Thank you eBay for putting my sales into the dumper.

[jhmii]

Thank you eBay. For the first time in almost three years, I was completely shut out of sales.

I'm just a little guy, 300 to 400 listings at any given time. I had a formula that I used to combine a few auctions with BIN listings.

Limiting sales items to items already listed for 14 days has scrapped my formula and put my sales in the toilet.

I used to support eBay for all the different ways they helped sellers, but no more. I am no longer allowed to used my own business sense to run my store. eBay should ask themselves who their customers really are; who pays them every month. 

If there isn't one sight to replace eBay, maybe there are two or three; a lot more work, but I've always worked for my money.

Such a shame.

[duggmills]

Your not just a little guy. Compared to me your like a America's largest retailer.  I'd mention the name but the bots might get fidgety.

Admittedly, I don't know the FAB's (Features Advantages Benefits - textbook marketing) of having a store.  It occurs to me if you don't like the way eBay runs your business, fire them, get them out of your store.  Yes, I guess that might mean closing your store.

[paudoh-16]

I did a several searches on the best eCommerce Platforms. I was surprised by the one that was consistently at the top.

[lyan9337]

on the first page of your listings you have at least five that have active bits. That's a heck of a lot better than other sellers are doing.

You have to ask yourself what can you do differently. You sell and a very limited niche market. Are these products that people need or just want?

also there is new generation buyers that doesn't want old stuff or to replace bits and pieces of granny's old silver set.

people weigh a lot of blame on eBay when the fact is that what they sell is not popular anymore.

[carlmarxx]

The  Current Ceo running  ebay ,has never  worked in the retail industry! The only job he has ever done  was run a news paper company.     It is all in his  Biography  before be hired to run ebay .   none   of former  ceo's   that ran ebay  worked in retail, all though  Meg W.  did  know a little  about retail  about  auctions  and  3P seller  second market retail . The  Only  One  Guy  knew  more  about  retail  was former Vice CEO  Hal Loydden   who  left  ebay  after  year to go run macey's.     

[ag47silver-us]

For the OP, there's just no way your sales dropped so significantly solely because your items newer than 14 days don't say bla bla bla % off.

You could make money buying a spoon ring bender and scrapping the left overs. Depending on the original cost of course.

It's sad but Sterling flatware is an anachronism even with it's great properties.

[retrose1]

OP, how many blacksmiths kept their businesses profitable 10 to 20 years after Ford rolled his new fangled automobiles off the assembly line?  The answer is - very few because they did not adapt with the times and/or realized that what they did was becoming obsolete.

It isn't a good idea to specialize to the point that you are only selling one thing.  If that thing falls from favor, your sales will drop and you will go out of business.

And if your sales on one thing drop, then you should start looking into other ways to make it desirable or start cutting back on what are selling until it might be desireable again.  You are lucky, your sterling will always have a value whether you are selling it as a spoon or as scrap metal.

About 5-10 years ago I could sell every plaid poly pair of mens slacks I could get my hands on.  The hipsters loved them and bought them.  Now I can't give them away except at Halloween as Sheldon costumes.  So I paid attention and now I have something else that I sell to another group that loves and buys every one I get.

Diversify is the way to go.

[pb*bikes]

Well if you think this may be the sellers fault in the least, you are incorrect.  We cant blame the sellers as much as the trolls try on this site.  Some of course are just complaining but when you have sellers like us with 4900 items, many relisted getting lost right now.  Our store does 10-13k a week every week of 2018 and almost all of 2017. We have been growing. Were a niche market too but a have highly sought after stuff. My sales this week $4400.  before anyone thinks thats alot compared to them. Yes, but we have a heavy operation and 35% of the NOS in the entre category, not counting the keyword spamming of the nos term. Half of the other NOS listings are rubbish. 

Were still a small business and spotted this coming 2 years ago so have made preperations. It still has hurt our business and with our formulas in play for years being dialed in being made worthless now, I guarnutee its hurting others. I can actually see all over the internet, nt just here, people are losing sales left and right and have 10+ issues each. 

We changed our prices with the mm going rogue and then they stepped it back a little but since we were proactive, we cant run a sale for 14 days. Also we sell new stuff from 35 years ago average so there is no msrp. That whole excuse about sellers marking upa nd then down is a red herring.  Sure some do it, they always have. If the company doesnt like it, they should punish the ones who do it, insead of screwing up all of us under the guise of making it fair.  This is only making it many times more unfair for anyone.

In 10 years Ive never seen this much upheval from sellers or this many issues at once from ebay. I literally run out of fingers counting all the compounding problems that havent been addressed and are being added to daily. I think this has gotten far out of control from where they thought it would go.

[rktoyandhobby]

Same way I felt when they changed the BIN requirements.  BIN used to be any price so long as it was higher than the starting bid.  Then eBay "helped" by requiring a minimum 10% difference.  Then eBay "helped" again by upping that further to 30%.  That made BIN on auctions positively worthless because you had to either lower your starting bid to where it was a giveaway if you only got one bid (which was more and more the case with their visibility games) or put the BIN over what people were willing to pay.  That was years ago and they've never changed it back despite the complaints because they think they know better than people actually selling stuff on the site.

