eBay

tweetystwades · ‎10-08-2018

I'm trying very hard to find out what it is. My sales have dropped to almost nothing. Could it be all the changes ebay is making? Everyone says clothing is a saturated market, but it's not more saturated now than it was a few months ago. Something else is wrong. Offering free returns, 3 day guarantee deliver and free shipping does not make any difference. Things weren't that bad until a few months ago, now no sales. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the UPC codes. I've called ebay a few times, and they don't even know how anything is suppose to work, how are we suppose to figure it out? I guess I'll sell this inventory and move on.

trueartworx · ‎10-09-2018

ebay is just obviously losing it's customer base to the other marketplaces. Holidays will really tell how much, but to be expected when pretty much every day for 15 years, someone on planet got a defective/wrong item or never received from a non-responsive bad seller somewhere on here. ebay also losing because they not adding any real features to improve the site for sellers or buyers. Nothing to appeal to anyone. Breaking many features and never fixing them too.
As a seller, the site looks very dysfunctional now. Some charts on seller hub update only randomly, most times showing same info for weeks. Many of the links take you to incorrect places, bulk editor been broken for us for almost 4 months. Some items continue to lose previews and change shipping type after any sale.
Then add in the increased fees, never ending increasing trending rates on promotions. We feel stuck and debating on continuing just because cannot seem to even raise our prices by 10 cents without sales coming to a stop. Their price matching doesn't take into effect that product material like ours, comes in different qualities and all too many trying to compete wth China, adding 99 cent items. This only hurts us all as a 99 cent sale is a loss .

Intead of trying to please the sellers, making better promotions and features for us all, they seem to just be on plan to pinch more money out of us all and exist in hope that Amazon makes some major mistake change to bring people back here.

Regardless, the recent notifications tell they months behind acting on anything important and our concerns, issues, or bugs are minor unless it's affecting most everyone.

emerald40 · ‎10-09-2018

@sharingtheland wrote:
I lived in Australia for two years. The United States has far more merchandise than what is available there. And i found the prices there to be far more expensive for both staple and designer goods as compared to the States.

She gave the answer ^^^ to your question below in her original post.

So yes with certain things I can understand, but with common clothing, what would it cost to ship it there. Is it worth it for most buyers when I am sure they have clothing stores down under and unless it is a designer item they can manage to clothe themselves.

______________________________________________

A person in a foeign country cannot buy everything Internationally. So designer I understand. Diamonds I understand.

But everyday Walmart clothes. I find it hard Australia is her biggest market. JMO but that would be the US and you should gear your store to that audience.

And while the cost of living is far more in a lot of other countries, so are salaries so it kind of evens everything out.

kmmwv1 · ‎10-09-2018

I think it's because Ebay isn't monopolizing like they used to. There are a lot more sites to sell on now then there was say 3 years ago.

yuzuha · ‎10-09-2018

Just a general observation as a buyer who used to buy a lot of used clothing on eBay (I think probably 75% of my wardrobe in college came from eBay)...

I stopped buying used clothing here about a decade ago. Why? Because sellers started pricing it way too high. I initially turned to eBay for clothes because I could get nice, name-brand stuff in good condition for cheap. It was like having a massive thrift store at my fingertips, which is great when you're in school and on a tight budget! I even have several cosplay costumes that were made entirely out of things that I bought here on eBay.

But as the prices started creeping higher and higher, I bought less and less. Why would I spend $20 + shipping on a used shirt when I can go to any of the dozen thift/consignment stores near me and buy either the exact same thing or something very similar for under $10 AND get to try it on before I buy? A few months back I was looking to replace my old windbreaker that was starting to wear out. I had a very specific style in mind, and I found someone here selling a used one for $35. But then I decided to stop by Marshalls on my way home from work... and found the exact same jacket brand-new for $19.99. Guess where I bought it. (Hint: it wasn't eBay.)

I still buy a lot of used clothing, but these days none of it comes from eBay.

emerald40 · ‎10-09-2018

I can just add that dimestore toys and dolls - ones I bought a year ago, have quadrupled in price for the exact same item.

I have seen a definite skyrocketing of prices on ebay. But not on the other E where prices have maintained more steady. So of course I am going to where I can find better prices.

trueartworx · ‎10-09-2018

Found more unwanted bugs tonight yet again. When view my own store, some old main selling items are refusing to display in featured items as have been there for years.... when swtich main views to show highest price with shipping, each items show prices of the item as their highest option which is wrong. A $7-$30 item shouldnt show $30 as the main price !!!

If have selected best match, many show with a random choiced price from the variety of options of the item. So many show correct, but others show overpriced , showing near largest sized options for the price of item value again. Making the prices look all over place on similar type items.

