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.

[coolections]

List at a reasonable price buyers are willing to pay from the start then you won't need to keep changing the price.

[tunicaslot]

I analyzed some of the silver items the OP has. The sell thru rate is around 7% - while some of you may be collecting such items - it's popularity has waned. There will always be some buyers looking for certain pieces - but again - you not only have this site but numerous venues and social media that the buyer can find the item on.

When things aren't working for you - then it's you who have to make the decision if it's worth itor not.

[mr_lincoln]

@lyan9337

---

@lyan9337 wrote:
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.

---

I like this reply and it probably speaks the most about the issue.  Diversity is key and it helps when some categories are slower than others.  There is a market for antique, vintage and collectible items but different categories sell at different speeds.  I too offer silverplate and when it sells its nice but for me its in the "slow mover" column.  Same with quite a few categories I cover.  I also have some fast movers and things that sell on a regular monthly basis.

[emerald40]

but we never get anyone coming here irate because ebay pulled their listings for no reason we can find.

__________________________________________

I am certain there have been multiple posts of sellers saying their long tail GTC listings are falling off.  And posters learning that they have been listed for years with no updates or changes.

[emerald40]

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@moondogblues wrote:
"It's sad but Sterling flatware is an anachronism even with it's great properties."

call **bleep** on that...I bid on sterling all the time and have to fight for it.

---

How many young couples getting married now are purchasing sterling silver flatware.  

Judging by all the weddings I have attended lately - none.

And for those inheriting them from family members, they usually sell it to pay off debt, buy a car or a down payment on a house.

[emerald40]

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@shop_giftworthy wrote:

They have really gone beyond the pale from the way it used to be, that's for sure.

I've had to remind them on the phone more than once that they're not my employer, that I'm the business owner and am paying them for a service.

They're just an internet mall with storefronts. A service provider no different than UPS or FedEx or any other vendor that you pay to provide a service for you. Tell them that. We pay them to peddle our wares out on the internet. I asked one of their reps today, "when's the last time eBay did a TV commercial to bring in new buyers, because I can't recall seeing one in a LONG time and maybe they should be using some of that money we pay them every month to advertise for us".  He couldn't answer me and offered to transfer me to the dept that could. I told him not to bother, but to let management know sellers are asking about it.

I researched California law regarding business landlords and tenants - that's what eBay is, a landlord for a virtual mall. There's a law giving the business tenants "the right to quiet enjoyment" - which keeps the landlord from interfering with the daily run of their business (as long as they're not doing anything illegal obviously). I wish eBay fell under this law.

All eBay needs to do is vet the sellers. I mean store subscribers - not the lady down the street selling the clothes her kids grew out of and nothing else after that, but bona fide businesses subscribed to a store, registered with their state for sales taxes, etc.. Once we're vetted, leave us alone to run our business. The market will take care of itself.

Wait til they roll out their "payments intermediation" in the next couple of years. They'll take the payments from all the customers, deduct your fees and give you a direct deposit paycheck once a month after the money earned 30 days interest in their bank. Maybe a 1099 at the end of the year, and we'll all be officially contract employees. And if we don't like it, our exclusive remedy will be to stop selling on eBay.

🙂 It's coming - you watch...

We need a Seller's Organization. I'd pay $5 a month for dues. Know any good attorneys?

I remember a time when it was actually FUN to buy and sell on eBay. I never made that much money, but there were a lot less headaches.

---

As long as it is legal, ebay can be whatever they want to be.  It is their site and they answer to their shareholders.  For the rest of us we either comply or we walk.

[emerald40]

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@sookie*stackhouse wrote:

You are absolutely correct.  June 25th is when photos dissappeared from GTC listings that rolled over. I assume that most sellers didn't notice because the gallery photo was still there.  That was more than a "glitch". At the least thousands of photos were deleted and it will take months before most sellers realize. That was just the begining of the glitch train and it seems to still be rolling.

For Ebay to say that particular glitch affected only a small amount of sellers is either blatanly untrue or they have no idea what is going on and that speaks volumes about the ineptitude of the company. Either scenario is not comforting.

I have been here for many years also (and recognize the names of a few, most have moved on or changed their posting id, myself included). I never post here anymore and haven't in years, but I have to defend the sellers this time. This isn't the usual Ebay is the devil, I sell **bleep** why isn't it selling, I have 10 listing why aren't I getting bids that posters have been saying for years.  

Professional sellers, long time sellers, rational sellers and sellers who sell in the thousands and tens of thousands are trying to tell you something is wrong.  They are right.

---

If that were true, many more would be coming here to complain.

