Sudden drop in sales May 2022

[partfinds]

Please, report here if you recently within a week or so experienced sudden drop in sales. We can then ask Velvet to pass it on to technical team for review of the accounts. https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Updates-are-happening-to-some-item-specifics-and-category/m-p/...

[blacktopautoparts]

I think at this point these changes that they have made are affecting everything from small to medium to big size stores. I've been on here selling for 20 years and this past year has been the worst that I have seen it. I know inflation, gas prices, and many other factors in the world are not helping matters. When we are selling items that are a necessity vs. want, it does tell you that there is something wrong with the platform. Granted yes someone can come along and tell us that people can drive around with a door mirror taped to their door for a few months or go without replacing a climate control till they have the funds, which I totally understand......but the changes to the platform this year made things worse.

[nuclearomen]

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

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@nuclearomen wrote:

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@partfinds wrote:

Today I have an issue creating daily traffic reports. When i pick for example 11.11-11.11 it reverts to look at 2 days 11.11-11.12 instead. It does it for any day picked. 

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they can just leave stuff alone, Oct was good, they could have just left it as was and both sides be making money. Now whatever they did, really messed all kinds of stuff, you ask for eggs - hard - they give you scrambled with mystery meat. 

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@nuclearomen 

Seems like NEW inventory gets traction whereas older items do not ... 

I acquired an inventory Lot on Nov 17 and listed very quickly- 48 total Listings on eBay ... Nov 19 was the first day things started to sell ... so less than 10 day later I am down to 12 listings left and at 79% profit margin (50% is my target).

I listed 14 items for a friend on Nov 21, nothing extremely valuable BUT 5 lots already have bids the first listing cycle.

I just finished listing an inventory lot from Nov 22.  I got 52 Listings out of it and so far 8 have bids or sold already ...

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@mr_lincoln reverse here...well this week anyways, new listings sat, older listings sold... i don't what sells, new or old, just sales lol but...new items getting views same day which while back due to their horrid indexing new listings wouldn't get views for 2-3 days...so idk about that, likely due to me sending out newsletters. 

In any case... I pretty much screwble ebay this year on B.F. sales...I did it few days early for 24 HR's only, then today I did 5% (yeah, only 5%, but it's better then "nothing") again for only 24hrs, sent a newsletter making it very clear this is the LAST sale of the year here, take or leave it, idk care much anymore. 

They need to fix their (fill in the blank) - sick of dealing with it every single day, spending hrs you should have to just to get a sale, or bi-pass their screw ups, glitches, etc... this company has the worse internal teams ever - EVER! 

[willingdealer_make-me-an-offer]

I definitely noticed one at that time, It was precipitous. I have since recovered and have overall increased sales.

[partfinds]

@mr_lincoln @

Something happened again or is currently taking place behind the scenes. Since sunday my newly lited items are in limbo waiting for Ebay to „aprove” them so they can air- if you know what I mean. They are getting 0 views (maybe some 1 after i responded here and one looked at them). My impressions are 2/3 of what they used to be (20k to 7k - for promoted items impressions). I got no sales since sunday. No amount of tinkering makes any improvement. I tried creating new campaigns, adding specifics, raising rate. Is that just me or  many?

i am not a part of international shipping that is being tested now nor i use pay per click

[mr_lincoln]

@partfinds   I am not sure comparing my categories with yours would be a good one ... yours appear to be specific "needs" on automobiles while mine ar more "wants".  But in general and to your point, I am seeing more activity on newly listed items then older items ... and by older we're only talking 1-3 months old.

So for you to see NO Views on newly listed stuff could point directly to eBay as the culprit ...

I suspect that in your categories competition is fierce for auto parts and some of the big Sellers may be using the PLA and paying up front to try and be in the top 4 spots on a returned search ... if that is the case then everyone else is playing 2nd fiddle ... or worse, a fiddle with no strings.

If you think about it, how would they design a fair algorithm when they are giving specific accounts preference for search placement by being paid up front.  In categories where that is happening then search is not organic, its controlled and contrived at the top of the list ...