Growing sick of all the dysfunction and lack of fixing any of the issues. Seems like a mole working at ebay breaking things that worked for years. In a way that have selective effects to only certain types of sellers, to get sales pushed to the 99 cent sellers in my market, while not causing widespread issues to make tech support fix the issues. Even describing the issues to support continues to be a challenge. Getting a callback on something completely different then what we reported recently even.

robot-hands · ‎10-10-2018

@tweetystwades wrote:
I've called ebay a few times, and they don't even know how anything is suppose to work, how are we suppose to figure it out? I guess I'll sell this inventory and move on.

No one you could ever get on the phone would have the knowledge or expertise to tell you the technical side of ebay nor would they be allowed to share any information that showed ebay was not working properly.

floridainjection · ‎10-10-2018

Ebay has contracts with big sellers and China. When their sales are down Ebay throttles sales of small sellers by removing small sellers listings from the search results. If you have less than 100% feedback, called Ebay too many times, had any kind of problem with a buyer etc., you get pushed down even further.

tweetystwades · ‎10-10-2018

Are you referring to PM? I have had stuff posted there for months without 1 sale. It seems to me just to be a social site with liking and following. The only sales I see going on there is cheap stuff.

tweetystwades · ‎10-10-2018

Do you actually believe that? Do you really think huge company like ebay can single people out like that?

mr.a008 · ‎10-10-2018

care

zamo-zuan · ‎10-10-2018

@tweetystwades wrote:
Do you actually believe that? Do you really think huge company like ebay can single people out like that?

No offense, but what he said is not correct. Feedback is not used in search, which is why you see top sellers with extremely bad feedback.

Calling eBay does not reduce your visibility either, lol, or else ours would be horrible. If anything, it helps becuase if a CSR messes up badly, you end up being on recorded lines every time, and then suddenly CSR's are super helpful and go out of their way to assist.

But certainly, some issues may hit your account that nobody can see or explain. Or something about your listing/account may "trigger" something that could cause harm for your account.

There's supposedly some type of "risk factor" associated with accounts. We were told that this may include things like vero warnings, duplicate listings, off eBay transactions, etc. In other words, any "penalty" on your account that they might not be able to explain.

I don't believe this number is visible to eBay CSR's. But a supervisor has mentioned it to me before.

The problem is, you may be falsely accused of one of these things, yet there's no way to "remove" the penalty as it's not even "visible" in the first place.

Of course, also bugs or something like that may affect your account.

I seen absolutely nothing to indicate it is an "intentional" action singling people out. If it were, they would have a much easier time figuring out what the problem is. When in truth, eBay simply doesn't know the reason why issues might be affecting your account. They are making guesses the same as us, and often times sellers are more familiar with how eBay works than the reps, as we actually "use" eBay daily.

trueartworx · ‎10-10-2018

Nearly touch on my point and this thread title. Issue is things have changed and not for the better.

We need additional payment options, yesterday. Not ebay managed payments that exclude Paypal, in a gradual slect opt in.

We need ebay to become American again and promote Halloween type items NOW!

We need a support that understands the issues, not cheaply paid barely trained Chinese reps that do not even understand what we are experiencing.

Nearly every 'update; and announcement, seems to also have additional changes that break existing features. Like item previews, shipping selections, bulk editor, store view preferences.
Bet many losing sales just because they haven't even discovered their variation photos no longer appear. Who buys something they cannot see?

If our items show random prices from the options, instead of the true range or low price, of course many will skip it and look at similar lower priced items from someone else. I would.

If cannot trust the seller hub charts, metrics or functionalities, how can we really know if our promotions or promoted listings working correctly?

coolections · ‎10-10-2018

@tweetystwades wrote:
I know that, I'm referring to the changes that ebay is making for those using UPC codes to match with the catalog. I feel like my listings are not beng seen because of that.

@tweetystwades

They are being seen by hard core buyers who do not mind searcing for hours. Yours may be on page 48 and most all buyers are not going to search 48 pages. There are just too many available for buyers to choose from.

castlemagicmemories · ‎10-10-2018

@sharingtheland wrote:
I lived in Australia for two years. The United States has far more merchandise than what is available there. And i found the prices there to be far more expensive for both staple and designer goods as compared to the States.

She gave the answer ^^^ to your question below in her original post.

So yes with certain things I can understand, but with common clothing, what would it cost to ship it there. Is it worth it for most buyers when I am sure they have clothing stores down under and unless it is a designer item they can manage to clothe themselves.

Absolutely, Sherry! That poster has the valuable experience of living there so she has added perspective most of us don't have, so it makes sense to not discard her post.