eBay

memphiskansasgirl123 · ‎04-29-2018

What a buzz kill! I work hard to get sales and mid way in April someone has pulled the plug. I've seen other posts regarding poor sales, but have found no explanation. Once again, what a buzz kill!!! The frustrating part is, it does not appear to be within the seller(s) control, it definitely does not feel like a natural decrease, just an abrupt spiral down. Sheesh!

mycarolinavintage · ‎04-30-2018

I appreciate your frustration with the sales drop off. I may be wrong but it seems to me this time of year is always a slow time for sales.

..............................................................

energy flows where attention goes

kathieskorner · ‎04-30-2018

You show 70 sold items in the month of April so far. How is that "terrible"? How many do you expect to sell?

That is not the point with many sellers - it is all about what has sold in the past as a basis for their expectations going forward. So if expectations aren't being met - it must be ebay's fault.

Selling 70 items out of almost 1000 listings is roughly 7% - probably pretty typical for vintage and collectibles sellers in today's marketplace. My sales run in the 5-8% range - a really good month is still only 10% - nowhere near the 80-90% of 15 years ago. I've also found that my sales for at least the past ten years always slow down from mid-April to mid-July.

I agree pricing might be part of the OP's problem especially since about half of recent sales have been at a markdown of 12-22%.

byrd69er · ‎04-30-2018

When ever my sales drop off for a few days or up to a week, it is always because the items remaining in my listings are low demand. I know they are. I put them there knowing that. They're all low priced items that add up to a nice price overall, when they eventually sell. Other items just needs a nudge down in price. They were to high to begin with, or their deamand is lower than I anticipated. Then I start building up my listings again, adding five or six items....with a known demand. A day later, sales. I don't care about thelow priced items. When they sell, they do. It's the higher priced items I expect to sell, and always do.

It's all about the product, the demand, the quality, the price, the seller....not necessarily in that order.

Seriously, eBay is not doing anything to make your sales fade.

kuriouskeepsakes · ‎04-30-2018

I won't question anyone's pricing, I've seen items that I can buy locally for $10 sell for $100. I've also seen fine Victorian Sterling sell for less than scrap value, so I don't try to figure it out anymore.

But, coming from someone that's been buying and selling for nearly 40 years, I see one major flaw. If what you're doing doesn't work today, try something different. One of the biggest mistakes I see sellers make is "doing what I've always done". I made huge profits on depression glass in the 1980's. Today, I only keep it in the shop because in my mind, an antique shop should have carnival glass. I couldn't keep Victorian furniture in stock in the late 70's and early 80's. Today, I probably wouldn't take it if you gave it to me. I try to constantly re-evaluate what I'm selling and how I'm doing that. Try experimenting with a few items. We know eBay will bury items that charge (even reasonable) shipping. If you want to continue here, you might have to play their game.

Having said that, I suspect millions of buyers have been slowly leaving ever since eBay's attack on sellers has forced them to slowly leave. I doubt you'll be able to find any vintage/antique items here in another 5 - 10 years.

kuriouskeepsakes · ‎04-30-2018

I won't question anyone's pricing, I've seen items that I can buy locally for $10 sell for $100. I've also seen fine Victorian Sterling sell for less than scrap value, so I don't try to figure it out anymore.

But, coming from someone that's been buying and selling for nearly 40 years, I see one major flaw. If what you're doing doesn't work today, try something different. One of the biggest mistakes I see sellers make is "doing what I've always done". I made huge profits on carnival glass in the 1980's. Today, I only keep it in the shop because in my mind, an antique shop should have carnival glass. I couldn't keep Victorian furniture in stock in the late 70's and early 80's. Today, I probably wouldn't take it if you gave it to me. I try to constantly re-evaluate what I'm selling and how I'm doing that. Try experimenting with a few items. We know eBay will bury items that charge (even reasonable) shipping. If you want to continue here, you might have to play their game.

Having said that, I suspect millions of buyers have been slowly leaving ever since eBay's attack on sellers has forced them to slowly leave. I doubt you'll be able to find any vintage/antique items here in another 5 - 10 years.

ebbyisme · ‎04-30-2018

I think everyone is right....

The items you've been selling has sold in the past at the prices you had set, and it has worked despite having high prices.... and than all of a sudden sales fall.

IMO it depends on what you sell and the category and visibility.....

maybe something changed with visibility... perhaps it was something on your end - returns, feedback, DSRs, defects, late shipping, and probably a hundred more variables..... maybe eBay reset the search engine placement with the changes in search criteria and you no longer have "enhanced" visibility. But now, without enhanced search placement, combined with your high prices, your sales have dropped.... the less sales you have the lower you sink in search, lower you sink in search and fewer sales and even lower placement.... and the downward spiral continues.