Every change they make, it gets clearer and clearer that you don't get to choose much about "your" business.  You can't set BIN outs where you want, you can't run sales when you want, you can't offer return periods/policies that you want, you can't link images how you want (ooga booga http goin' getcha!1), you can't use any kind of scripting (and they're coming for HTML), you can barely block fraudulent buyers, you can't leave feedback for fraudulent buyers, they even police the text of your listings for "negative language" (anything with "don't" in it), pretty soon you won't even be able to choose a payment processor because they're ramming Ayden down your throat whether you want it or not.  It's like they have a Stupid of the Month award every week at eBay and everybody is in on it.

[ultimategiftshop]

my sale is 90% down 😞

[ultimategiftshop]

my sale went 90% down 😞

[emerald40]

---

@ag47silver-us wrote:
For the OP, there's just no way your sales dropped so significantly solely because your items newer than 14 days don't say bla bla bla % off.

You could make money buying a spoon ring bender and scrapping the left overs. Depending on the original cost of course.

It's sad but Sterling flatware is an anachronism even with it's great properties.

---

That is a good idea.  When I go on a trip I always peek into the jewelry stores and spoon rings are really popular.

[emerald40]

---

@retrose1 wrote:

OP, how many blacksmiths kept their businesses profitable 10 to 20 years after Ford rolled his new fangled automobiles off the assembly line?  The answer is - very few because they did not adapt with the times and/or realized that what they did was becoming obsolete.

It isn't a good idea to specialize to the point that you are only selling one thing.  If that thing falls from favor, your sales will drop and you will go out of business.

And if your sales on one thing drop, then you should start looking into other ways to make it desirable or start cutting back on what are selling until it might be desireable again.  You are lucky, your sterling will always have a value whether you are selling it as a spoon or as scrap metal.

About 5-10 years ago I could sell every plaid poly pair of mens slacks I could get my hands on.  The hipsters loved them and bought them.  Now I can't give them away except at Halloween as Sheldon costumes.  So I paid attention and now I have something else that I sell to another group that loves and buys every one I get.

Diversify is the way to go.

---

Actually that is not entirely true in cerain categories.

When I am buying diamond and fine jewelry I want a seller who specializes in it, not who sells the occasional piece and may have no clue as to what he is listing and cannot give me dimensions or color or anything specific about it.

Same with my dolls.  I want a purist who knows her stuff.  Not someone who sells car parts with an occasional doll thrown in.

[emerald40]

Since when did the definition of troll become giving advice or making comments contradictory to yours.

And you obviously do not know it all because if you had, you would have no need to spend your time here with us.

And if it were all ebay's faults how do you explain all the hundreds of thousands of sellers who continue to do well here.  Maybe they are the ones who are actually "in the know."

[paudoh-16]

---

@emerald40 wrote:

---

@retrose1 wrote:

OP, how many blacksmiths kept their businesses profitable 10 to 20 years after Ford rolled his new fangled automobiles off the assembly line?  The answer is - very few because they did not adapt with the times and/or realized that what they did was becoming obsolete.

It isn't a good idea to specialize to the point that you are only selling one thing.  If that thing falls from favor, your sales will drop and you will go out of business.

And if your sales on one thing drop, then you should start looking into other ways to make it desirable or start cutting back on what are selling until it might be desireable again.  You are lucky, your sterling will always have a value whether you are selling it as a spoon or as scrap metal.

About 5-10 years ago I could sell every plaid poly pair of mens slacks I could get my hands on.  The hipsters loved them and bought them.  Now I can't give them away except at Halloween as Sheldon costumes.  So I paid attention and now I have something else that I sell to another group that loves and buys every one I get.

Diversify is the way to go.

---

Actually that is not entirely true in cerain categories.

When I am buying diamond and fine jewelry I want a seller who specializes in it, not who sells the occasional piece and may have no clue as to what he is listing and cannot give me dimensions or color or anything specific about it.

Same with my dolls.  I want a purist who knows her stuff.  Not someone who sells car parts with an occasional doll thrown in.

---

My partner has been selling here for six years. Jewelry is his specialty along with Fine Art and unusual collectibles. He built the business by himself. Took gemology courses, very talented intelligent man. The beginning of this year, he added free returns to the 30 day returns. Our returns increased, but eBay insisted that if we handled them outside of eBay, it would  be just fine. Only a couple were  SNAD's, fightable but we didn't. Mostly it was doesn't fit, didn't like it. I figure we just started to become a rental company for jewelry. When we didn't offer free returns, we hardly ever had a return.

Now we haven't had a sale in almost 10 days. Thousands of dollars down to just $98. I know its because of those returns and they are completely cutting us off at the knees. Excellent feedback from our customers, for service, personal care. 

But no, we are just dumped by the side of the road.