Sales crash $6000 (40%) in 1 month. Not 1 single sale out of 2000 listings in 3 days.

[mostexcellentdesigns]

Our "anchor store" sales have crashed and we have not had a single sale in the past 3 pre-Christmas holiday weekend days. We have 2000 mostly unique and 1 of a kind listings. No sales for 3 days has never happened before and our sales have risen approx 25% each month for the past 4 years. 3 hours on the phone with ebay "support" with no possible resolution. Nuf said.

[juststuffisell]

I am truthfully in the same boat as the OP. Same type of items as last year and down down down. Irritated, but it is what it is. I am part of the problem - I am sure of that so I am not completely blaming eBay. Part of my issue started with the last major update where sale fell of the map and though I have seen some recovery, it has not been what one would hope to see.

That said, I changed my listings to same day handling and saw nada impact. Something is not quite right, but I am not quite sure what combination it is to get my views and sale through rate back up. As the views dropped so to did the STR.

A problem for next year at this point.

Cheers

[juststuffisell]

Yep - I have seen a ton of those. "Antique" reproductions from india and china. Knock off vintage brand of mid range watches bigly from India...just a sad state of affairs to the point if you don't know what you are looking at, it's a gamble to buy it.

Cheers

[membersinceaug2001]

From the thread "SALES DOWN 72%, Views down 76%"

maxcoleart

I want to mention something else. On my recent CS call the "sales specialist" casually mentioned that people that are not geographically close to you DO NOT SEE YOUR LISTINGS. I said wait....WHAT!

I said please explain yourself. He said that if for example, you are on the West coast that your listing would be shown to people on the West coast and would be progressively less viewable as you move East. I asked him " so people on the East coast would rarely see my listings?" his answer was....YES.

He then proceeded to explain that ebay does not want customers to have to wait for their packages for too long and that shipping across the country made for less happy buyers. I was, and am, dumbfounded.

[ekmadonna]

Your not alone, descent Novenmber with avg of 2 Plus sales a day and just under $2000 for the month to LIGHTS SHUT OFF on Dec 1st. December totals so far 8 Sales in 9 days for $160.00 until I woke up this morning to 4 sales overnight. It's crazy. I went 3 days Thurs, Fri, Sat with no sales, of the 8 sales from Dec 1st-9th 3 were auctions from Nov

[johnrj1226]

@mostexcellentdesigns

Just offered free advise- accept it as such or just  put it in the  trash can.  I  had a  face to face selling career for 41 selling the same type of product but made  by differnt manufactures.  When things started going south I had to rethink my  marketing  strategy (Product - Price-Promotion and Distribution) that  is key to any business plan.  You have to revisit continualy as customer buying habits do chanage, compition has  new tricks (do some resreach).     Just a simple example that I call "Hula Hoops were not forever".  When they were first introduced around 1958  - stores  couldn't keep them in stock - every body  had one, including my Mom.  After of  few years supply was not a problem, but  competion came in a prices went down and so did profits.  Then for decades you could find  one in a store.  In the  last few years you can  find them in  stores again but they are not flying off the shelf.  All products  have a life cycle.

Used to sell $800 to 900 per month on eBay  (2010 thru  2014) - high end used clothing and footwear primarily with a very nice profit margin.  We  sold  7 for all man kind & citizens for humanity jeans for women - couldn't keep them  on the shelf -  within a  3 years couldn't  hardly  get rid of them with very little profit - designer stuff became pass', millenials went to buying style vs label to save $$, tons of  sellers offering real and fake, etc.  

We don't   near that in a year now.  This is just a  hobby for us and are not willing to do all the stuff eBay wants us to do to become top level sellers as we were  just a few years ago - the effort to do so is not worth the net  gain - meaning sell more for  less  profit.

Other factors that affect sales is shipping  USPS, Fex, UPS has increased cost to the buyers signifcatly - reduced the gap between on-line buying & B & M buying - soon we will see sales taxes collect on  sales for all 50 states - further reducing the  gap.  eBay once had the reputation of being the King of the Hill for on line buying - eBay is now in second place, big A leap frogged them in a big way plus other types of on line buying has sprouted up, eBay parted ways with a very profitable entity they once owned (PayPal) and are a now trying to find ways to  return to  days  to keep stockholders happy.  Hope they find the  magic wand.

 PS:  Only you know the details of your business -  or any one else can fix it for you - so you  figure it how to fix it - just  gave you some real life info.  Homework is hard work at times.

[sharingtheland]

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@coolections wrote:

Your expectations for profit is higher than it should be. Price price and price is the main thing buyers look for when purchasing. Anytime they can get a cheaper price they will go there instead.

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Please tell me how you know OP's expectations for profit.

[sharingtheland]

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@rdj831 wrote:

Wow, even at your 40% drop you are selling at a rate most of us would love to be at.

Kind of hard to empathize with you. Quit whining!

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Wow.

[mostexcellentdesigns]

More great advice for sellers who only sell one item or who sell trendy items like clothes and shoes, but still not applicable to us. We have 1950 listings of unique and mostly one-of-a-kind items. We have never had a decrease in sales in Nov and Dec and it is not reasonable to say that a sales decline of 40% (or -$6000) in one month is because shipping has gone up. So if you have helpful advice that applies to our circumstances, we'd love to hear it.

In the meantime, we are well into our 4th consecutive day without a single sale (out of 2000 listings) and after 3 hours on the phone with ebay reps, all we got was they would have a 'sales consultant look into it and hopefully, they might get back to us in about 2 weeks.'

[jeweloftheheart]

The new eBay and internet. Lights on, lights off. New item promoted seller comes first. Zamazon does the same thing.

[mostexcellentdesigns]

We are not selling 2000 listings of Christmas presents that people want tomorrow and we are now into our 4th consecutive day without 1 sale.

[outdatedrecreated]

Everyone's sales have been affected by black Friday. Also take into account the fires, earthquakes, and freak snow storms. I'm fairly new to eBay but Ive been reselling through other outlets for years. This is very normal. What isn't normal is to FREAK OUT. Calm down, take a deep breath, and keep working hard. 

[sweetpieces4you]

Well I see you are at least trying something to get your sales back up 😄 Anything is worth a try at times of slow downs 😄 Good Luck !!! 

[keziak]

If I understand the OP they have seen increases in sales until just recently.  Much advice about sales is pertinent to gradual and consistent declines.  In my case a big factor is competition. That's not the same as having good sales all along, then a bad weekend. 

The shipping times makes sense except that in my case I had a bump up in sales here and on Amazon this weekend and I ship media mail.....

[mostexcellentdesigns]

I didn't ask for your empathy or sympathy. It's interesting that everytime someone complains here about a decrease in sales, the same basic responses, like yours telling people to just be satisfied with what they get, or the market has changed, or it's the shipping costs or the shipping time, or you don't offer free returns, etc. appear. It's almost as if they are template answers written by ebay employees.

[mostexcellentdesigns]

You mean like putting all 2000 listing on sale? We did that this morning and have not had a single sale.