And to be honest, in my categories, photos are always there.  I have yet to encounter a jewelry or doll listing with no photos.  And mine are there.  So it is not site wide.

[emerald40]

---

@chapeau-noir wrote:

---

@moondogblues wrote:
"It's sad but Sterling flatware is an anachronism even with it's great properties."

call **bleep** on that...I bid on sterling all the time and have to fight for it.

---

There's a lot of broad brushes slopping around when it comes to this.  These items are in demand, and the knowledgable merchant knows which items these are.  I agree with above - people of all ages collect - particularly items that are small and rare - but really, anything that moves their hearts.

My feeling is that most of these comments are made by individuals not familiar with the collectibles market, or perhaps unable to gauge value and trend, or just feeling disillusioned (and I can understand that).

_____________________________________

I am making it from the perspective of coming from a large family, being married to a man from a large family, having a lot of friends whose children are marrying and having 3 kids.

One of the biggest requests is money.  The second is to pay toward their exotic honeymoon.

I am constantly getting registries to go to and pick up a gift.  Sterling silver flatware or other silver knick knacks are not listed.  They want practical things to make their daily lives easier, like gitchen gagets and electronics.

---

[retrose1]

---

@emerald40 wrote:

---

@sookie*stackhouse wrote:

You are absolutely correct.  June 25th is when photos dissappeared from GTC listings that rolled over. I assume that most sellers didn't notice because the gallery photo was still there.  That was more than a "glitch". At the least thousands of photos were deleted and it will take months before most sellers realize. That was just the begining of the glitch train and it seems to still be rolling.

For Ebay to say that particular glitch affected only a small amount of sellers is either blatanly untrue or they have no idea what is going on and that speaks volumes about the ineptitude of the company. Either scenario is not comforting.

I have been here for many years also (and recognize the names of a few, most have moved on or changed their posting id, myself included). I never post here anymore and haven't in years, but I have to defend the sellers this time. This isn't the usual Ebay is the devil, I sell **bleep** why isn't it selling, I have 10 listing why aren't I getting bids that posters have been saying for years.  

Professional sellers, long time sellers, rational sellers and sellers who sell in the thousands and tens of thousands are trying to tell you something is wrong.  They are right.

---

If that were true, many more would be coming here to complain.

And to be honest, in my categories, photos are always there.  I have yet to encounter a jewelry or doll listing with no photos.  And mine are there.  So it is not site wide.

---

If sookie is right, then the lazy sellers that are using GTC so they don't have to work on their listings see the gallery pic on their listing and don't know anything is wrong.

In your categories, turnover is quick so most sellers vener cnsider using GTC or the listing sells before it's even noticed.

And I have been seeing recent threads about pics disappearing, but none about listings disappearing unless the listing is a violation like vape or VERO, OR the OP of the thread has been booted from selling.

[rktoyandhobby]

That's good advice but only when a marketplace has a wide range of buyers.  If it only attracts poor people, you're better off not selling at all.

In toys, Hasbro has this marketing gimmick called "Build-a-Figure."  Each figure in an assortment comes with an extra body part to build an additional figure once you've collected them all.  Some collectors are so poor that they steal this part.  Others are so poor that they engage in a practice called "swapping."  They buy a figure, replace it with an older figure (or, in extreme cases, random junk like pine cones or pill bottles), and return it for a full refund.  Because they can't afford to spend $15 or $20 to feed their habit.  There's pretty much no price low enough for people like that.  And as eBay aids and abets more fraud, that's exactly the sort of "customers" that accumulate on eBay.

[blacktopautoparts]

Something has definately changed here with ebay since June 25. I sell auto parts, and ever since the update with the MM sales have really taken a hit. The funny thing is that I never even took advantage of the MM to mark items up and toss a sale on them. We got a warehouse at the beginning of the year, and ramped up production as we have seen sales climb month over month. We were hitting $1-$2k in sales a day, now all of a sudden we are scrapping at the bits. While those numbers are not anything amazing, as of 6/25 we are seeing sales for $400-$1000 a day and even if that at times. While eBay motors has gotten a bit saturated to a degree, this is still a very niche market and if you price your items right sales should not fall off of a cliff like mine have. I know that my slow time starts in September to about February, then business picks up again.

I edited prices like you did @pb*bikes which caused me more damage once the new update went live on 7/4. Honestly what ebay should have done is on 7/4 just rollback the whole MM back to before 6/25 and then say on 8/1 or 9/1, based on feedback we are going to go in this direction with MM. This way they can have a more clean and consise message, yet they didn't with the changes.

