mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
I know lots of sellers are complaining about this but I'm not so sure it can all be blamed on GTC. I think buyers are starting to experience Internet Sales Taxes being applied to their purchases and some are having a bit of difficulty adjusting. Buyers will adjust in time, as Ebay isn't the only place that has to charge the taxes. But I do think this is in part what a lot of us are experiencing.
Tagging - my friend sent me examples of what mobile buyers are seeing - I related in another thread that they no longer see a page of matches to their search like we see on a PC - but an individual listing takes up the full screen. Image 1 is the old view - Image 2 is what they see now - so instead of swiping down quickly thru the first 25-50 results - they have to swipe thru each individually.
@pauls-parts wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:I know lots of sellers are complaining about this but I'm not so sure it can all be blamed on GTC. I think buyers are starting to experience Internet Sales Taxes being applied to their purchases and some are having a bit of difficulty adjusting. Buyers will adjust in time, as Ebay isn't the only place that has to charge the taxes. But I do think this is in part what a lot of us are experiencing.
I might agree with you if the problems did not happen:
all at once
Effect so many sellers.
Acknowledged by eBay that 5 million sellers did not like it.
If it was helping them they would be happy.
So many sellers have stated that after years of working on finding selling methods that worked for them.
IT WAS TAKEN AWAY.
But for many complaining about slow sales it didn't happen all at once. It is just that the GTC change was huge and has had a dramatic affect on many. So it is what gets the attention. Right or wrong. But while I think the GTC issue is VERY important, I do not think it is the only thing that might be contributing to this. More and more states are coming online with the sales tax.
One more state was added in April, 3 more in May, 2 in June and 8 more coming in July. It has an impact on buyers whether you want to recognize it or not. Sure buyers will eventually get use to it, but there will be a learning curve for many of those buyers in each of those states until they come to grips with this change.
I absolutely get it that GTC is really a serious issue for some sellers. I'm not at all making light of that. I accept and acknowledge that. I just don't think it is the only thing causing the issue at hand.
@abfabvintage wrote:
Hi, Mam. But did you also read post #9 where Mobile is to the point of dysfunctional? If buyers see what that screenshot shows, then no wonder no one is buying or sellers getting any sales. And Mobile is promoted big time around here to both buy and sell. JMO.
See yet another valid point. Mobile sales account for quite a bit of the sales on Ebay. So absolutely another contributing factor. This is all I was saying. Some want to blame everything on GTC and that just isn't accurate. We have other contributing factors.
If GTC was the sole reason for this downturn in sales, the all the sellers that have used it for many years would have been out of business long before now. There has to be other factors chiming into this mess. Mobile issues, Sales Tax issues, time of year, search issues, etc.
June is a really busy time for many people. Summer starts later this month and people are getting outside more, doing more outside adventures. Graduations, wedding, etc. etc. June is typically not a good month, at least for me. But that of course doesn't answer what the heck happened in April and May.
There just is not a simple answer for the question of why we have slow sales. It is complicate. If it were just GTC, then maybe Ebay would be able to resolve that issue. But it just isn't logical that this is the sole reason for lower sales.
