eBay

burnthebeans · ‎06-25-2019

Hello to everyone, this is my first time to write here and I hope that is the right place.
My name is Giannis and I m a seller from Greece and I m selling on eBay a 6 years a go.
For some reason my sales to US customers dropped suddenly more than 50% the last month.
Something has happened for sure because the fall was sudden.
Does anyone know why this may have happened?
Let me note here that I offer free worldwide shipping.
Thank you for your time.

steiffsrus · ‎06-25-2019

Hi there- its not only your sales which have dropped, its here in the states, too. A guess is that it has to do with the new "good until cancelled" Ebay has started a couple of months ago. Now a buyer does not have to make up his mind about the purchase of an item within 10 days, or 30 days- the listing is there forever and he thinks he can buy it whenever.... My own sales are about 35% down compared to last year, and I have been reading alot on the discussion boards from other sellers who also have much less sales than several month back.

Other than that- our president says the economy never did as well as since he's been elected, even though the smart people tell us that we have less income (which is true) and the cost of living is going steadily up (which is also true. So I think unless its something you sell what is needed by the people here, they are a bit more careful how they spend their money...

Hope you will do better after vacation time is over!

Greetings to beautiful Greece

dippitydoo · ‎06-25-2019

Hello burnthebeans, and welcome to the community!

Sales have been bad all around here in the states too, and lots of evidence of "sudden" drops, nobody is really sure of the cause, but lots of speculation! One cause I suspect is the problem is that the mobile app for Ebay has had some glitches and buyers aren't able to find what they are looking for through the search function...I suspect that mobile sales make up half or perhaps the majority of purchases now, so this can be a real problem! We all pray it gets sorted out soon.

-Dippity

-

uniwarehousewares · ‎06-25-2019

there are alot of factors beside it some of reasons are
1 : online sales tax in US implementing slowly slowly every after each month to all states one by one
2 : New Tariffs by govt shrink the consumer pocket which trigger inflation rate.
3 : like other member mentioned about "good till cancelled"
4 : ebay return policies which is stopping sellers to increase inventory means less variety of products and less price competition
5 : Carrier also increases shipping price and due to that reason sellers also increasing prices due to carrier issue, prices going up due to sales tax + carrier cost + new tariffs its killing consumer buying power.
6 : all this is happening and effecting mostly online businesses because in US percentage of online shoppers are higher so above steps have been taken, physical stores are closing in US, so above steps by govt will slow down online sales.

my suggestion is to run some promotions to pass difficult time, due to above reasons also some percentage of consumers is on hold what to do , they need time to get use to it to spend money with sales tax and higher prices.

burnthebeans · ‎06-25-2019

I thank all who responded, I feel a bit better now and I read some interesting things...

The bad mobile app is a very important problem as well as the tax added to all states. Patience is all I can do now..

hioctane62 · ‎06-25-2019

For some odd reason, the management at ebay seems to think that killing sales in the U.S. is a wise business decision. Hopefully, the shareholders will be awakened soon, and kick this current useless CEO to the curb. He's singlehandedly killing ebay.

turquoisetulips · ‎06-25-2019

@steiffsrus wrote:
Hi there- its not only your sales which have dropped, its here in the states, too. A guess is that it has to do with the new "good until cancelled" Ebay has started a couple of months ago. Now a buyer does not have to make up his mind about the purchase of an item within 10 days, or 30 days- the listing is there forever and he thinks he can buy it whenever.... My own sales are about 35% down compared to last year, and I have been reading alot on the discussion boards from other sellers who also have much less sales than several month back.
Other than that- our president says the economy never did as well as since he's been elected, even though the smart people tell us that we have less income (which is true) and the cost of living is going steadily up (which is also true. So I think unless its something you sell what is needed by the people here, they are a bit more careful how they spend their money...
Hope you will do better after vacation time is over!
Greetings to beautiful Greece

My sales have almost totally tanked here and the few auctions I had with bids the buyers aren't paying for . However I'm very new to selling on another American venue and my sales there are terrific ! Just made two more this morning and for a lot more money . So I'm not quite sure of the theory of Americans having less income . Rather I think it's just an E bay blunder to tell the truth. Tulips

rdj831 · ‎06-26-2019

Consumer confidence is at its lowest point in almost two years. The trade war with China is spooking people into not spending.

I saw a 30% decrease in sales compared to last year for June so far. I was up for 25% for the year prior to late May-June. This was averaged across all 3 selling platforms that I sell with, not just eBay.

Here's a news article for you to check it out:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/25/us-consumer-confidence-june-2019.html

clu3 · ‎06-26-2019

According to Paypal, about 90% of my sales are on a mobile platform.

eunster1313 · ‎06-26-2019

This might explain some of it.

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2019/4/1556080580.html

For sellers expecting change, brace yourself: Wenig said the "GMV to Revenue gap" would continue. In other words, eBay will make more money from sellers for each dollar of sales. Basic math means that will make eBay increasingly less profitable for sellers.

ekmadonna · ‎06-26-2019

Me thinks that the sharp decline in sales most of us are feeling is the reason for the NEW PROMO I got today on both my accounts. Start AUCTIONS at .99 cents and get 50% off final value fees for up to 100 sold listings. So basically start your auction at .99 cents and get a single bid and sell your item for 50 cents. seller gets stuck with giving their item away for free and ebay can boast an uptick in sales across the site. This new promo benefits very few sellers and only the ones who have a large following and/or rare merchandise that is Guaranteed to sell at a high price in very few select niche categories.