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.

brianc3784 · ‎10-09-2018

@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.

Try choosing "Does not apply" for the UPC field in your listings. I actually went through and did that on my listings and noticed an improvement in sales. But it could just be coincidence. Also, try listing at least once per day.

And I noticed you have quite a few listings for shorts, t-shirts, swimwear, etc. which is mostly summer stuff. That stuff has pretty much gone out of season at this point.

sicario_soldado · ‎10-09-2018

Just business for us, we sell the same things in a B&M store. Since the Labor Day weekend daily sales have doubled and tripled while eBay went south, almost flatlined. Our holiday sales have yet to begin but looks to be a good year. Like I said, just buisness, and we hope you can turn things around, good luck.

"May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

fashunu4eeuh · ‎10-09-2018

Hi, @turquoisetulips, always enjoy reading your posts.

I just had a quick thought—eBayers who sell internationally know that countries in the southern hemisphere are now experiencing spring, followed quickly by summer in December.

If the OP is open to foreign markets, warm-weather items might still be pertinent.

pburn · ‎10-09-2018

Agreed. And it's currently 83 in Houston and 85 in Miami.

willyb15020 · ‎10-09-2018

I agree 100% with you. And they dont seem to get any better. I have jumped through all the ebay hoops I have excellent feedback and my items do not come up in search. Ive even promoted them and still nothing so at this point im going to another site where i can list all my items for free and only pay when they sell. And I know people will say they probably dont have as much traffic on others ites well guess what the traffic is not here either except for the chosen ones!

emerald40 · ‎10-09-2018

@turquoisetulips wrote:
P.S . I just went and checked out your listings . I didn't see them all but I noticed that you have a lot of summer clothing , shorts , short skirts , bathing suits . I would lower the prices on those things just to get them moving since warm weather is over for now or put them away until next Spring . Then I'd consentrate on adding more Fall and winter stuff . That may help bring back the sales too . Tulips

No you didn't. I got run over by a bus full of posters when I suggested the same thing about another seller.

dhbookds · ‎10-09-2018

looks like she only sells in US

emerald40 · ‎10-09-2018

@fashunu4eeuh wrote:
Hi, @turquoisetulips, always enjoy reading your posts.

I just had a quick thought—eBayers who sell internationally know that countries in the southern hemisphere are now experiencing spring, followed quickly by summer in December.

If the OP is open to foreign markets, warm-weather items might still be pertinent.

________________________________________________

Unless it is a hard to find designer items, why would people in the southern hemisphere pay high shipping charges for common clothes that they can buy in their own countries.

And for some like australia, well they have their own ebay to buy from.

As for the cities experiencing hot weather, here in RI temps are supposed to get summer like for a few days. That means I will keep some of my summer outfits out of the cedar chest until it gets cooler. I am not going to go out and buy more (unless stores are practically giving them way) when summer is pretty much down for the count.

pvcliff · ‎10-09-2018

@sicario_soldado wrote:
Tweety, while some folks here have some good ideas, nothing will bring your sales back to what they were. This is what happens in retail to a bad location. Some fail, most shrink and stay that way, and a very. very few actually make the required changes and show real growth again. Because of all the various problems combined eBay has become a bad location. Good luck to you and everyone else that is still trying.

This is one of the most insightful posts I've ever seen. I bow to you!

______________________________________________

They didn’t say it was your fault. They said they blame you.

emerald40 · ‎10-09-2018

@pvcliff wrote:
@sicario_soldado wrote:
Tweety, while some folks here have some good ideas, nothing will bring your sales back to what they were. This is what happens in retail to a bad location. Some fail, most shrink and stay that way, and a very. very few actually make the required changes and show real growth again. Because of all the various problems combined eBay has become a bad location. Good luck to you and everyone else that is still trying.
This is one of the most insightful posts I've ever seen. I bow to you!

When you are referring to some, do you mean sellers or ebay. Is ebay the bad location?

If that were true,why are many many sellers still doing really really well here.

IMO, it is not that ebay is a bad location. It is that for some sellers (gerneral reply) they are trying to make a go of items that are either saturated or no longer in demand.

IMO ebay is still doing what it set out to do, showing your items to the world. But sellers need to determine if the world of today is still interested in seeing their items.

fashunu4eeuh · ‎10-09-2018

@emerald40 wrote:
@fashunu4eeuh wrote:
Hi, @turquoisetulips, always enjoy reading your posts.

I just had a quick thought—eBayers who sell internationally know that countries in the southern hemisphere are now experiencing spring, followed quickly by summer in December.