I am even noticing now that promoted listings aren't even working for me as they used to. I would get 3-4 sales a day from those. While I know people hate them because we pay ebay for them, it's a good way to make additional sales and clear out inventory.

With the items I sell, trying free returns would be difficult since some of the weights with our items get rather heavy.

The bigger problem now is that we are being forced to use GTC listings for MM, so sales can rollover this will cause even more problems for ebay. @retrose1 has a good point on the issue with GTC listings and now it will get even worse as more people are going to be changing their listings over to GTC.

I understand this is ebays sandbox, but they can't keep making all these changes that impact those of us with large inventories to where we spend more time updating listings to reflect these changes than keep adding more quality listings.

I've been on here selling since 2004 and I haven't seen anything as bad as the infamous 6/25 when sales started falling off of a cliff.

@emerald40 wrote:

My opinion - the downfall of ebay started when they allowed the big box stores and drop shippers here.

Then it was when they started dolling out the freebies.

Ebay became too big.  And their servers are obviously feeling it.  It is breaking down.  They are making fixes here and there, but again imo, and I know this would adversly affect a lot of people, but

Shut down, and actually fix things correctly and so they will stick.

Stop the freebies.  All it brings is junk listings and countless duplicates.

Control the number of listings one seller can have under all his accounts.  This will allow the small sellers to be seen, not sandwiched in between a drop shipper.

And in a buyer / seller dispute.  A seller's long time history should count for something.  When a new buyer suddenly comes on and claims SNAD - ebay needs to stop and think - did that seller suddenly fall on his head and is now going to start scamming buyers.

I don't always agree with what you post, but I think right here you have outlined a way that ebay can and should have fixed along the way. By sharing this kind of information, instead of always coming off like you are attacking good posters would help in the future.

I think that ebay is so desperate right now to get buyers that they are just raking us sellers over the coals. You should see the amount of SNAD cases that I have had against me in the last few weeks, where I got the buyer to admit it was their fault in ebay messaging, yet ebay anchor support after seeing this still can't do anything to even change the reason like they did in the past.

Doesn't ebay realize that even though they are trying to make this a buyer centric platform, all of this bad press that gets out with their inconsistant policies which maybe 5-10% of the population only sees, but word of mouth is hurting this company.

[retrose1]

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@coolections wrote:

List at a reasonable price buyers are willing to pay from the start then you won't need to keep changing the price.

---

The OP is in the enviable position of having two separate markets that are/would be interested in their merchandise.....people collecting/replacing a piece AND silver investors.

When the silver market is down then the bigger profit to be made is selling to the collectors/replacement buyers.  When the silver market is up, then the value of each item goes up exponentially due to weight.

I can understand totally why they have to constantly reprice.  The value of each item will change depending on which market is bullish at the moment.   It is the smart thing to do to get the most out each piece depending on the market.

But my impression is that the silver market is stable and the collecting market on that genre is a little soft.  Combine that with ebay's constant changes and the upcoming product page change, and sales are going to drop off.

[pb*bikes]

We just had our first day of negative sales ever.  Nothing sold but a stupid $150 free return. We opted into free returns on June 11 but havent indexed and were told by cs to do it again. We did and were not indexing when you select free returns.  We were doing 1-2k in sales for the last 18+ months, actually a lot longer but I cant be sure of consistency off the top of my head but its been a few years. Weve never been hit like this. Weve done almost 3 million total here and are flapping in the wind.

GTC listings are not a flaw for collectable/vintage sellers. It takes a while to pair up with the right buyer due to specs and needs, similar in auto parts, you cant just shove something in that wont fit. It may be horrible for a million polo shirts and causing chaos. You simply cannt take a 40 year old new in box collectable but functional hubset that takes a 6 months to sell and just keep discounting it. The stuff is expensive due to rarity and not everyone needs it, so you have it for the happy customer that collects these things and comes back knowing were to find what they need next.  We have major repeat customers, some of which will buy 10 things in one haul. rare things for that 1940's french bike that just happened. You cant find the stuff anywhere but ebay but weve got most of the market so were kinda stupid for still being here but the sales were so great and ebay was making almost 50k a year from us that they now, no longer want. The way we were headed, that would be 100k next year. 

Those commenst about gtc listings being an issue only apply to a certian type fo seller. Others need them and they make sense. No issue with comodity sellers or more typical or competitive goods but they need to be treated differently.  We cant all be treated like someone whos drop shipping or selling the same thing as 200 other sellers.