[nuclearomen]

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@partfinds wrote:

@mr_lincoln @

Something happened again or is currently taking place behind the scenes. Since sunday my newly lited items are in limbo waiting for Ebay to „aprove” them so they can air- if you know what I mean. They are getting 0 views (maybe some 1 after i responded here and one looked at them). My impressions are 2/3 of what they used to be (20k to 7k - for promoted items impressions). I got no sales since sunday. No amount of tinkering makes any improvement. I tried creating new campaigns, adding specifics, raising rate. Is that just me or  many?

i am not a part of international shipping that is being tested now nor i use pay per click

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@partfinds @mr_lincoln 
Something has happened (more like changed) since Oct, were sales were high(er) then previous and much much more then Nov (worst month of the year...actually in 3 yrs here) and current Dec isn't looking any better from Nov. But as you put it @partfinds doing things like new campaigns, raising elections etc... does nothing for SALES - impressions, yeah, they are higher, but they aren't resulting in sales, which is the whole point of raising rates is to raise sales. Ihave had also issues with PLS new campaigns for awhile now, they get stuck or "freeze" on "scheduled" status, never going active, have to end and try again. Half of the ones that get "active" status get zero impressions/clicks after several hrs... end and try again. 

As for @mr_lincoln 's input about new listings... I'm starting to suspect there maybe issue again with older listings... happened while back, they just don't get much to any views and sale on them is a lot less. The "fix" for that last time was ending and creating new listings for those items...something that is painstakingly a lot of work + using your allotted monthly listings to do this is also absurd... but I suspect that is also by design. When this happened while back was directly related to indexing and PL focused on those newly(er) listed items... you can see this in the listing quality report when you compare listings impression/views to the rest, those numbers are a lot higher. 

In the end nothing as of current has worked here either, it's all clusters again, no sales 2-3-4 whatever days then 3-4 in a row for about hr or so and then sudden death occurs again and cycle repeats. This isn't "new" either, we are all aware of this happening for longtime now, but yeah, they don't control sales...so i'm told.  

[debbie6438]

What else could this be? Looking back from 2004 to 2018 – things around late October thru December

were crazy! We shipped dozens of boxes daily! There was one year 2008, when eBay, thru Pay Pal, held sellers funds for up to a month, while they floated to pay for television commercials before Christmas! Looking back at the comments, trouble seems to start in late 2017, and then for sure in 2018, when they created “Good Till Canceled”! Nobody really knows how the entire internet of things

works! So imagine having to change millions and millions of listings at once! Something bad is bound

to happen! From 2019, with Managed Payments things really started to tank! If it wasn't for Covid-19,

and the lock down, we would have went out of business! From the first few months of 2020, after

Covid, sales went thru the roof, 'cause everybody thought they were going to die, so why not get

that last fix in on eBay! We all know what loomed, “Required Item Specifics” 2021 wasn't looking

good as the sales leveled out, and “Required Item Specifics” updates wasted sellers valuable time!

This was one example of superfluous nonsense! The economy? Blame it, too, but let's be real,

the American economy has been horrible since the early 1980's with the first, worst inflationary

period! It's been a roller-coaster ride down hill ever since then. Sure in the 1990's after the first

Gulf War was over, things were okay, but after NAFTA & GATT – 911, The Mortgage Meltdown,

you know, the list is endless! And then.... what about my generation “the baby boomers” when we

die in the next decade, the collectible market will die! Young people coming up in life in America

can't even buy a home, pay rent, bills, etc let alone buying some old thing from their granddad's generation! In 1991 the federal minimum wage was $4.25 an hour today in 2022 it's $7.25 an hour!

California has the highest minimum wage of $14.00 / $15.00 an hour! The rent here for a one bedroom dump is over 2 grand a month! It's a joke! NOW in May 2022, eBay pulls the “bots” and kills the

sales! Bad decisions made by our politicians, then CEO's – just destroy our lives! Sad, eBay is the only

game in town for most collectibles – having said that, 2023 is just weeks around the corner? What

then? So far this is the worst December sales ever on eBay for over 20 years! THE WORST!

[uncseniorsportsfan]

Not only is this the worst December in 20 plus years on eBay - 2022 is the worst year by far.    How can over half my listings now get 0 views every month, and I end every listing on day 30 and wait a few weeks to a few months to relist with sell similar?   Not one listing is allowed to automatically relist.    And then there are one or two listings that get 25 or 50 views without selling, and they are rarely the more unique listings.

I am closing down for the holidays tomorrow as I have done very year.    For 2023 I plan to consolidate my four ebay accounts into two - in part due to the continual postal increases - another media mail increase will kill what is remaining of the book market - and in part due to ebay's increased search manipulation.   A winter estate sale is on the agenda.  

[mr_lincoln]

@uncseniorsportsfan   2022 is thousands of dollars behind in sales so three times this year I had to divert about 1/3 of my inventory to other venues to move it so I could generate more capital to acquire more inventory to keep things rolling ...

in between those larger moves I did a number of smaller ones too ...

