Sales Keep Tanking and Tanking - It’s Getting Scary

[vintagequeennyc]

Man, oh man. I’m really starting to worry about the future of selling on eBay as a small to mid-level seller. This site is beginning to feel like a graveyard. 

My sales have been in a very steep and fast decline since January 2019. My 60 day sales total is thousands of dollars below what it was 3-4 months ago and dropping by the day. 

I have kept increasing my number of listings but sales are almost non-existent. I’ve been selling new and used clothing here for 13 years and this is currently my full-time job. Yes, I know clothing is saturated but it always has been. That’s never held back my sales. 2 years ago I was making twice as much money with half the number of listings. I’m currently partly disabled recovering from an accident and unable to work an outside job. So for me, this massive slump of sales is becoming incredibly frightening. 

Not to mention my impressions dashboard metrics are all up substantially since the GTC change a month ago but my sell-through rate is down 50%!!! I KNOW it’s not my inventory or prices. I’ve been at this game a long time and keep a careful watch on those things and know I am offering amazing deals on desirable items.

It’s starting to get VERY scary for me here. I used to know that if I listed good stuff at great prices, I could make money fast and reliably. Now the only reliable thing is the lack of sales. 

Is ebay truly dying?? Have buyers abandoned this site en masse? Is it the algorithm and blackouts? Are we seeing the beginning stages of an economic recession? I sit here and look through my listings and think, “How the HECK hasn’t that sold?? Or that? Or this?!” 

I’m truly at a loss as to what is going on. I’ve NEVER seen such a fast and drastic sales slowdown in all my years selling here. It really feels like an apocalypse. 

[valuestore]

Meanwhile on wallstreet, few days ago eBay earnings beat, revenue beat, increased guidance..

[popeye3165]

YES sales are down eBay is making YUGE changes to their way of doing business and I personally believe that the small one of a kind sellers are being "pushed" to use the auction side of eBay which eBay has neglected and is nothing but a non-payer haven now (there are many posts about it) which completely destroys what an auction is all about. What a train wreck.

[bazaaragogo]

I'm with you...down 56% in since the last 31 days.   Although my Jan Feb Mar was pretty good, it's like someone flipped the switch and the lights are OUT!  I started out doing this on the side and it was truly fun and it's just not anymore.    

[Anonymous]

My sales are down. I am a small seller , Had been a Power seller for as long as I can remember, Lost that about 2 months ago and this month I am no longer a top rated seller,   For the last year or so I have averaged about 5-6 sales a month for about 50-60 dollars  Total.. Now I am averaging about 50- 60 dollars a month but !0 sales because I lowered all my prices to about half. IF Ebay would stop running off all the sellers( also Our Buyers) with all the crazy new rules.. We could do a lot better... Ebay is Killing its self..

[greg213213]

I have to agree with you. It seems that sales have completely stopped. The first week in April I had over $600.00 in sales and the past seven days $27.99. About the seventh of the April is when my listings started going into the GTC and have come to almost a halt. eBay has sure screwed up something this time and it is NOT for the good of the seller. Every time a change is made, sellers have to jump through more hoops and it cost them more money. I hate their suggestions of "lower your price to make a sale". I have tried that and still NO sales. Their suggestions are worthless garbage. If they knew what they are doing they would be the number 1 site.

Seems that eBay is driving sellers and buyers away from here and I won't be far behind. It is always more work, not fun and becoming boring. It used to be fun selling and buying but not so much now. I search for an item and I get Chinese junk showing up. Change the filter to U.S. and then find something that is listed as being in this country, but find the seller is in China.

I have over 20 years in retail sales and retail management and no business can survive at the way eBay is headed. It is time to make changes in UPPER management.

Every time I flush the toilet, I see a name (eBay) going down. Maybe the next news we hear is they are going out of business or sold out to China as it seems the CEO thinks they are the greatest.

Good luck to everyone. Hope sales pick up for all of us.

[weschurch]

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@coolections wrote:

People have been saying that for over 12 years now but yet sales on Ebay overall are the same and actually a little higher. You have lots of competition because everyone out there out of work tries doing the same as you. If you do not want your items in a graveyard you need to price and compete competitively. For every item you do not sell another seller out there does sell.

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I'm not sure where you get your info but sales are actually down 6% according to the Q1 release from Ebay. 

