eBay

rapidresol · ‎11-01-2019

We have been selling on Ebay for 15+ years now, but since March sales have struggled. Ebay seemed to make changes to the search engine meaning items we had sold hundreds of units of were no longer selling. They became almost invisible.

Today we only had 8 sales on EBay. A few years ago we were averaging 50 a day.

I would be interested to hear how other sellers are doing at the moment? I am extremely worried about the way things seem to be going!

wildbotanyfarm · ‎11-02-2019

I have over 1000 listings and pay for a premium store, I had 5 sales last month. This has never happened in almost 20 years of being on ebay. I will be out of business if things don't change.

getzappy · ‎11-03-2019

I have done a lot of research and have come to believe that the tide has turned.

What I mean by this is it once was you could go to flea market and buy goods to sale on eBay, but now it is the opposite.

You should now be buying collectibles and such on eBay and selling them at the flea market or even book marketplace.

There are many of those items on eBay selling for pennies on the dollar for what the true value is. The problem at Ebay is many of these listings seem to be not being seen and sellers are looking at sold values or just closing out these items.

We will be buying items off of eBay this winter to sell at the flea market and in turn hoping to pimp Ebay instead of Ebay pimping us

sell-more · ‎11-03-2019

Aren't we only 3 days into Nov? BUT I HEAR YA... Over the years I remember SEPT to DEC being crazy. I was shipping 5 items a day almost every day years ago.. then I noticed Sept was slow last year.. This year Sept & Oct was slow... FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE has put a new spin on taking ebay sales down.

shopandsave55 · ‎11-04-2019

You are luck i have not sold one item in nearly 6 weeks. Last year i sold 92 products in October 2018

DO NOT PAY FOR SPONSORED LISTINGS ITS A RIP OFF

shopandsave55 · ‎11-04-2019

Brilliant essay, agreed with you all the way... Ebay is dying very fast and if sellers are not selling one month before christmas something is seriously wrong

mam98031 · ‎11-04-2019

@shopandsave55 wrote:
Brilliant essay, agreed with you all the way... Ebay is dying very fast and if sellers are not selling one month before christmas something is seriously wrong

@shopandsave55

While true for some sellers and of course that is a big problem. But it is NOT true for all sellers. The sellers on the threads are just a fraction of the 25 million sellers worldwide.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

punkiesplayhousellc · ‎11-04-2019

I’ve left altogether and have been selling on other platforms for 2 weeks. You guys will all do yourselves a favor to jump ship as painful as it may be or at least make this the last place you list as far as time consumption.

kensgiftshop · ‎11-04-2019

I've had 1 sale this month, if I get one more, I'll double what I had last month.

I don't know what they've screwed up, but I wish they would fix it.

I had 4 or 5 sales the first week in Sept., since then 2.

Some want to blame GTC.

I've used it since 2012 and did fine, but the last few months have been dead.

Have a great day.

sell-more · ‎11-06-2019

Here is the reason I blame GTC - when my 30 day listings showed an EXPIRE DATE I would get the sale on day 29. Now there is NO INCENTIVE to buy if they think its going to be on there forever. Unfortunately around day 28/29 I kill the listings not to pay the renew fee, simple logic which the brainiacs at EB don't get.

corvettestainless · ‎11-06-2019

Well, they are selling a "now slower moving" line of products. People do a lot less printing nowadays, everything is digital (phone, notepad etc. so less need for printing).

mam98031 · ‎11-06-2019

@sell-more wrote:
Here is the reason I blame GTC - when my 30 day listings showed an EXPIRE DATE I would get the sale on day 29. Now there is NO INCENTIVE to buy if they think its going to be on there forever. Unfortunately around day 28/29 I kill the listings not to pay the renew fee, simple logic which the brainiacs at EB don't get.

@sell-more

Here is why it is likely not GTC. Many sellers used GTC listings long before the mandate happened in March. Many of those same sellers that primarily or solely used GTC listings are also having slower sales than are normal or usual for them.

The problems with the Search engine along with the multitude of problems outlined on the Tech Board are likely to be having the largest impact on sellers across Ebay. Just my opinion.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

zamo-zuan · ‎11-06-2019

@sell-more wrote:
Here is the reason I blame GTC - when my 30 day listings showed an EXPIRE DATE I would get the sale on day 29. Now there is NO INCENTIVE to buy if they think its going to be on there forever. Unfortunately around day 28/29 I kill the listings not to pay the renew fee, simple logic which the brainiacs at EB don't get.

I would just like to mention that in my testing, I found that it wasn't really just an "expire date" that is the issue. You can still sort by ending soon, and this is less used on many types of "new" products anyway.

But I can 100% confirm that listings WERE receiving an "Ending Soon" boost in search results when not using GTC. The first week, and final week, pushed the items up in search ranking (Even though if you checked the Growth > analyze tool, they didn't even have an "official" ranking often times).

In the end, it's still the same result. I just want to clarify that what you were seeing was likely the "Ending Soon" boost.

GTC and non-GTC ran on completely different algorithms. That's the reason for the drops that people are seeing when switching.

