eBay

honestabe411 · ‎05-04-2018

The last week has been a nightmare. From roughly 5-600 a week to below $200! Just look at that graph...it's amazing. Those who post slow sales posts, just know you're not alone. Best of luck to everyone out there dealing with this...but this is just dreadful!

95% of inventory on sale with lowered prices this week, and sales just plummet. Also sales got much worse at the start of 7 days ago when i changed everything to 60 day returns...not sure if that's related, just odd.

Went through some of my inventory to make sure most was still listed and no glitches happened. Went through 30 pairs of heels and shoes and 10 PAIRS were no longer active or able to find ANYWHERE! Very confused on how listings just DISAPPEAR out of nowhere. And that was only the shoes i checked! I still have hundreds and hundreds of other items to check.

rixstuff · ‎05-05-2018

@goldrushfinds wrote:
Unfortunately, any offer for free listings has little value to me. What good is it to build a big inventory, when it is likely that you will probably get stuck with most of it, as it goes unsold. I do not want to invest and list further inventory, that just sits around in my house. It is like pulling teeth to get anything to sell. I don't see, after calculating all costs and time, how Ebay is worth the time for 99% of people. I can go out and get a job at a fast food place or Walmart, and most likely surpass earnings on Ebay, with much less risk.

I think that is another problem for everybody. At some point we all need to STOP BUYING "INVENTORY"!! Just sell off what you have any way you can. Make lots, best offer, auctions with BIN, whatever works. I think that's why it works for me - it is a big slow electronic global YARD SALE. Would you buy inventory to sell at a yard sale? OF COURSE NOT! Sure we all love the searching and buying and some even love the photos and descriptions but it is work and the whole point is to MAKE MONEY, not spend it!! If it isnt for your own use, DONT BUY IT!

sodelight · ‎05-05-2018

@tamaralea wrote:
Yes, I think it's important to always throw in a few auctions. I think that is the only way to guarantee your listings will be seen. I changed all my fixed price to auctions last month and sold over 10%, without lowering any prices.

It's pretty pathetic when selling 10% is something to get excited about!

martysbingo · ‎05-05-2018

Ebay has done this to themselves, and us. With all their stupid changes, it is just chasing out the old sellers and infusing China trash on the site.

Our sales are 50% down from last year. We have moved most of our business (and many customers) to Amazon, and couldnt be happier. What I sold here since 2001 (Yes 17 years) I sold in 6 months on Amazon. We have hired 3 more people and have expanded 2 more times because of Amazon.

Ebay, doesnt care--when you beat up the sellers, they dont care either!

rt_21_trading_co · ‎05-05-2018

I too have had a serious drop in the past 20 months, with the last month being the lowest sales amount I have ever had on ebay. Went from over $ 100,000.00 in sales on ebay to $ 30,000.00 yearly. And my own site and the other places I sell have not dropped at all.

And I have a LOT of money tied up in inventory. I have been in business nearly 40 years, I have bought out huge amounts of inventory from distributors going out of business, other dealers and shops Vintage inventories, paid out many thousand of $$$ in having parts remanufactured, etc. Last January my total inventory at tax time was over a million dollars. I bought $ 100,000.00 in the last 2 years from the obsolete KD inventory in Cincinnati, 4 semi trailer loads from several motorcycle distributors, and one lawn & garden distributor.

And it only seems to be affecting ebay. My company site, Bonanza, Addoway, Bluejay, and other venues I use are consistent all of the time. But in the past 20 months ebay has been a few good sales for a week, then 10 days to 2 weeks with spoty sales adding up to a few hundred dollars in the same time span. Then another week of normal sales, and another 10 days to 2 weeks of nothing, continuously repeating. Meanwhile all of my other venues are selling at normal.

I mainly use ebay, Bonanza, Etsy, Addoway, Bluejay as advertising venues anyway. Any sales I have on any of these other sites including ebay are only to allow me to get a flyer into the package to redirect the customer to buy from my company site. Every site except for Bluejay has fees per item. Bluejay is free. I pay a few hundred dollars a year for my own company site, not a few thousand a year like ebay/Bonanza/Etsy. I don't use Amazon anymore.

I have had some bad experiences on ebay as a buyer. Sellers stating they ship from the USA only to have the items sent from china mainland, literally thousands of them. My wife was looking for Vintage lighting for our retirement house. There were hundreds of modern chinese junk lights being listed as Vintage. Shipping labels created in minutes of a purchase only to have the item reach the Postal Service 8 days later. Try to file an "item not received" after the specified delivery time only to have ebays system put up a "this item is still on the way" banner and not allow and further action. Even though the tracking says "label created, item has not reach USPS yet". Annoying stuff like that.

In my opinion, ebay is no longer a viable entity for consistent sales and normal profit levels.

honestabe411 · ‎05-06-2018

Appreciate it. Funny thing is I had best offer on NOTHING until 2 days ago after the huge drop. Maybe a few obo, but when sales dropped that bad I bulk edited it on all of them

caninekopz · ‎05-06-2018

Yes well this is where I Inject the throttling conversation into this thread. I find it odd that one can have good sales for 2 weeks then crickets for 1 then the cycle repeats.