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2019/4/1556080580.html

"US GMV (the value of items sold on its marketplace) dropped 6% in the first quarter, year-over-year"

[hillbillymedia]

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@weschurch wrote:

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@coolections wrote:

People have been saying that for over 12 years now but yet sales on Ebay overall are the same and actually a little higher. You have lots of competition because everyone out there out of work tries doing the same as you. If you do not want your items in a graveyard you need to price and compete competitively. For every item you do not sell another seller out there does sell.

---

I'm not sure where you get your info but sales are actually down 6% according to the Q1 release from Ebay. 

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2019/4/1556080580.html

"US GMV (the value of items sold on its marketplace) dropped 6% in the first quarter, year-over-year"

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It seems they are just going to count on reaching deeper into sellers pockets to keep them afloat instead of spending their money wisely. Promoted listings is their new cash cow and sellers are only spending that extra money out of desperation IMO. It`s a pyramid scheme really. The band-aids they have applied over the years fall off. They always do, and unfortunately a new scar is usually revealed underneath. They need to start preventing these scars IMO and from reading the CEO`s past comments, it`s pretty clear to me they have zero intentions of doing it. Insanity IMO.

[grasshopperx]

I read the report too.   I am losing my grip on reality. Because I am reading the forums here AND the shifty craft site. How could? Two huge sites be tanking so badly? Both do have bad ai searches? That's what I think it is. But what the heck people? is going on? I will say this.  Sellers Are MAD all over . They're sick of not being seen in the searches and sneaky  schemes and fee hikes.   Ebay is going to go into a panic because Amazon just announced a One day shipping. LOL

[threshold.sales.group]

Fwiw, overall sales for the USA site were down significantly in the 1st quarter. Considering the overall ecommerce segment continues healthy growth it's a major issue for sellers. Also, revenue from fees and etc, actually showed a nice increase, while USA marketplace sales tanked. That's pretty stunning. 

[partsman330]

They are making revenue from banner ads as well as selling sales data/info and a few other cash grabs to keep their profits going. I do not feel their profits are from increased sales by sellers. The constant pressure to sell for less has got to be driving prices down overall too for the items that DO sell here. It would seem Ebay SHOULD prefer items to sell for as much as possible bc they would also make more money. That is a puzzling aspect to me. The idea of "sell more for less" is the opposite of where a company would want to be heading. When I consigned items for people my goal was always to sell for the highest price possible as I worked on commission.

I sell different products on another platform. My current yearly stats for 2019 on that platform are like this:

ORDERS - DOWN 8% from last year

REVENUE - UP 11% from last year

I am comfortable with these numbers as my revenue is all that matters and my strategy is to sell less for more. To sell more and make the same/less to me would be going in the wrong direction and IMO would not be a good sign. I would be happier if BOTH orders AND revenue were up but again, my strategy when pricing was to see revenue gains while selling less and it is working on the other platform.

On here I see the opposite trend. Constant pressure to sell for less. Such an environment is good only for sellers with deep pockets selling trinkets they buy for next to nothing which are worth next to nothing which is what I see happening here. if that is their goal, they are succeeding. But if the goal is a marketplace that sells quality items that fetch good prices (which is attractive to sellers) they are failing.

Good luck to everyone. Whatever you are selling or wherever you may be selling it.

[gracieallen01]

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@valuestore wrote:

Meanwhile on wallstreet, few days ago eBay earnings beat, revenue beat, increased guidance..

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Yep, ebay 'grew new buyers' by 4%, increased their revenue by 4%, and so on.  Unfortunately, marketplace sales were down 1%.  More new buyers, less sales.

But, on the bright side(?), the CEO is happy and confident that ebay is 'on track', and as Meg said, a 'monkey could drive this train'.

[zamo-zuan]

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@vintagequeennyc wrote:

Man, oh man. I’m really starting to worry about the future of selling on eBay as a small to mid-level seller. This site is beginning to feel like a graveyard. 

My sales have been in a very steep and fast decline since January 2019. My 60 day sales total is thousands of dollars below what it was 3-4 months ago and dropping by the day. 

I have kept increasing my number of listings but sales are almost non-existent. I’ve been selling new and used clothing here for 13 years and this is currently my full-time job. Yes, I know clothing is saturated but it always has been. That’s never held back my sales. 2 years ago I was making twice as much money with half the number of listings. I’m currently partly disabled recovering from an accident and unable to work an outside job. So for me, this massive slump of sales is becoming incredibly frightening. 

Not to mention my impressions dashboard metrics are all up substantially since the GTC change a month ago but my sell-through rate is down 50%!!! I KNOW it’s not my inventory or prices. I’ve been at this game a long time and keep a careful watch on those things and know I am offering amazing deals on desirable items.

