eBay Dead Slow Sales 2019

[baydistributionllc]

If you go look at the archives you will find thread after thread of people complaining their sales have dropped off. I will have to admit that I have spent far too much time reading them and have even posted one or two. 

For me it was April 2017 when it just fell off. Wasn't all that that long ago I had my first day in 5 years without a sale.

They changed some things, that's for sure. Griping about it won't help us so I thought I would share some ways that I have begun to find an increase in sales.

1. Promoted listings is not a choice. If your complaining your sales fell off and you are not using promoted listings you need to go do a blanket 1% on everything and watch it increase immediately. They found a creative way to increase the fees in a way that looks like its optional. Its not optional.

2. Stagnant Inventory. I have read that sellers have gotten eBay reps to 'reset' their listings. While I believe they may have been told this I don't believe that whatever the rep did had any meaningful effect. I have read that doing a bulk edit and not changing anything gets it going. I don't see that being very effective either. It used to be that if you posted an item you could leave it posted forever and it would eventually sell. I think the new eBay is taking a lot more data points into account like views, watchers, identical solds, and who knows what else. If it doesn't like your listing, it buries it and shows it nobody. I have not been keeping items nearly as long and I have been a lot more aggressive in revising and lowering prices. I revise at least as many items as I post everyday and double most days. Sometimes its a $1 thats the difference in sold and not sold.

3. Offers to buyers. I have sold several items with this new feature. If its not an option on your dashboard you can manually type the link to get to it. Its available to everyone.

4. Offer international shipping outside of GSP. I have had lots of sales this way and printing the label for a first class international (up to 4lbs by the way) is as easy as printing a US one. The only difference is you have to sign it. I have had a couple people do something like pay $150 in shipping to get a $75 item, and that kills me on the fees but that rarely happens and I have yet to loose money on any deal because of it.

5. Returns and cases. I seem to notice a drastic dip in sales directly after I get two returns and/or cases. Just one doesn't seem to have an effect but it seems like if I get two inside of a week, sales suck for several days after. Anyone else notice this? This has led me to a point to where I will not sell anything with a defect. People are looking at the gallery photo and the price and NOTHING ELSE. I will sell new, and fully functional used, and that's it. Sometimes really expensive items still have significant value even if they are only partially working, I will not longer sell that. If I don't feel like the ENTIRE listing can meet the expectation created by just the first photo I don't list it on ebay at all. I guess what I am saying is be more selective with your sourcing.

6. Competition. There are a lot more people selling on ebay. I sure wish I knew how many sellers were on ebay three years ago vs. today. I really have been trying to find items that nobody else is offering or have few comps. I have found myself passing on things not because the margin wasn't there but because there are 3,423 other ones already posted. In the past I would have bought anything that had a sold comp with a good margin, not anymore.

So that was my goal of this post, just to share some ways I am finding a little traction. Hope it helps.

On a side note....

For going on three or four months I noticed a big decrease in return abuse and entitled cheats. I had a period of time with 0 open returns and quite a run with only 1.  This weeks I had 2 big fat cheaters. They were all cheap items that had returns anyway, and I got the items back, so not a huge deal. They only stole shipping fees. 

One guy asked a silly question about a set of waders I had posted. I referred him to the portion of the listing that answered the question so he couldn't use the semantics of my answer to start a return later. He didn't like that answer so he bought the item with the intent of returning it. Brand New Item. Has UPC. Has same information as all other sellers with same item and same UPC.  eBay was kind of enough to remove the defect, but having to call waste my time, kinda aggravating. 

I had a somewhat rare bible. It was in pretty rough shape. I wouldn't source or list the same item again. I took good photos of all the damage and described all the damage in detail. If I remember right this bible in good used condition goes for around $40+. This one sold for $20. 30 Day returns, no good reason needed to return it. Shipping was just over $3. Then of course they choose a reason that causes me a defect and say " I love this bibles I would never allow any one do this type of harm to any book let a lone a bible". What a looney toon.