@mam98031 wrote:
@sell-more

Here is why it is likely not GTC. Many sellers used GTC listings long before the mandate happened in March. Many of those same sellers that primarily or solely used GTC listings are also having slower sales than are normal or usual for them.

The problems with the Search engine along with the multitude of problems outlined on the Tech Board are likely to be having the largest impact on sellers across Ebay. Just my opinion.

It's true, that if you used GTC before the GTC mandate, you likely didn't see any major changes. Some slight differences in patterns, but nothing too huge.

But I can definitely confirm that those who were not using GTC before the changes, certainly can see a difference in their results once GTC begins, even in the first week of a new listing.

Around the time before the GTC mandate happened, some eBay representatives were on here saying that there was no "boost" for non-GTC items. I tried to discuss this further with them, as testing showed this not to be accurate, as well as you could see evidence of this in search: a line of "Ending Soon" listings right on top of search results that were not there earlier (and they also, as mentioned, didn't even have a ranking on the Growth > Analyze tool).

But they didn't reply.

I would say I'm not sure if they are aware of this, but based on discussions I've had with Sr Managers, they even gave advice to use non-GTC when having sales issues, so it seems at least Sr Management was aware. But I'm not sure about general CSR's.

As our own stores results, being mostly GTC before and after, the same trends mostly continued since the GTC mandate. Not an improvement, but the current trend continued.

But I could definitely see how this is jarring if people went from non-GTC to GTC. The algorithms are a definite headache to deal with.

flo_mingo · ‎11-06-2019

@flyingmvp wrote:
Give it couple of hours and you'll have few members of "our" community who will explain to you how your listings needs to be fixed/your prices are not competitive enough/you're doing wrong this, and bad that and it's all you and your 15 years of selling experience that means nothing.
Mid march was the beginning of the GTC for all...

LOL yes I love the advice that comes in to us with 10 years +. Its our inventory, our pricing, yada yada.. . Never crediting our experience. We are the canaries in the coal mine and something is very wrong. Those giving advice might want to take heed of our concerns, My sales suck. I am a small seller who shipped a few items daily. now lucky to ship one item weekly.

flo_mingo · ‎11-06-2019

@mam98031 wrote:
It is hard to judge November for me yet but as for October it was OK. Not as much as I had hoped but I did OK.

All these reports of slow sales is very scary. I've been on the threads a long time and I don't ever remember this many issues with sales which is likely exasperated by the growing number of active glitches on the site.

I hope for all of us, Ebay gets the glitches under control extremely soon and we can all get on with a GOOD Holiday season as this is beyond frustrating on so many levels.

Glitches galore, I would be happy to print a shipping label that fit the page. I know it is too much to ask

mam98031 · ‎11-06-2019

@zamo-zuan wrote:
@sell-more wrote:
Here is the reason I blame GTC - when my 30 day listings showed an EXPIRE DATE I would get the sale on day 29. Now there is NO INCENTIVE to buy if they think its going to be on there forever. Unfortunately around day 28/29 I kill the listings not to pay the renew fee, simple logic which the brainiacs at EB don't get.

I would just like to mention that in my testing, I found that it wasn't really just an "expire date" that is the issue. You can still sort by ending soon, and this is less used on many types of "new" products anyway.

But I can 100% confirm that listings WERE receiving an "Ending Soon" boost in search results when not using GTC. The first week, and final week, pushed the items up in search ranking (Even though if you checked the Growth > analyze tool, they didn't even have an "official" ranking often times).

In the end, it's still the same result. I just want to clarify that what you were seeing was likely the "Ending Soon" boost.

GTC and non-GTC ran on completely different algorithms. That's the reason for the drops that people are seeing when switching.

@mam98031 wrote:
@sell-more

Here is why it is likely not GTC. Many sellers used GTC listings long before the mandate happened in March. Many of those same sellers that primarily or solely used GTC listings are also having slower sales than are normal or usual for them.

The problems with the Search engine along with the multitude of problems outlined on the Tech Board are likely to be having the largest impact on sellers across Ebay. Just my opinion.
It's true, that if you used GTC before the GTC mandate, you likely didn't see any major changes. Some slight differences in patterns, but nothing too huge.

But I can definitely confirm that those who were not using GTC before the changes, certainly can see a difference in their results once GTC begins, even in the first week of a new listing.

Around the time before the GTC mandate happened, some eBay representatives were on here saying that there was no "boost" for non-GTC items. I tried to discuss this further with them, as testing showed this not to be accurate, as well as you could see evidence of this in search: a line of "Ending Soon" listings right on top of search results that were not there earlier (and they also, as mentioned, didn't even have a ranking on the Growth > Analyze tool).

But they didn't reply.

I would say I'm not sure if they are aware of this, but based on discussions I've had with Sr Managers, they even gave advice to use non-GTC when having sales issues, so it seems at least Sr Management was aware. But I'm not sure about general CSR's.

As our own stores results, being mostly GTC before and after, the same trends mostly continued since the GTC mandate. Not an improvement, but the current trend continued.

But I could definitely see how this is jarring if people went from non-GTC to GTC. The algorithms are a definite headache to deal with.