what it was known for when it was successful. However you can't be an "anything and everything" place without "anything and everything" and that "anything and everything" has either been moved to other platform specific sites or is just not being sold because sellers don't want to deal with Ebay and all its dictating, ever changing policies. The site survived when sellers were sucking it up and dealing with it as sales were coming in. Now sales are becoming less and less and its easier for sellers to get away from the abuse.

It never had to come to this, but Ebay thought they were untouchable and ignored sellers for a decade. Now its paying the price

monstertoybox · ‎04-01-2019

Our sales are awful! This is the first time since we came to Ebay in 2010 that we have gone 5 days with only 1 sale (we have over $52K (700 unique items listed). The strange thing is right before this 5 day freeze we lowered prices on hundreds of our items and listed 5 auctions, thinking that this would really bring in the traffic. It did the absolute opposite. Our auctions have gotten 2 views. This is very scary for us and I'm sure a lot of others.

kathieskorner · ‎04-01-2019

Official now, worst March in 19 years on eBay, and not only for sales. I had an item not received claim - only my second in 19 years - item made in to its destination city of Wilmington, DE but never delivered according to tracking. I had one return request - from a "true size Large" whose t-shirt was too big for him. And I had one item returned by the post office for an invalid address - a new buyer that has yet to answer my email request for a valid address.

However, I don't think the lack of sales had anything to do with the economy or tax season. I think it had more to with the uproar over GTC, and the multiple technical issues experienced - especially the month long Internet explorer mess.

I re-opened my old account on another site March 12 - listing only 19 unsold eBay items, and had as many sales as I did on this account with over 200 listings. So I'll be spending every M-T-W of this month - moving more listings elsewhere.

Anonymous · ‎04-01-2019

I have to agree with kathieskorner, Sales are gone because a lot of sellers (GTC haters)are gone Who are also Our Buyers. Also all the glitches and Technical issues Its just going to get worse.

luckythewinner · ‎04-01-2019

Sales DIED in the last month... what happened? I saw an incredible drop in sales in March. I cannot figure out what has happened.

Probably the same thing that happened to sellers who reported a sudden drop in February.

Or what happened to sellers who reported a sudden drop in January.

Or what happened to sellers who reported a sudden drop in December.

Or what happened to sellers who reported a sudden drop in November.

Or what happened to sellers who reported a sudden drop in October.

Or what happened to sellers who reported a sudden drop in September.

Or what happened to sellers who reported a sudden drop in August.

Or what happened to sellers who reported a sudden drop in July.

Or what happened to sellers who reported a sudden drop in June.

Thankfully it does not seem to happen to everyone.

noodlevette · ‎04-01-2019

GTC.

Those sellers are also the good buyers.

kathieskorner · ‎04-01-2019

And in none of those months did we have a huge flap over GTC nor the breadth of technical issues we had in March 2019. I've been here a long time and am well used to sales fluctuations, But in 17 out of 19 years March was my best month of the year for sales - only in 2008 when I split this account into two accounts were sales low and even then they weren't anywhere near this bad.