Times have changed for me being a seller

[beach_sun]

I began selling in 2001 and was a Top Rated Seller and many buyers were interested in my needlecraft items. Now I nearly have to sell my items with a large discount and seem to get little response. I try my best to be a customer forward thinker. Writing notes to manage their shipping locations, adding small gifts to their items they purchased and thanking them for their purchases. I use to be a President of the Chamber of Commerce so this comes easy to me. I treat my buyers like I would want to be treated. That being said, I have become frustrated with listings and feel like I am giving the items away. I have over 2,000 sales and it use to be so easy to sell something.  I have not listed like I use to, as my items go unnoticed. I am competative with my prices and I have started again to list more items. It seems that everyone is making money, except me. For instance, the Postal Service, eBay and Paypal and the buyer is the one who gains and the seller suffers. No longer can I factor in the cost of shipping supplies as I need to keep my items competative. A very sad seller. Thank you for listening.

[futuretomorrow]

Seems like you're sharing your story, not asking for advice but a couple things did come to mind. 

1. Do you have access to data sets and sources that can factually portray whether needcraft and crafts in general have been consistent, doing well or on a decline since 2001? That's going to be key and helpful to you in terms or next steps and the psychology of not beating yourself up for things out of your control.

2. Has there been a drastic decline in the amount of items you're seeing listed/available now versus when you first started in 2001?

I'd stay very wary of eBay's even further changing landscape come this fall. Hard to believe some sellers are thinking about "toughing it out" but for every 1 person that won't take any form of abuse you can find 15,000 that will. It's not going to look pretty here come 2019. 

[bubbleman2010]

The invention of the cellphone has killed off most time waster merchandise. Pre cellphone folks wasted hours doing all sorts of things today ages from 5 to 80  they waste their time on their cellphone last average I saw was 4.7 hours total per day were wasted...  Go to a public place put your cellphone away and watch the people and you'll see how bad its getting...

[duncanvr]

Quote 'It seems that everyone is making money, except me. For instance, the Postal Service, eBay and Paypal and the buyer is the one who gains and the seller suffers'.

Its even worse in Australia we are charged 10% tax to sell, 10% tax to buy, 4.4% PayPal fees, 10% eBay fee plus crazy high postage costs. Tracked small parcel from here $40-$50 to USA if you want it sent fast. You have to be able to absorb the cost other wise your loosing money.

There are 26 items in your store so you'd be considered a casual seller. You don't seem to have postage policies for International on every item so overseas buyers can't buy some items from you? Or at least half of your listings say

Shipping:

May not ship to Australia

Others have $35+ postage charge

I recommend you check your postage policies. Sometimes these multiply and selecting an old policy can hurt your sales. Delete the old postage policies and just have one.

You only have 17 people following your eBay shop so then you are likely relying on one off sales. You somehow need to reach out to new buyers every time and get them to follow you. Try a Facebook page with links to your eBay items.

I recommend getting rid of caps as the search engine doesn't like that. Things like ~ ., & not needed in the title, the search engine doesn't look at this.

Next is your photographs, use a white background for all with lighting and zoom, some of your photos seem out of focus, blurry, a good clear main picture sells

You need around 250 listed to compete with megastores

I would suggest a buy it now price of $2 is a waste of time.

You need to look to increase your average selling price if your not $15+ in profit per item and not making regular sales it will be a struggle.

These are just suggestions to help you. Personally I cannot see so many sales with so few listings. Try buiding to 250 listed then 666 listings and you should then be getting 10 sales a day. Try adding in other selling lines maybe 3 to 4 different categories of items.

Your competing against mega sellers and Chinese sellers so the market is generally tough all round. But if you try some of my ideas you should suceed.

[kathieskorner]

I have one account that I use only to sell handcrafted items and craft supplies.    Yes, back in 2001 I could list almost any type of fabric and many handcrafted items that sold within days.  But eBay has changed a lot since then - it is no longer just a place to find items you can't find locally.   And then Etsy came along and took some of ebay's crafting marketplace - although I personally had no better success on Etsy than eBay. 

Yes shipping expense has increased far more than eBay fees since 2001 so I have had to be more selective in what I choose to sell.  No longer does 80% of what I list in a month sell - 10% is now a really good month.   It is hard to sell a $10.00 item if shipping of $9.85 or more is added to the price. 

Between increased competition and shipping expense plus a smaller crafting population (which is why your items are going unnoticed) , the good ole days are long gone.