I love how these people can come to ebay and treat it like facebook and at the end of the day it doesn't cost them a dime. They are not shopping for items, they are shopping for a problem to create. eBay does offer us one thing most other platforms don't, the blocked list.

Person 1 had 0 feedback. I think they created a new account to distance what they were about to do from their real account. Person 2 had 1 feedback. Not well established members of the ebay community by any stretch. Returns for users with less than 5 feedback should require a look by an actual person at ebay before they are allowed to apply a defect. Even if it looks like it went through to the user, actual look prior to defect application seems like common sense.

So I know there are some people out there that had a big drop in sales, is there anyone out there that has kept pumping up items and found some success with any new techniques? Get any crazy returns?

Anyone out there sell 20 items instead of 10 and wanna tells us all who say the sales fell off we are crazy because you had a 100% increase? 🙂

[tahoe22]

I’m livid and **bleep** **bleep** at eBay- They raised my final value fees to 14%.

im going to hurt them as much as possible, use Amazon more and refuse to buy.  I also won’t accept offers.  I don’t care if it hurts me as long as it hurts eBay.

i plan to cause as much trouble as possible for them.

i **bleep** hate ebay

[jitterbug2003]

I agree.

[nwfloridapicker82]

This is exactly what I've been dealing with most of this year. Sales history is a joke now. Can't rely on it at all. It's pitiful.

[snowduck49]

I’m dropping prices, and losing money on the shipping, I had a customer, that had an e payment , I sent the item she canceled her echeck, my fault in away, but eBay did nothing.You have to watch you offers because they magically have a different price that was originally there.Its sad

[writertypes]

BINGO! -- at least in respect to citing Elliott as the change factor. Singer's taken such actions two ways over the years -- run down the stock price for takeover, or run it up to resell. They're running it up.

At ground level we're experiencing the result of the gutting. It's basic house-flipping on a multi-billion dollar scale. At least under Meg, for right or wrong, she ran it with vested interest aligned with the sellers -- that is, the revenue stream undergirding the company. We are no longer working under the premises of ~2008-18. And the pure vision of the first dozen years is utterly gone, now utterly corrupted.

[roge8651.24b0rcvot]

Thank you. I wish ebay would return to the previous selling platform before "Good until Sold."  I consistently sold in 2017, 2018.  In March of this year, I had my best month ever.  Then, nothing.  I sell art that is worth some money so I can't drop my prices radically. Now, I can't even  "retire" some items temporarily to get fresh art on my site.  I am making 1/10th of what I was making previously.

[laurabeardsley]

GTC is only a part of the problem here. The manipulated sales from low visibility and for more profits for Ebay is the real problem!

[stockjedi]

This is the slowest I've seen eBay since 1998. Been a seller on here since 2007 (other account) and we average 30k a month, this month has been $100-200 a day at best. Sick and tired of eBay they SUCK, not that they don't care about sellers, they only care about Chinese sellers and large companies who dump 1 million+ automated listings, imagine how much they make off those poor **bleep**s in fees. The small to mid size sellers do not matter to them we're just nuisance at best. Been debating closing down our eBay store now for months since the sales SUCK thanks to the eBay executives, this place is nothing but a shadow of its past, no future path. Our own website is booming, every other sales channel is booming but stupid eBay? Lost $15k this month alone in sales. Done with this place, we will be shrinking our listings from 10k items down to 5-10 items just to keep our account open.

eBay you SUCK!!!

[s66will]

What is most unfortunate is the number if people who were trying to realize the "American Dream" by selling on ebay.  I started selling on ebay in 2007 and year over year it was getting a little better to the point that my son and my husband decided to go at this full time with me in December of 2018.  We started off really well, and then March was a little slow.  But then as everyone has indicated things started to become inconsistent.  Good month, slow month, can't explain month.  We have over 3,000 items listed for a 1,500 increase since beginning of year on three different sites and can't break 50 items sold per site or less than 150 overall.  The sad thing is we may have to close the business, look at downsizing our home and regrouping.  The easy answer is to go back to work and we may have to do that. It is unfortunate that what was a great hobby that turned into a love for me (and my family) and then a family business has been relegated to a hit or miss.  Ebay is like playing the slots, you buy items, list them and hope it sells.  Can't pay the bills like that.