[retrose1]

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@pb*bikes wrote:

We just had our first day of negative sales ever.  Nothing sold but a stupid $150 free return. We opted into free returns on June 11 but havent indexed and were told by cs to do it again. We did and were not indexing when you select free returns.  We were doing 1-2k in sales for the last 18+ months, actually a lot longer but I cant be sure of consistency off the top of my head but its been a few years. Weve never been hit like this. Weve done almost 3 million total here and are flapping in the wind.

GTC listings are not a flaw for collectable/vintage sellers. It takes a while to pair up with the right buyer due to specs and needs, similar in auto parts, you cant just shove something in that wont fit. It may be horrible for a million polo shirts and causing chaos. You simply cannt take a 40 year old new in box collectable but functional hubset that takes a 6 months to sell and just keep discounting it. The stuff is expensive due to rarity and not everyone needs it, so you have it for the happy customer that collects these things and comes back knowing were to find what they need next.  We have major repeat customers, some of which will buy 10 things in one haul. rare things for that 1940's french bike that just happened. You cant find the stuff anywhere but ebay but weve got most of the market so were kinda stupid for still being here but the sales were so great and ebay was making almost 50k a year from us that they now, no longer want. The way we were headed, that would be 100k next year. 

Those commenst about gtc listings being an issue only apply to a certian type fo seller. Others need them and they make sense. No issue with comodity sellers or more typical or competitive goods but they need to be treated differently.  We cant all be treated like someone whos drop shipping or selling the same thing as 200 other sellers.

---

I also sell long tail vintage merchandise ( I just don't do it on ebay) and it isn't the GTC listings that are the problem, it is the sellers that are using it as just another way to have thousands of items listed with no work after the creation of the listing.  ebay does the work for them - automatically relisting the GTC listings, putting the relist money in their pocket and the seller just sits back wondering why they aren't getting sales.

I understand that there is some merchandise that will sit until the right person comes along.  Where I list vintage, the listing lasts 4 months, that gives enough time for exposure and to analyze the potential of the listing.  I often will list half of what I have and when it rolls off I list the other half and all the related listings have the phrase - I have more in stock, just let me know what you need.  Which will not work on ebay anymore and one of the reasons my stuff isn't on ebay anymore.

I also phase in seasonal stock, right now I am working on getting Halloween costumes listed there.  I keep stock rolling, makes my store look fresh and not the same as when someone looked a month earlier.  If they see the same things every time they visit, they will stop visiting since there isn't all that much new for them to look at.

[pb*bikes]

My market is the same as the silver ware market. Its collectors who just want to look at pretty things and its about design but, its also an actual functional thing that is used. The more well healed or the young peacocks can spend 5k outfilling a frame with hard to find parts but many keep the stuff in the box or build with it but hang it in their collection.  My market is incredibly hot and has been increasing for the sought after stuff that we sell.   We frequently have buyers, buy 10 pieces in a go from us as we are literally the only 1 stop place to find all you need to outfit a 40 year old frameset with. Im not exagerating, I am a collector myself. There is nowehere but peice meal on ebay, so we put that all in one place, unfortunately for us now, on ebay, which has worked for a decade.

The GTC cancled listings are the thing that makes this possible as there is no possability to race to the bottom as with polo shirts or other commodity items. We need 6 months of not lowering prices to sell a piece to that specific person or the whole market is worth nothin if a company can dicate when you lower your prices. The investments are huge. When the store fees went up, we increased our store to 5000 items and it didnt affect us. We just keep growing and buying up more and more. We were spending 100k on ebay alone on ceratin years. We stopped all that due to having a huge inventory but, mainly becasue a couple years ago ebay started getting scary, like what we see now. Those that saw something coming I suspect, started holding onto more capital and putting it elsewhere like we did. So knowing if ebay kills this market, it will pop up elsewhere and due to simpls supply and demand , supply lower, demand higher, up it will go again. The issue is that this is happening in all niche markets right now. Its not just our store, collectable auto, guitars, art, cards, etc.    Thats a nice padding that amazon or walmart dont have and typically those sellers know what they have and yes, many say theyre leaving but the money has been too good, good enough to stcik around and deal with issues and fees but not enough to make negative dollars a day in a hot market.  Literally hot until june 25.

june 24th sales were $2067, going backwards just in june one day was $4500 and many over $2000 and all over $1000 aside for a few right at 1000.  Since then we had a $285 day, a $106 day, $397 yesterday and nothing but a $150 paid return today.  There were a few $500+ days too.  We dont have days this low on bad days.

Ebay should have different sets of rules based on whats selling. Not becasue anyone is special but becasue the markets operate differently, quality vs quantity, supply and demand.