The fault is not in the (eBay’s) stars, but in ourselves.

[richard1rst]

(And by “ourselves” I mean the whole human condition, not any one person individually)

I am constantly amazed at the number of posts that seem to think it is somehow eBay’s doing, alone, that sales suddenly tanked or rose. “Throttling” was the big fad for a while but it seems to have given way to “item specifics”, “1099K”s and “Winter updates”.

eBay does not exist in a vacuum. It may be an identifiable corporation but the buyers and sellers are real people living in a real world. Their buying and selling decisions are influenced by what happens “OUT THERE”, not here.

Their individual decisions are based on whether or not there is the potential for a Russian invasion of Ukraine, or a shortage of goods due to the supply chain, or the threat of an overreaction by the government to a truckers strike, or the loss of a job due to a mask mandate, or being jailed for giving the school board a hard time, or a thousand times thousand other individual events from the international to the mundane.

All of the above, and then some, direct Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand.

There is no identifiable reason (and a pointless quest to seek one out) when a large portion of 7 1/2 Billion people suddenly turn 1 degree “this” way instead of 1 degree “that” way.

You will have as much luck getting an answer to that as asking yourself “why did the guy 6 cars ahead of me suddenly change lanes?”

Some questions are just not answerable.

[johnrj1226]

I was fortunate enough to get one of the last 9.5% 30 yr. mortgage before the freeze on any mortgage at any rate in a  great neighborhood south of Chicago.  They opened up mortgages up at 12%.

[johnrj1226]

Coincidence maybe.  MP was already implemented to some eBay sellers in 2020. And  all had to join the party  early 2021 - January I believe.       Significant inflation rates increases started in April of 2021  at 4.2% for the month  - compared to 1.4% in  Jan 2021 .  The first notable increase was the price of gasoline shortly after January 20 when the price  of gasoline jumped  up to just below $3.00 from around $1.94 here in Georgia in our county of 117k.  Price  of crude oil continue to rice - so does the price of yoga pants (they are made from a curd oil derivative,  Then the slow unloading backlog  of those super container ships on the west coast age a lot more fuel to the fire.  Yeah some ships were diverted to t the east coast ports thru the  Panama Canal - but at a much higher cost from the Asian countries including China - extra fuel, time and lock fees plus size limitations.