I think "enhanced" visibility (or a form of it) has been around for a long time. At some point it changes and your account changes over time, so the only thing you can do is use best practices, hard work, maybe lower prices and try to get back to the sales you had. The biggest mistake is people change drastically when they are doing everything right despite having slow sales or they refuse to change when they should and sales never return or they don't give it time. Some issues, metrics, changes may take many months to improve search placement.

My items (and I can only speak for my items and categories) if they are selling hot - price doesn't seem to matter, and if they aren't selling at all having very low prices doesn't seem to help.... in between very hot and very cold it does matter.

Always the optimist, things will improve in May, and April WAS better than last year (which was terrible).... although I do have a lot more listings this year ....

That said IF you sell in a category they are making changes to in the near future that will group listings and you aren't aware of pricing you are in deep trouble.

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy and a tragedy.
Image hosted by Photobucket.com

memphiskansasgirl123 · ‎04-30-2018

@kattinsanity wrote:
You show 70 sold items in the month of April so far. How is that "terrible"? How many do you expect to sell?

You do realize, 70 for me is terrible while 50 for for someone else is great. The elephant in the room is: sales have suddenly stopped not for just me, but others as well.

I have witnessed other sellers come to this board and talk about their poor/low sales; I reviewed their sales, as you did, and I found they often had better sales than mine, but, I understood 100 sales was bad them when they were use to getting 200, so yeah, that was a bad month for them. We have part-time and full-time sellers on eBay. You should get out what you put into it, so to answer your question: how many did I expect to sell: I'll just say a lot more than 70.

I did not stop working for my sales to have them come to a screeching halt and neither did those other sellers whose sales also came to a screeching halt this month. I want all sellers to get as many sells as they feel they need based on the amount of work they are willing to put in, but something beyond our control went wrong "this" month.

memphiskansasgirl123 · ‎04-30-2018

@byrd69er wrote:
When ever my sales drop off for a few days or up to a week, it is always because the items remaining in my listings are low demand. I know they are. I put them there knowing that. They're all low priced items that add up to a nice price overall, when they eventually sell. Other items just needs a nudge down in price. They were to high to begin with, or their deamand is lower than I anticipated. Then I start building up my listings again, adding five or six items....with a known demand. A day later, sales. I don't care about thelow priced items. When they sell, they do. It's the higher priced items I expect to sell, and always do.

It's all about the product, the demand, the quality, the price, the seller....not necessarily in that order.

Seriously, eBay is not doing anything to make your sales fade.

I like this strategy/analogy:

"When ever my sales drop off for a few days or up to a week, it is always because the items remaining in my listings are low demand. I know they are. I put them there knowing that. They're all low priced items that add up to a nice price overall, when they eventually sell. Other items just needs a nudge down in price. They were to high to begin with, or their deamand is lower than I anticipated. Then I start building up my listings again, adding five or six items....with a known demand."

Thank you for this!

jonathankirkland · ‎04-30-2018

@memphiskansasgirl123 wrote:
@kattinsanity wrote:
You show 70 sold items in the month of April so far. How is that "terrible"? How many do you expect to sell?
You do realize, 70 for me is terrible while 50 for for someone else is great. The elephant in the room is: sales have suddenly stopped not for just me, but others as well.

I have witnessed other sellers come to this board and talk about their poor/low sales; I reviewed their sales, as you did, and I found they often had better sales than mine, but, I understood 100 sales was bad them when they were use to getting 200, so yeah, that was a bad month for them. We have part-time and full-time sellers on eBay. You should get out what you put into it, so to answer your question: how many did I expect to sell: I'll just say a lot more than 70.

I did not stop working for my sales to have them come to a screeching halt and neither did those other sellers whose sales also came to a screeching halt this month. I want all sellers to get as many sells as they feel they need based on the amount of work they are willing to put in, but something beyond our control went wrong "this" month.

But as another poster wrote: "Selling 70 items out of almost 1000 listings is roughly 7% - probably pretty typical for vintage and collectibles sellers in today's marketplace. My sales run in the 5-8% range - a really good month is still only 10% - nowhere near the 80-90% of 15 years ago. I've also found that my sales for at least the past ten years always slow down from mid-April to mid-July."

Just wondering if you agree or disagree with this? If you agree, then it's hardly fair to say your sales have "come to a screeching halt" or that they are "terrible" if they are within the normal range.