If the OP is open to foreign markets, warm-weather items might still be pertinent.

________________________________________________

Unless it is a hard to find designer items, why would people in the southern hemisphere pay high shipping charges for common clothes that they can buy in their own countries.

And for some like australia, well they have their own ebay to buy from.

As for the cities experiencing hot weather, here in RI temps are supposed to get summer like for a few days. That means I will keep some of my summer outfits out of the cedar chest until it gets cooler. I am not going to go out and buy more (unless stores are practically giving them way) when summer is pretty much down for the count.

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. Those two factors could possibly tip the scales in favor of shopping on ebay.com.

We live in a global community now. I have sold all kinds of things, incuding clothing, to international buyers. They bought items from me they couldn't find in their home countries. As a seller, i dont want to overlook international buyers and the potential in those markets.

zamo-zuan · ‎10-09-2018

@emerald40 wrote:
@pvcliff wrote:
@sicario_soldado wrote:
Tweety, while some folks here have some good ideas, nothing will bring your sales back to what they were. This is what happens in retail to a bad location. Some fail, most shrink and stay that way, and a very. very few actually make the required changes and show real growth again. Because of all the various problems combined eBay has become a bad location. Good luck to you and everyone else that is still trying.
This is one of the most insightful posts I've ever seen. I bow to you!

When you are referring to some, do you mean sellers or ebay. Is ebay the bad location?

If that were true,why are many many sellers still doing really really well here.

IMO, it is not that ebay is a bad location. It is that for some sellers (gerneral reply) they are trying to make a go of items that are either saturated or no longer in demand.

IMO ebay is still doing what it set out to do, showing your items to the world. But sellers need to determine if the world of today is still interested in seeing their items.

This is the case in some cases, but I beleive the OP's problems in this case are due to eBay's changes. I have been trying to assist the OP but it does not seem that any of the suggestions have caused any improvement as of yet.

Furthermore, she has been given the run-around & misinformation regarding the new catalog, even from eBay, where I inquired about the same things and received different information.

There's also some strangeness going on in the Clothing category right now. I was attempting to research this today. The top sellers seem to be extremely "poor" sellers, as well as the #1 seller doing 3x as much sales as #2, is not even visible in search today. This is the first time I've encountered issues trying to find the top seller in a category.

Regarding eBay being a good or bad location, it's definitely getting harder on eBay. More so than just competition. With competition, you can actually compete. The problem appears when there's sudden unexplained changes and it becomes impossible to compete. Sudden changes are NOT due to competition, unless the number of competitors increased by 1000% on the same exact date eBay does their updates.

I'm also trying to assist another clothing seller (other than OP here) with similar issues, and have first hand seen a portion of listings NOT appearing in search, even with appropriate filters & sorted by price.

If it were as you explain, then I would 100% agree with you. But there are legit issues going on where the world is not able to "see" the listings to decide if they are interested in them or not.

Meanwhile, there's sellers at the top of the clothing category with nearly 10% negative feedback, lies in their listings, bad images, not following best practices, poor shipping & return policies... thriving?

zamo-zuan · ‎10-09-2018

I think we sometimes need to sit back a bit and look at things from the perspective of the OP.

I do believe people are (for the most part) genuinely trying to help.

But from the OP's perspective, being told it's just competition, after going through weeks-months of working on the issue, trying to compete, stepping up competition, trying differnet things, and then having many examples where you DO have better offerings than competition... but still don't see any changes?

It is quite discouraging to be told it's just competition. Because if that was the case, your superior offerings would be ahead of your competitors.

I don't think it's most peoples intent to discourage the OP. But in cases like this, it is quite discouraging to be told it's "just competition" when you have seen with your own eyes that it's not the case. There's times you can offer far beyond the competitors for cheaper prices, yet eBay does not "allow any eyes" on the listing.

Wouldn't it be discouraging if you seen another seller with worse listings, higher prices, selling rapidly? While your better offering is not even getting impressions? And then to have people say "People just don't want your item"... what would your reaction be?

I think we would be doing a better job if we helped the OP figure out how to recover and/or turn things around. Rather than cause discouragement which will lead to them leaving eBay all together.

sicario_soldado · ‎10-09-2018

Thanks for asking, people like you, buyers and sellers, many here have good ideas. The location is not the same, its become autocratic at the very least. We're selling to strong demand, we're doing just fine Thank You. So we base it on performance, other venues are performing better. We never said we did badly while we were here, we just have a bigger demand elsewhere. And your right, things have changed, its not just Location, Location, Location anymore more...Venue, Venue, Venue.

"May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."
Dwight D. Eisenhower