They began falling right after I strongly complained (in writing) about ebay unilaterally offering their "Handy assembly services" on all of my used items that did not need assembly. It did nothing but confuse my buyers and made them think that the item needed assembly and they needed to pay extra for it. That's when sales started dropping dramatically. There can be no other explanation for a 40% drop in sales (in 1 month) and not 1 single sale out of 2000 listings in 4 consecutive days before Christmas. The only other explanation is there is a technical issue which they refuse to acknowledge as a possibility or legitimately investigate.
When you complain about a sales decrease here, it's always the seller's fault (because their prices are too high, they don't give free shipping, their shipping is too high, shipping is too slow, they don't adapt fast enough to the "changing market", be grateful with what you have, etc). It's always the same template responses and it's never a possible issue on ebay's side because, 1. they don't make such mistakes, and, 2. because if they did, they could never admit it because of all the problems it would cause with their other sellers.
I have learned some valuable lessons though (none of which of course have been suggested as ebay responses here). Never rely on 1 platform to sell (particularly when they are an effective but declining monopoly) . Always shop around because as markets change, new and much cheaper platforms are popping up all the time. And most importantly, never criticize ebay in public.
We've resigned ourselves to the strong possibility that ebay has cut us off without a truthful explanation and we are proceeding accordingly. I just hope that I can find a quick alternative so that we can pay for our daughter's very expensive, life saving medication and my wife's upcoming heart surgery.