It’s starting to get VERY scary for me here. I used to know that if I listed good stuff at great prices, I could make money fast and reliably. Now the only reliable thing is the lack of sales. 

Is ebay truly dying?? Have buyers abandoned this site en masse? Is it the algorithm and blackouts? Are we seeing the beginning stages of an economic recession? I sit here and look through my listings and think, “How the HECK hasn’t that sold?? Or that? Or this?!” 

I’m truly at a loss as to what is going on. I’ve NEVER seen such a fast and drastic sales slowdown in all my years selling here. It really feels like an apocalypse. 

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I've been a solid believer in the issue being the algorithm (as well as technical issues) with GTC since the beginning of 2018. Literally January first (or maybe the last 2 weeks of 2017) is when the changes were noticeable.

These problems have only got worse in the last year as their policies became more unfair, and there's significant design issues in their search (which I've went over on the forums here many times as well).

I've tried to share all the evidence I could of this on the forums here, which is pretty substantial. Top sellers in their categories have been plummeting since this time. I've shared Terapeak charts on here that show the "Top 10 Seller Market Share" dropped from 40% to 27% in one year. This means even the most successful sellers on eBay dropped ~33% in one year. 

And they're still dropping. We had drops of 40-60% last year. This year 20-30% has persisted most the year. And we're still #1 in our category; all the competitors are dropping too. 

It's really sad that now everyone seems to be feeling the pain we felt.

[zamo-zuan]

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@coolections wrote:

People have been saying that for over 12 years now but yet sales on Ebay overall are the same and actually a little higher. You have lots of competition because everyone out there out of work tries doing the same as you. If you do not want your items in a graveyard you need to price and compete competitively. For every item you do not sell another seller out there does sell.

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They can't even hide it in the stock reports anymore. Their stock may be up but sales were down 4%. This was the first time that has happened in the Spring season which is usually very eventful and profitable for eBay. 

"eBay Marketplace GMV – the value of sales of its sellers – was down 4% in the first three months of 2019, a decline of 1% taking into account the impact of foreign exchange."

Don't get it confused, this is extremely significant.

Also it's the first time individual markets for categories have shown a drop. Typically this time of year it's 6-10% improvement in past years. This year? Check the image.

This isn't normal. Especially for the time of year. EBay is seeing a true decline, and still spinning it in their stock reports.

They won't be able to hide it much longer.

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@valuestore wrote:

Meanwhile on wallstreet, few days ago eBay earnings beat, revenue beat, increased guidance..

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That reflects the company margin, which is no surprise to see an increase as they are collecting sponsorship money (making prices higher for customers) in order to even have the visibility you had for free a year and a half ago.

Margin of the company does not equal a powerful marketplace. Sales are the backbone of a marketplace. If sales are down, that's bad for every seller on that market.

[ekmadonna]

The current SEVERE decline in sales is a massive combination of EVERYTHING all at once, Changes to a already broken algorithm, New Update and GTC change over which is a death blow to small 1 off item sellers, the last 2 huge USPS shipping increases and now the ever widening State sales tax grab. Buyers have had enough, everyone has a breaking point. The hole for me and many others is getting too deep and all these outside factors are shoveling the dirt on top of our graves!

[vintagequeennyc]

I have to respectfully disagree with you.   I’ve been selling here for over 13 years and have witnessed the ebbs and flows, ups and downs. What’s going on right now is so far outside of the norm of my business cycle. As I said before, my items are priced very competitively. I research comps constantly. I have professional pictures. In fact, this week alone, I’ve sold 5x as much on another site as I have here, on which I have all the same inventory listed at the the same prices. People ARE shopping and want my stuff. They just aren’t buying it here. My sales are down almost 70% today from my eBay norm. What a lot of us are experiencing isn’t ‘normal’ but seems to be becoming the ‘new norm’ on eBay. 

When you are consistently making the a livable income here and then it drastically drops off suddenly, I disagree with you that ‘you have to look at yourself.’ I do not think that is always the case. I think that’s an easy finger pointing tactic to blame the seller and ignore that there seem to be some major issues at eBay right now. 

I’m so thankful I diversified and sell on other sites now because otherwise, there is no way I would be able to pay my bills, let alone buy new inventory or pay my fees. 

I’m hoping that I can report back next month with good news and say, “Hey! My sales are back! They’re great!” I truly hope so. While I disagree with many of eBay’s unethical and often shady practices, the sad truth is I NEED and WANT this site as a whole to succeed.