[b86fiero]

My daughter and I both moved inventory off eBay several times this year.  Our newest inventory is going elsewhere now.  How many other long term sellers are diverting inventory?

Search is now bizarre.  I did a recent search for Rattail Cord (crafts and jewelry making).

Straight search, no filters, returned thousands of listings.  Then chose New condition, search results changed of course, but odd that more results showed than the organic search.  Then chose Best Match - wow, what a difference.  Top 6 or 8 slots were sponsored and shipping from China, followed by a huge horizontal row called eBay Best Sellers (or some such title) and all were shipping from China.   Finally chose US Only as seller location and all of the whoop-de-do disappeared and I was shown the regular straight forward search results with a few sponsored ads at the top.  

How many manipulated versions of Search results are potential buyers being shown these days?  

[nuclearomen]

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@debbie6438 wrote:

What else could this be? Looking back from 2004 to 2018 – things around late October thru December

were crazy! We shipped dozens of boxes daily! There was one year 2008, when eBay, thru Pay Pal, held sellers funds for up to a month, while they floated to pay for television commercials before Christmas! Looking back at the comments, trouble seems to start in late 2017, and then for sure in 2018, when they created “Good Till Canceled”! Nobody really knows how the entire internet of things

works! So imagine having to change millions and millions of listings at once! Something bad is bound

to happen! From 2019, with Managed Payments things really started to tank! If it wasn't for Covid-19,

and the lock down, we would have went out of business! From the first few months of 2020, after

Covid, sales went thru the roof, 'cause everybody thought they were going to die, so why not get

that last fix in on eBay! We all know what loomed, “Required Item Specifics” 2021 wasn't looking

good as the sales leveled out, and “Required Item Specifics” updates wasted sellers valuable time!

This was one example of superfluous nonsense! The economy? Blame it, too, but let's be real,

the American economy has been horrible since the early 1980's with the first, worst inflationary

period! It's been a roller-coaster ride down hill ever since then. Sure in the 1990's after the first

Gulf War was over, things were okay, but after NAFTA & GATT – 911, The Mortgage Meltdown,

you know, the list is endless! And then.... what about my generation “the baby boomers” when we

die in the next decade, the collectible market will die! Young people coming up in life in America

can't even buy a home, pay rent, bills, etc let alone buying some old thing from their granddad's generation! In 1991 the federal minimum wage was $4.25 an hour today in 2022 it's $7.25 an hour!

California has the highest minimum wage of $14.00 / $15.00 an hour! The rent here for a one bedroom dump is over 2 grand a month! It's a joke! NOW in May 2022, eBay pulls the “bots” and kills the

sales! Bad decisions made by our politicians, then CEO's – just destroy our lives! Sad, eBay is the only

game in town for most collectibles – having said that, 2023 is just weeks around the corner? What

then? So far this is the worst December sales ever on eBay for over 20 years! THE WORST!

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@debbie6438 

i don't know within those yrs here - was active on ebay prior to '14 and came back after long long time in '18, but back when i was on prior things sold immensely - 10-20+ orders a day easily. When came back wasn't like that, it's never been like that for me on this account, but was getting 4-5-6 per day really up and down til past 2 yrs i guess, orders were consistent, every day, no matter the number. Last half '22 - dead - i mean i still doing orders, but especially since Nov they are down, not orders every day as "usual" 

All those things sure, changed selling as "normal" on ebay but they never halted sales or at least for this amount of time. I can't think of time in the past 4 years here ebay wasn't making changes to site etc... And yeah, sure covid lockdowns made most sellers see nice cash flow... but really my sales didn't change THAT much from normal, like said every day sales, but again, since Nov, it's like beating a already dead 5 times over mule - everything is sparatic. 

But I have said every time someone mention economy - it's not so. Sure it has affected some, but not my business - every label and distribution I know have told directly told me they are having record sales, and it keeps getting better by the week. The largest ones in US I know are filling 30K-50K of orders per week. Overseas some I know are doing more then that. Funny thing? A lot of those are on ebay also (using different names) and they all told me the same thing - ebay is amounting to approx. 1% of their sales. So much so they don't even really bother with here anymore, they all laugh at it...why waste their time and pay more to sell here when they do those numbers on weekly basis without it? 

They have become the epitome of the CA model corp business - they have no idea what is going on outside their fantasy world, blind and oblivious, with egos larger then the cosmos, overpaid, and run by people who have no real goals or vision outside of themselves. 

[dbfolks166mt]

     This has become a zombie thread and the original timeline you asked about has become irrelevant at this point. OP should/could start a new post with a more up to date timeline situation.