Sales are Horrible.............anyone else experience this?

[memphiskansasgirl123]

Sales are Horrible.............anyone else experience this?

[mr_lincoln]

@jpcustomsonline wrote:  I've had multiple days in a row of 80% sales from one region or even one STATE, and then rinse and repeat, for another region or state. Keep calling it a conspiracy theory tho. I've been selling on ebay since 1999. I've seen it all. I've seen ebay drop sales, consistently, after a higher than normal day. I've seen my sales stay  at the same monthly sales point, even if I cut my listings in half, or double my listings. Multiple people have reported on that one. And there was an excellent case of that from a power seller awhile back, that doubled his inventory, hired new staff, and then went out of business, because his sales went up just a few percent. I've had more than enough years at this, to notice patterns. Now I'm sure, you anti conspiracy nuts will just blame us loley sellers. Never ebay. Never ebay...

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I would not doubt for a minute that search return manipulation occurs, throttling or whatever anyone wants to call it.  I believe in the UA eBay does not guarantee 24/7 item exposure, I read the statement about it at least once but do not recall the exact wording, but its in there.  I think more of that goes on in highly saturated categories and there are probably bots and algorthyms that control it.

I've often wondered if accounts with more followers get higher placement then those less followers?

[timemachine777]

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@jpcustomsonlinewrote:

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@kathieskornerwrote:

You do realize that a very, very small minority of ebay sellers actually post on this board - and those that are doing well probably don't have the time or the inclination to micro-manage their sales data.    This has been primarily a complaint and conspiracy theory board for at least 10 of the 18 years I've been selling on ebay.   In the early days it was much more of a help board. 

Ebay has shot itself in the foot on numerous occasions over the years and has lost some of its uniqueness and identity in the process, but many, many sellers are still able to make it work for them.   And for those that can't - it is just as likely to be unreasonable expectations or blindspots when it comes to their own business or the ever changing competitive environment  as anything ebay is doing. 

I don't know why any smart business person - powerseller or not - would double their inventory and hire new staff for selling on ebay or any other controlled online site in today's competitive ecommerce environment.   If I want to gamble I go to a casino, and never risk more than I can afford to lose. 

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gamble? He was a very big seller with a very big ebay foot print and his sales were doing great, which justified the investment of inventory, and staff to do the inventory. SURE, blame the seller, for ebay throttling his sales and limitting his velocity. That makes perfect sense.  He had no reason to believe that in any normal business enviroment, buying very well selling inventory, would mean that his sales will remain at almost the exact same point as before he bought the inventory.  Stay on that ebay band wagon tho.  To call selling on ebay, like going to a casino. Wow. Why even bother selling on here, if that's how you feel?

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I watched eBay slowly kill off a huge veteran seller last year, that I followed. Over 44,000 FB and about 65,000 listings. They sold about 1,000 plus items a month. Then around the beginning of 2017, I noticed a drop in sales numbers for the month, an I chalked it up to a bad month.

The next month it dropped even more, which peaked my interest. Every month a bigger drop than the last. By mid spring, they had a 75% drop in normal sales. At this point, they shed inventory and downgraded, and the drop continued through the summer. Through the summer they were selling less than 5 items a day. By fall, they were done.

[richardwillardcollection]

sales are outstanding, I had 4 of them yesterday and want more........signed greedy

[richardwillardcollection]

I just looked at some of your nice things....and I would buy them myself if I could not find the exact same things priced far less in the 12 or so thrift stores that are all around me, but I do live in a large town, good luck selling!

[richardwillardcollection]

well, we never speak of this for the fear of it, we don't want to ever imply that ebay is throttling small sellers. If small sellers sold a whole lot, then they would not be small sellers and have to claim capital gains, don't forget, if you get into trouble with you know who, then so is ebay.

[lewisburggold]

We have seen a drop two at the same time last year we were selling twice as much.   Best regards

[pete4333]

In last few months sales are almost zero and i haven't made any changes in my listings in several years. I sold 30 to 40 items every month over past few years until the last few months, now i'm lucky to sell 5 in a months time.

[moms**art**window**]

by looking at your listings it appears that your watchers are only working on multiple item listings and 10 and over watcher listings visible to the buyer,mine doing the same thing,killed my sales

[mallontown]

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@tunicaslotwrote:

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@hosedakiwrote:

Yes I am experiencing no sales. Last sale was February 24th and I have tried to talk to customer support but so far have not had any success. I have been having consistent sales up until February and fallen off a cliff since down 75% month to month. I realize that business has ebbs and flows but I feel like I have something wrong that may be out of my control. Usually I will have offers on my stuff but since around Valentine’s Day they have dried up, not even low ball offers. I noticed that people could look at my listings and I would not see page view change. I have tried to explain to Ebay that I think this could be a huge issue but somehow I have not had the right combination to to see what the issue is. Anyone have any suggestions I would appreciate it! Thank you!

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You had 3 sales March 4th - tho not high dollar you still had sales. With only 121 items in an oversaturated category - you can't expect to have a sale everyday.

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You have to love it when posters are trying to find reasons why sales are down and you have these super sleuths delving into your account. Not only that but there is also false information provided to the community about your account.

It really helps me understand why people start separate posting accounts so they don't have to deal with these private detectives.

I have found that with slower moving items it's best to end them and then relist.

But do not use the relist function. Use the sell similar link so your item is reindexed and stars anew. 

[moms**art**window**]

probably watchers not displaying correctly to the buyer,it's throughout ebay,it's hurting sales.

[jean249]

Totally agree. & I was shocked to see they are now charging me $1 insertion fee up front. I was getting $0.00 till the stuff sold. Starting to think I should have kept an Etsy store after all.

[kathieskorner]

The only reason ebay would be charging you a $1 insertion fee is if you are using 3 day listing duration or some other special feature.   If you use 5, 7, pr 10 days duration there is no insertion fee for your first 50 items per month.  

[dr.clockenstien]

Those "toddlers" are called the Marketing Team... they also make participation badges for the community forum.

[byrd69er]

Sales are not being monkeyed with.  What would be eBays reason for slowing anyone's sales? There is none.

It's the product, the demand, and the price.  The formula.

If I wanted to, and had the time, I could sell many items every single day of every week.  Other people do. Their formula works.

[yuzuha]

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@kathieskornerwrote:

There is risk in any business - more so when selling online.    It is one thing to take small steps to grow a business limiting risk - quite another to double inventory (your words) and hire personnel no matter how big an ebay footprint one has.    There is no gaurantee that what has been selling very well for a period of time will continue to do so - especially in a very competitive and changing ecommerce environment.

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That's exactly how plenty of B&M stores end up going under-- they try to expand too fast.  Every market has a saturation point, and once you hit that point, no amount of expansion is going to get you more sales.  It happened around here with cupcakes several years ago: cupcakes became the in thing, and the next thing you know, there were a million and one cupcake boutiques opening up.  Well, eventually that bubble burst, and now almost all of those bakeries have shut down because it hit the point where supply vastly exceeded the demand and the area simply couldn't support that many cupcake-only bakeries.  It made me sad because I really liked the cupcakes from one of the places, but they'd tried to open way too many stores in way too small an area and they effectively put THEMSELVES out of business by being too ambitious.