I don't know why, or what Ebay benefits but throttling is real.

Even Ebay admits to doing it.

The skill is to find out what triggers it, what data they are looking at, or is it random.

I regularly use Pay Pal Loans to buy inventory. I pay the max out of sales to repay this back. Kind of funny that I will have good sales to repay this loan then crickets when they have enough for a monthly payment.

HMMMMMM

My sales the last year have been up and down consistantly if that makes sense. Looking at graphs is like drawing mountains in a picture. And this is in no way to start an arguement about throttling but I do find it odd that so many peoples sales are like this as well.

Rich

rixstuff · ‎05-06-2018

@caninekopz wrote:
Yes well this is where I Inject the throttling conversation into this thread. I find it odd that one can have good sales for 2 weeks then crickets for 1 then the cycle repeats.

I don't know why, or what Ebay benefits but throttling is real.

Even Ebay admits to doing it.

The skill is to find out what triggers it, what data they are looking at, or is it random.

I regularly use Pay Pal Loans to buy inventory. I pay the max out of sales to repay this back. Kind of funny that I will have good sales to repay this loan then crickets when they have enough for a monthly payment.

HMMMMMM

My sales the last year have been up and down consistantly if that makes sense. Looking at graphs is like drawing mountains in a picture. And this is in no way to start an arguement about throttling but I do find it odd that so many peoples sales are like this as well.

Rich

Wellll no. That isnt "Ebay throttling" that is normal paycycles - WHEN PEOPLE GET PAYCHECKS. There is also a flurry of sales around the end/beginning of the month when older folks get disability/retirement or sales people get their commissions.

rixstuff · ‎05-06-2018

@martysbingo wrote:
Ebay has done this to themselves, and us. With all their stupid changes, it is just chasing out the old sellers and infusing China trash on the site.

Our sales are 50% down from last year. We have moved most of our business (and many customers) to Amazon, and couldnt be happier. What I sold here since 2001 (Yes 17 years) I sold in 6 months on Amazon. We have hired 3 more people and have expanded 2 more times because of Amazon.

Ebay, doesnt care--when you beat up the sellers, they dont care either!

They can throw it in but they cant make me buy it. Many folks (myself included) purposely dont by from sellers in China. We are able to police ourselves and we should.

caninekopz · ‎05-07-2018

No not really, I have a brick and mortar. I can tell you pay weeks, govt check weeks and baby daddy pay dates. The Ebay algorithums do not fall within any specific time periods. On the contrary this week would have been first of the month government paychecks are out......was one of the worst weeks I have had in a while. I have not been able to track any specific pay cycle, money cycle, so I doubt it is buyer driven.

I sell a lot of industrial type stuff that pay cycles really do no affect.

Rich

lindyslucky · ‎05-07-2018

We share your thoughts exactly.

We had fun 2/3 years ago buying to sell.

Of course, the things that were the most desireable sold & moved sort of quickly.

(sort of quickly being about 3 months).

In the last few weeks, we have sold at least 3 items listed off & on for 2 years or longer.

We might have done better putting $$ in the stock market & not having bins and piles all over of merch to list, sort, research, clean, photograph.

The only advantage to a job is picking our own schedule. But that is hours all day and night.

Yes, a job is looking good right now, one of us has already done that. He is loving it.

We aren't buying any more to sell.

Our sales are back up some after the worst month in 3 years.

We have put up items low cost with free shipping.

We make more with shipping seperate, but things are moving some.

(lots of time packing)

I'm listing as much as I can, so we can step back and reevaluate.

And Im really not going to buy any more(my mantra).

The time and money invested is really not worth the income.

Buying feels better than the worry every time we ship something!

martysbingo · ‎05-22-2018

eBay doesnt make sence--We are up 35% year to date on Amazon--and im not working with a few thousand dollars of sales.

Last week, Amazon shipped 4000+ pieces form their FBA center to our customers--Thats over 16,000 per month.

Last week on eBay, I had 10 sales.

The latest, is eBay wants all these foreign "java script" and stuff removed, but yet I dont have any on my listings--if they want to cancel my remaining ones, go right ahead. I really dont care anymore.

nawlinsron2 · ‎05-22-2018

If it makes anybody feel better, consider the poor yahoos that bought ebay stock at $46, thinking it was headed to $55.
It finished at $37.77 today, has been flatlining for a month, and the 2nd quarter results ain't likely to help.

honestabe411 · ‎05-22-2018

False. Thank is throttling. Ask eBay sellers who have sold CONSISTENT for 4+ years who have NEVER seen blackouts like this...and there definitely was the same pay cycles for the last years and many before. Graphs and charts prove this to the full extent of what's being done. Throttling is real, and anyone who doesn't believe that doesn't sell enough items to notice.