Sales at Dead Stop!!!

[justforposting_1960]

Well, I was getting ready to say, maybe I was wrong. Maybe ebay was actually right. Maybe this forced GTC is a good thing after all.

I was thrilled! I had my best 2 months ever!  21 sales in 9 weeks! I was over the moon! I'm very small time and rarely have more than 50 items up for sale at a time, so 21 sales in 2 months is amazing to me!

Then, all of a sudden it stopped!  I haven't had a single sale since April 21st! Even with 13 of my items "Promoted", I've barely had a single view in the past month!  It's like someone slammed the door closed on my store and slapped a padlock on it.

I'm not looking for any advice here, just kvetching. I know others can commiserate. Thanks for listening.

[baantiques]

---

@tide_redux wrote:
I've seen the hidden seller limit mentioned before. Don't believe it and think the examples are just coincidence. Why would eBay limit sales?

---

If you believe it's a coincidence, you would have to believe the same coincidence occurs over and over multiplied by the number of people who have noticed the same pattern.

[kathieskorner]

Only a tiny percentage of eBay sellers ever post here, and many that do are grabbing at straws trying to figure out fluctuating sales patterns which have always been normal in retail markets.     

While eBay's algorithms can manipulate visibility, I don't think their IT guys and gals are smart enough to program hidden seller limits for each of every eBay seller.  

[rockstarzboutique]

YES. Sales have stopped for MANY people as of the end of April. Me included. A few other posts about this. Many of my friends & sellers I follow have had NO sales.. except maybe one or two since that time. People who had consistent sales. My two stores here have been dead for the last week. Not normal at all.  I personally can't afford to waste my time listing items on a dead selling platform. I only see it as a loss to Ebay since many people will spend the time selling everywhere else. It is not 2001 anymore & there are lots of places to sell now.. Can't wait until my store subscriptions end so I can close them if this situation doesn't change.

[tide_redux]

@kathieskorner

I agree with you.  I also still don't know what possible reason eBay could have to limit sales.  No one seems to be able to offer an answer to that question.

[allvol11]

 I have a theory as to why eBay may limit sellers. They are trying to spread the sales out to many sellers so that they can maximize the number of sellers who subscribe to stores.  If they let the market truly dictate who gets the sales, it would (like any free market system) naturally trend towards sellers who are the cheapest, top rated, free returns etc but this would leave a bunch of sellers with zero sales therefore forcing them to leave the marketplace. This, in turn, would result in sellers with store subscriptions to drop those subscriptions, thus large losses of fees for eBay. eBay's fees off of sales would not be affected but would lose the additional revenues from sellers cancelling stores. My sales have steadily declined over the last couple of years and are now very cyclical.  Spike, drop, slow rise, slow fall, Spike, repeat. No way the pattern I see is random and am very frustrated and am on verge of having to cancel my store subscription anyway.

[demyan1978]

The same situation in my sales. They are very bad. Few days no sales, then I can sell some items but very very slowly. I have promoted listings, some of them are in the top search but I cannot sell them.

[moms**art**window**]

---

@justforposting_1960 wrote:

Well, I was getting ready to say, maybe I was wrong. Maybe ebay was actually right. Maybe this forced GTC is a good thing after all.

I was thrilled! I had my best 2 months ever!  21 sales in 9 weeks! I was over the moon! I'm very small time and rarely have more than 50 items up for sale at a time, so 21 sales in 2 months is amazing to me!

Then, all of a sudden it stopped!  I haven't had a single sale since April 21st! Even with 13 of my items "Promoted", I've barely had a single view in the past month!  It's like someone slammed the door closed on my store and slapped a padlock on it.

I'm not looking for any advice here, just kvetching. I know others can commiserate. Thanks for listening.

---

[ohnojoey]

For some reason, when I see a "promoted listing" I avoid the listing, don't even look at it. 

It's a fee generator for ebay, but I guess the whole idea of paying more to list over others, somehow corrupts the whole platform?

[moms**art**window**]

---

@ohnojoey wrote:

For some reason, when I see a "promoted listing" I avoid the listing, don't even look at it. 

It's a fee generator for ebay, but I guess the whole idea of paying more to list over others, somehow corrupts the whole platform?

---

i put 1 % on all my listings just in case it helps (it says i have about $600 a month in sales as a result and costs me a whopping $6 in promotional fees)

[dorea2009]

Hi! continuing my prior comments on unexplained sales decreases, as of this date my 3 months total sales are about the same as one months slaes before this mystery sales decline started. I have contacted eBay twice and after checking my account they said they see nothing wrong! egads, a 67% decline in sales is nothing wrong? Anybody who can help me? Thanks

[7198dave]

I'm not surprised with all the changes ebay keeps making, they made ebay unpleasant to use. It's like Amazon now, when you type an item in search bar, you get **bleep** you never asked for. Then you choose a category to be in and ebay decides they wanna put you in some other category you didn't ask for.

[47chevy]

Guess what ? Your not alone !!!

GTC NIGHTMARE.SALES DOWN 100% FROM PREVIOUS MONTH AND 100% DOWN FROM SAME PERIOD LAST YEAR..How am i supposed to pay my bill..Thanks to their so called upgrades..47chevy

[47chevy]

I think the answer to your question might be -Ebay doing valet selling which I think is a conflict -  trumping the regular sellers .Who knows ???

Yes I called ebay three times and no one seems to have any solutions...Soooo..

With these new upgrades GTC etc.

SALES DOWN 100% FROM PREVIOUS MONTH AND 100% DOWN FROM SAME PERIOD LAST YEAR.Sickening doing all this work and not being able to pay the bills..47chevy

[dasarock]

---

@rareandunique2009 wrote:
Is there really a "hidden seller's limit"?? Tell me more

---

there definitely is a seller cap limit for both sales and number of listings for new sellers, no one can argue that.  it's right on the seller's hub.  

and i would not be surprised that ebay would throttle sales for older/ larger sellers.  that way they can encourage other smaller sellers by giving their listings more visibility/chance of sales and increasing ... making them think ... go for the next store level/add more listings make more profit... lol

now i don't KNOW that all of this happens, but would be a long term (at least a year) game plan to increase funds from the higher store fees, lol

[dasarock]

---

@allvol11 wrote:

 I have a theory as to why eBay may limit sellers. They are trying to spread the sales out to many sellers so that they can maximize the number of sellers who subscribe to stores. 

---

lol, you think like i do .... i just mentioned that replying to an earlier comment in this thread ... then i see your comment!  tooooooofunnyyyyy 😄