[bitbeat]

The wheels have fallen off the wagon and rolled over the cliff.

My sales are MISERABLE.  Been selling since 2005.  Never worse.

[laurabeardsley]

I totally agree. Everyone wants to blame the shift in buying habits but I disagree for the most part. I believe Ebays manipulations of listings resulting in much lower visibility for most sellers is to blame. And yes, each month gets worse and just maybe the management company that recently stepped in is helping it to collapse so it can buy it out? Who knows at this point but why would a company self sabotage like this?

[191paula]

I just started reading these forums on decreasing sales. (mine are HALF of what they were!)

I thought for me it was because I stopped offering "free" shipping in October of last year. But maybe that is at least not entirely the case. 

I sell clothing so stopped the free shipping mainly because I get more returns. I am seriously thinking of going back to it but why do all that work if it won't help much? 

I am really sweating this! I am a senior and my eBay earnings are supposed to supplement my retirement income!

[jersuniquebooks]

April 1, 2017 my sales dropped 50-60% and have never recovered. At that time I had two basic (250 listings each) stores and one 50 listing format. After one year I took one store away from eBay, just cancelled it. Felt great doing it! These items have been listed elsewhere and doing better than when on eBay not to mention a lower cost of doing business. The remaining 300 listings are doing very poor, only 5 sales this month. I have read all threads since 4/1/2017, all read about the same. When I called eBay (last year only. I quit calling this year), every time I received the same "whomebay?" response - as though it was new news to them.  I am now mining my last 300 listings to other platforms vs keeping them on eBay and expecting different results. The more of us who do this will make the other platforms better with choice. 

[internet-coins]

I sell strictly coins on Ebay. And yes, sales have been down, but this is only a hobby for me, so it does not affect me like some that are trying to make a living from the sales of their items. One thing I must note is, that I've slowed my purchases, only due to the internet sales tax that has been implemented in NY State. Many of the items I used to sell were low ball. I can't make a profit with the new sales tax. From experience, If I raise the selling price, the item will not sell for the most part. Most buyers are looking for a deal. I have no idea about all the visibility complaints in this thread. But I do know, that when I do a search for any one of my items I'm selling, I can find it in the listings. Sometimes at the top, and sometimes way down the list of sometimes 1000's of listings. You can't always be near the top, unless you pay Ebay for it, and still, you aren't guaranteed to be on the first page of listings for that particular item you're trying to sell. It's hit or miss. I just started a starter store one year ago. I really didn't want to pay out any more money to Ebay,  but when they dropped the free listings from a non-store operator to 50 items per month , I thought I would try it out at $4.95 per month. I thought I could make up that amount from listing nearly 100 items per month. So far, I think it's worked out ok. It's a relatively small amount to recapture what I used to get for free. Yes, it's more, but, so far, I'm fairly happy with it. And again, this is just a hobby for me, I'm not trying to make a living from selling a few coins. Just thought I'd give my two cents. 🙂

[turquoisetulips]

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@191paula wrote:

I just started reading these forums on decreasing sales. (mine are HALF of what they were!)

I thought for me it was because I stopped offering "free" shipping in October of last year. But maybe that is at least not entirely the case. 

I sell clothing so stopped the free shipping mainly because I get more returns. I am seriously thinking of going back to it but why do all that work if it won't help much? 

I am really sweating this! I am a senior and my eBay earnings are supposed to supplement my retirement income!

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I'm in the same sinking boat  . It's just not like it used to be at all  .  My husband and I had a discussion today  about it  . I think after the  next holiday season is over   this will be my  last year  as a  seller . 😞   Tulips