Where are the customers? WHY aren't we getting any sales lately?

[debk255]

Been on ebay for 18 yrs.  top rated seller with 100% approval ratings. Over the course of that time, I've grown and added many new product lines & put thousands of dollars in new items online here this year alone. 

This year it seems is the year that ebay has died, for in spite of discounts, and sales, I am now lucky if I get 100 dollars in sales in a week!  (used to be 3-5x that much)  I have 1400+ current active listings on ebay and not a single sale in 2 days now?  WTH is going on here?   I do price searches for similar items.  Our prices are competitive, nearly always lower than others.  I share several product posts daily on facebook, instagram ect. (free advertising)  Still nothing.   Some say its the new algorithms, but how do we counter or fix that if this is the problem?  (you'd THINK ebay would be more on top of this issue)   I'm not going to be able to hang on here if things don't perk up.   😢 Open to suggestions.  

[wilsonharborsales]

I promote at 15%+ and my numbers are down over 70% ... some days 90%.  I don't think it matters how much you promote.  There is an issue.

[meme6253]

I noticed you sell shoes, Do you have the new sketchers slip ins??

[5594shelleys]

This decrease in selling activity began in 2017 tho. 

[5594shelleys]

Hilariously sad but true. 

[ten_o_nine]

It will work well as a hobby to keep busy.

[lonebuck-books]

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@dolcetreasures wrote:

It’s bad, not only are the sales non-existing, the sales I am getting are met with returns rates I’ve never experienced before. 

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Same here.  Very slow sales and returns are ridiculous.  

[lakefor94]

Buyers are not shopping eBay as much these days. LOT of buyers are spending less and many not at all.

EBay has been losing popularity. If they don't figure out how to take care of the buyers, things will get worse.

[oszika]

People have more important things to spend money on than their former hobbies. That's all.

[ed8108]

Some policies & decisions aren't in your best interests 

[cardenas262002]

eBay is going to go belly up at this rate and very soon, they only stay afloat because they rip off us the sellers.  No traffic, no sales, I sell on Amazon in one day what eBay sells in 1 week, and I have 3 times more inventory on eBay.  Like everyone else, I’m jumping ship; the titanic called eBay is already sinking and fast.. I get overcharged so much to sell on eBay and I have to constantly try to guess what the algo wants, list, delist,relist,post better photos, pay them more for advertising, nothing works!! Sales are way declining and fast for more than 2 years now.  I’m out very soon, I’m opening a Shopify plus account to sell my new goods and all the stuff I have that is second hand and niche can stay with eBay and they will get my scraps not the core of my business.  And I’m going to concentrate on Amazon going forward…Good luck

[dbfolks166mt]

     There are a LOT of factors playing into this some under eBay's control some not so much. Some of it depends on what you are selling (needs vs wants), some of it is ecommerce competition, some of it is ecommerce vs B&M stores, some of it is rising costs (shipping, fees, etc.) that result in sellers having to increase prices. Some of it has to do with both buyers and sellers loss of faith in eBay (although buyers are protected about as well as they can be by the MBG), customer support has become useless for the most part. 

     The leadership continues to focus on boosting high end luxury items to increase revenue but that leadership may need a reality check, those shopping for those types of items do NOT make up the majority of the market place and even those that are in that segment probably don't do much of their shopping on eBay or any other ecommerce site for that matter. There is no single answer but the following my explain a few things. 

https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/article/ebay-sales/ 

[grandmasjewelry123]

There are many old time sellers who can relate to what you are saying. I am one of them. This is what I think the problem is besides economy which is a little bit but not all of the problem. I don't like blaming economy because that means there is nothing we can do and I don't buy that sentiment.

Ebay has focussed on how to make more money and forgot its basic stuff which is what launched ebay back in the mid 90's, getting more traffic to the sellers. It has lots of ways to add promotions, add fees for auction, feedback scores and its top ranking, mid ranking, below ranking etc..., stores, and layers of store and item specifics and on and on... it should be focussed totally on getting traffic to ebay.

The sellers have spent money on promotions, improving item specifics, coupons, etc... but the best thing I have found is to do whatever you can to increase traffic. End the listing and resist it. I have spent money on back end seo and the best thing has been stop old listings and relist them. That costs nothing more. Again, its focus on traffic, and the algorithm, (however that works)

Outside of that, I have no idea. Move to China. That seems to be where the Hot Market for Americans is.

[tammiegoldenhair]

The Chinese direct to USA SALES app TEMU is causing pain. There are many items that folks sell here for a small

markup that are now delivered free in about 14 days at Chinese factory direct prices .  It is the number two downloaded app in the US  behind Amazon now .  The attack started in the Super Bowl commercials “ shop like a

billionaire” . They are using our postal  system free of charge . Take a look and if it’s items you also sell you will see why your sales are off . I do not believe eBay did a thing to hurt anyone’s sales . People have less money to spent and they still need the things they need and want 

[glwradioman]

Sales are way down because buyers can not see the items listed when they do a search . Views are down over 99 %  because of this . If a buyer can't see it , they can't buy it . In a nutshell , what happened was sometime around the first week of April , E bay made a major change to their algorithms as it concerns to how searches show items . As a result , now buyers can not see most items in their search .  I have studied this for several hours and it appears it started about April 8 and got worse through the month , and within the last 3 days  most sellers are reporting about a 99 % drop in views and sales . Far less sales for members  means E bay will have less revenue from final sale prices , so perhaps THAT will cause them to finally address the issue and put the search machine back like it was 4 weeks ago when everything was running smooth . 

[craft-stash]

Worst Month Ever!!!!!

1 sale in 14 days!!!!!

I want a refund!!!!!!!!