Honestly, what kind of sellthrough rate are you expecting? It seems you might need to manage your expectations better?

memphiskansasgirl123 · ‎04-30-2018

Are you making this personal?

willyb15020 · ‎04-30-2018

i have noticed the same thing. It comes and goes. One week you are doing great then the next 3 weeks or so nothing. It is very strange. Thats why I sell in more then one place. Its really very hard to make a living here anymore.

lindyslucky · ‎04-30-2018

After peeking at your listings, we would agree your prices seem high.

However, you know your own business, and have had sucess, so pricing does not seem to be your issue. If you wanted to explore pricing, it would be easy enough to reduce some of your listings and see if that helps. You have a huge variety of items, that also should help to tell what is selling.

We too, have had really slow sales this month. The worst in three years. It it is frustrating beyond belief.

Looking at our items, it seems some of our vintage things are just not generating interest. We think it is a combination of things, of course.

It seems there is a general trend of minimalism. Around us, retirement home building is booming, and those tiny apartments can't hold much. Where do all those beautiful possesions from large homes go? Many of these people have "children" who are retiring and downsizing themselves.

There is a glut of goods from China. There are only so many things a person can have.

The last charity pickup we had limited the number of boxes they would pickup.

Things that once held value, simply no longer seem to.

However, some of this does seem to be ebay. The excitement is gone. Auctions were fun, but today it seems buyers are impatient. So, why discourage 1 and 3 day auctions?

Why not emphasize unique items? Why not encourage dialogue between buyers and sellers? How many buyers have been freaked out by that "don't try to have transaction off Ebay" notice? That could possibly burn a buyer as bad if not worse than a slow shipping time. These were the things that made ebay unique. The excitement, personal connection.

The push for returns seems to us, to lower the perceived value of items. Free shipping, free returns seems to say this merchandise has little value. Or quite possibly not the value the buyer would like. What happened to buy it now before it's gone? The idea that returns are standard is just Not correct.

We live in Kentucky. The Derby is this week. Ladies spend hundreds on hats. You would be hard pressed to find ANY merchant who would take a return on dress items ....for any reason. As far as we see, no small boutique, antique dealer, auction, specialty shop take any refunds at all. Of course, many flea markets still deal in cash only. And a big department store here is limiting returns on sale items to 3 days. Some places only give credit. We think this returns movement doesn't help.

The glut of Chinese items on ebay makes looking for something a nightmare. And you can't filter out just China.

Too many policy changes, emphasis on returns, shipping metrics, feedback changes, sellers are running too many directions at once. And, as has often been said, sellers are buyers, if we aren't selling, we aren't buying. Being occasionally perturbed about things going on at ebay, we have found ourselves not buying here. And I loved ebay as a buyer.

We have to remind we are buying from humans. And we are sellers!!

So, yes, it appears to us ebay has lost its appeal, and for preowned items, appears to be hitting small sellers hard. Every thing has its time. Maybe the good days will return , or....

Wishing you the best. If anything you try works, please come back and let us know. There are those that are sharing the struggle.

jason_incognito · ‎04-30-2018

I've gotten to the point that whenever someone comes here to post about low or no sales I already know what they sell.

I was right again. Clothing, "collectibles" vintage...... there's just so much of it here. It's like everybody is trying to get rid of their clutter.

Then the prices are always steep. They may be worth the steep price, they may not, but high prices combined with a jam packed category and how much can sell? Right now I have a $600 tureen. It's worth that and has sold for over $1000 a few times in the last year, but it's only worth that until it isn't. I've got quite a bit of Candlewick and looked up prices over the weekend. I wanted to cry. One item that I sold years ago for over $400.... mine had like a dozen chips. the rim was bad. It still went for over $400. Today, one with no chips? $79.99 and from the looks of closed items, it's been relisted for quite a while and they've not gotten a bite.

How does eBay handle 100,000 listings when there are 2 people searching. They have to decide what to put front and center. Do they put the stuff that has been selling? The listings from sellers that have sales? Or should they show stale listings that have been sitting around for years with no interest?

How do you think eBay should pick the top 200 to show someone? As a buyer I agree with alot of how eBay decides.

"Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything" Colin Kaepernick the new face of NIKE

kattinsanity · ‎04-30-2018

I like to sell things that have very little competition. That way I don't have to worry about placement. I sell mostly replacement parts for kitchen small appliances. I've had 57 sales so far this month which is fine with me. Ebay is my extra money~~my regular income is already guaranteed. We can never count on ebay making a living for us.

We all have to remember that we had Easter this month and 4/15 was tax day. People were doing taxes and many had taxes to pay. Then there is the nice weather FINALLY~~I want to be outside myself. We had 2 snow storms the week of 4/16-4/20. I'm still paying heating bills. There are a lot of things contributing to lower sales.