Sales almost nothing

[hitech-components]

Has anybody experienced a tremendous drop in sales over the last two months?"

[kensgiftshop]

Yep, sellers have been complaining about low sales last couple years.

[anjofak]

If they sold every listing we have put up withing a week they would still be under par with in flow.

[anjofak]

Like single digits kinda ratio..

[mr_lincoln]

@hitech-components 

No, not the last two months but YES to the last two years.  A slow steady decline in sales. 

Whatever you do DON'T use Promoted Listings unless you are willing to pay between 20%-30% in Fees between your FVFs and eBay's "Suggested" Ad rates.  

I am in month 7 of waiting for organic sales to return to my BIN listings because I stopped using Promoted Listings Standard in 4th quarter last year.  I checked over the weekend and 61.3% of my listings had (0) Views in the last 30 days and 84.9% of my listings have (2), (1) or (0) views.  ... the math is simple, if nobody sees your items what are the chances they are going to sell?  

[thriftgnome]

Yes, I was selling 5-10 items a day with almost no goose eggs but lately I’m going several days in a row with no sales or 1 or 2 sales. Views are also down.

I haven’t changed anything about how I sell. I’m thinking more people are going to other sites to buy things. I can’t really come up with a solid reason other than this. 

[inhawaii]

Sellers have been coming here every day for the last 10+ years complaining about a sudden drop in sales.

[rock-obsessions]

Yes and no... What I mean is, we see a sales drop this time of year from January to the middle or the end of May. Always picks up then some and takes off in June and dies off around September, due to everyone getting ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, we do see a massive rush in November and December, of course. Shoppers have an algorithm. Just have to buckle down and manage your money to these seasons and holidays. 

[chapeau-noir]

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@thriftgnome wrote:

Yes, I was selling 5-10 items a day with almost no goose eggs but lately I’m going several days in a row with no sales or 1 or 2 sales. Views are also down.

I haven’t changed anything about how I sell. I’m thinking more people are going to other sites to buy things. I can’t really come up with a solid reason other than this. 

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Yes. Not only are there more selling sites (some really busy), but active buyers on eBay are now lower than 2018 levels, plus a lot of people jumped into online selling during the pandemic, and I suspect a good portion of them stayed.

So, lots of competition.

[blacktopautoparts]

Honestly, I am going to say this once with you, but you need to stop with your snide comments. Not sure that you are trying to pad your post count or what, but your comments do not help anyone. I've been on these boards for years and we keep hearing the same garbage from you over and over. Come on already.

The past 2 months, sales have dropped a lot for many sellers. It's a combo of the economy, what eBay has done with the promoted listings, changes to feedback making it buyer vs. seller again like it was 10 years ago,  and the constant changes to the site have hurt sellers. I even posted about promoted listing impressions dropping to move than half for many of us in a matter of a months time. I've been selling on here for over 20+ years and things have been getting worse of late.

[isaiah53-57]

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@hitech-components wrote:

Has anybody experienced a tremendous drop in sales over the last two months?"

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My guess and opinion is, since you are already using promoted listings, that its a kind of a timed strategy to get you to increase your promotion rates - that your visibility and sales are reduced over time to elicit a response - kind of a Pavlov's Dog thing where you begin to associate a need for a higher promotion rate as sales begin to slow...

Whether this is by design or inadvertent (since it does seem this site has ALWAYS had a problem with sudden, unexplained reductions in sales) doesn't really matter - the result will be the same - The site has found a goldmine in the malicious ingenuity of this program - though staying on the current path will eventually create a tipping point - a point when it becomes a necessity to use promoted listings to sell here - I'd say they have a ways to go before that happens, but when it does it will be chaos and by that time, buyers will already be in short supply due to the insane price increases PLs are already causing...

What boggles my mind is some sellers think that the PL program is a reprieve from site wide increases - As far as we are concerned, that way of thinking is about as short-sighted as the company's decisions over the last 15 years  - These sellers will be begging for site wide increases rather than having to play the guessing game of whether it will take 8% promotion or 28% to sell something here... Some advice... Maybe just take the company's recommendations of somewhere around 14% to 20% promotions as they seem to know exactly where they want you...

[jjddmwi]

Yes... my sales were good until last week.  This week has been horrible.  My metrics are all in the red.  Huge nosedive.

I've given up trying to understand it and just keep listing.... hoping that sales will start happening again.  I do not promote my listings, nor will I.

[fashunu4eeuh]

95% of the follow-up responses to negative and neutral  feedback are off-putting. 

What a buyer writes in negative feedback isn't the make or break moment. It is what the seller writes in his follow up comments that is critical. Future buyers will review how a seller handles himself when a buyer raises a concern. 

Sellers who use feedback to blame, name-call, act defensively, show anger, “warn” others or  deflect responsibility can make a poor score much much worse. While a calm factual well-worded reply can utterly disarm a negative rating. Buyers want to be assured that the seller will treat a possible issue with professionalism and courtesy.

This may not explain your drop in sales currently, but it is certainly not supporting them.

[seconhandrosie]

Yes, about a year of terrible sales for me.

[mr_lincoln]

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@inhawaii wrote:

Sellers have been coming here every day for the last 10+ years complaining about a sudden drop in sales.

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Yes, but some of us have actually watched trends and tested to see why and when sales started to drop.  I know when mine started and why it happened.  It could be different for different Sellers but for my categories and what I sell I can point specifically to the issues with my items that are hidden-buried-manipulated-etc.  Prior to early 2022 growth was still on the rise but that changed in short order and reversed to a slow steady measurable decline.  Here are the three things that eBay changed to commence the decline in early 2022.

-Full launch of PLA

-Changed the Views counting system

-Inflated PLS "Suggested ad rates"

-How do programmers adjust search algorithms when they are giving PLA participants preference for placement in the tops spots of returned search?  This would have a negative impact on organic or PLS sales.

-How does one interpret items with (0) Views in the last 30 days equaling 30-35% of listings and that percentage steadily growing over a 2 year period?  I posted up thread that % was recently at about 61%.

-I proved that with eBay's Suggested rates PLS sales could return to their pre-2022 levels of 2-3 per day on a 30 day PLS campaign ONLY if one uses at or higher ad rates then the Suggested rates ... meaning 12 % or higher.  Add that to the 12.35% Store FVFs in my categories we are looking at OVER 24% in fees per sale.  NOT sustainable for what I sell, not even close. 

The changes made to the venue have forced me to push more inventory elsewhere since 2022 then during any other time of selling prior to that.   While I LOVE selling on eBay, the operative word is "selling".  My sales were over 10K behind in 2023 and 2024 has started out several thousand dollars behind through March (1st quarter).