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? 🙂

[atoz4u]

Same here. Glad to hear it isn't just me. I thought I had done something to be banned... again. You never know now days. I found a listing deleted that I did not delete. It had a yellow note on it to go to messages on why it was deleted. But there was no message. Never did find out what was wrong.

[atoz4u]

I always used the GTC option as I worked and couldn't monkey with listings all the time. But when that option became mandatory my sales fell off of a cliff! It affected me big time. What is going on? It is scary stuff.

[atoz4u]

I spent the weekend listing sellers and their newest listings and their newest sold. I found that small sellers are selling less and less and listing way more more often. Big sellers are selling way way more with pages and pages and pages of relisted items every day. How can a small seller list that amount of listing each day? We can not compete with the pages and pages of listings added each day by those big sellers. Just examine what is going on. There are certain BIG sellers selling 1000's of items PER DAY. They are listing 1000's of items per day. I am seeing the same exact same items being relisted... diff photo... diff title... diff price...SAME EXACT ITEM. One big seller had 1 item listed for $40 and free shipping, $30 + $10 shipping, small size 1 certain color, different size, same color, different size, same color... ect with the sizes and colors and different prices... ALL THE SAME ITEM. Must of been a whole page of the one item scattered over their pages and pages of listings for that day. Clever on their part... and getting all the sales for that type color and size of that item. No other company choices except a few other big sellers doing the same... do some research and find out it is the one main co. with diff seller accounts. SAME PHOTOGRAPHER.

[atoz4u]

Yes I agree. I used GTC all the time. But my sales also tanked. It is something else we do not know about.

[atoz4u]

I agree it fell off a cliff. And I can't find anyway they say to fix it ...that works! That is what really baffles us oldtime sellers that have never had it this bad... even when starting out with old used items that sold right away, and no best offer options were available. People just bought it... No worries about something not selling... ever. NEVER EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT NOT MEETING SALES GROSS INCOME TO THE EBAY AND PAYPAL FEES PAYMENT... THAT WAS NEVER EVEN A THOUGHT...EVER... till now.

[thefreshcloset]

I miss the old Ebay. 95% of what I listed sold. Now....nothing 😞 Was it when Meg Whitman stepped down? They stopped advertising, Amazon grew and grew, the postal rates went crazy, and their fees went up, up, up. As a buyer, it's still good to get cheap **bleep** from China, but I can still run down to the dollar store to get it the same thing immediately. I predict they will be out of business within a year. 

[thefreshcloset]

They need a new CEO! This guy ran Ebay into the ground!

[191paula]

A year ago I started charging for shipping mainly because of returns where I eat the original shipping. I lost my TRS Plus but that was ok.

That is when my sales tanked so a week ago I went back to 'free shipping' and now I will see! 

I don't expect to do as well as I used to but am hoping for better sales.

[frock_my_world]

I sell primarily women's clothing, both NWT and pre-owned.  I too started out slow and watched my sales grow as I grew in knowledge and experience.  Until Cassini fully rolled out. 

I would like to go back to the days when I put RED ST JOHN KNIT JACKET into the search field and every single red St John Knit jacket that was currently for sale was instantly pulled up for me to choose from.  NOT any RED jacket Cassini had determined, in its infinite AI wisdom, that I would be most likely to purchase.  I hate this as a buyer because I used to have so many more options to choose from that WERE exactly what I was looking for JUST based the words I put into search and I REALLY hate it as a seller because I know all of my items are not being seen by prospective buyers because they have somehow been deemed as NOT being the most likely item the buyer will purchase....sigh. 

Sales are down significantly but I'm still making a profit however my patience is growing thin as I'm working harder for less of a profit. 

[dasarock]

I know that for the past few months I've lost about 30-40 sales each month as evidenced by the total sales for last 12 months dropping each month at statistics time.  they are dropping faster than the statistical items, i.e., defects, not arrived on time, late mailings etc.  this is slowly pushing statistics into losing TRS.  fewer sales /the same statistics=higher stats= loss of TRS in time=higher fee percentages in time.

really hope this isn't happening to others, but am believing it is part of eBay's plan to garner more funds

[j221971]

I feel you. Part-time seller with a full time job who thrifts on lunch and weekends to list on work from home days. Not worth my time anymore. Starting in July sales fell of a cliff and I did nothing different. I thought everyone was just wrong about a summer slowdown or the GTC issue because June was strong. I went on vacation and sales have never come back prior to July 1, 2019. 

I currently sit (having just paid a cancellation fee of my store I opened in March due to booming sales and adding new inventory almost every day) with 150 items that I can't seem to give away. I am not looking for people to peruse my listings and tell me what I have done wrong because I have been selling since 2005. I am done with all of this and am going to "sell" my stuff at rock bottom prices just to get something. I am lucky since I own all of the stuff and do not owe anything for my items due to selling so much the first half of the year. I am out and that is that. No more eBay store, no to managed payments, and no to giving away my free time to a platform that seems to not care that I just quit a yearly store and paid their penalty to do it. I would rather spend my time running.

And the final straw is you do a Best Offer and you get offers on fair priced products at 30% to 40%. But as a buyer I would probably do the same thing if I read these boards and found out people were struggling. 

[echo_and_zip]

eBay is 'the canary in the coal mine'... the economy is NOT 'good'... most people did NOT get a Tax Cut... they got a CUT in what they could DEDUCT from their taxable income... most people did NOT get a raise in pay... many work 2-3 part time jobs w/ NO benefits... the current group did NOT improve health ins. costs... they made it WORSE... the CEOs & rich stock holders are making out like thieves... which they are... stealing from little people who work for them & our children & grandchildren, as the National Debt EXPLODES... a Recession is here, despite them denying it, like Global Warming... it's here.

[sandbake83]

Since the Good till cancelled came into effect my sales have dropped 75%. I was doing fantastic till then. I used to revise the item after a few days then realist it.  I also have a hard time finding my listings.

[valuestore]

The population of the earth is always increasing, the number of new consumers entering the market increases every year ..that's not going to change. So how does a company fail in that environment...thoughts to ponder.

[dasarock]

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@valuestore wrote:

The population of the earth is always increasing, the number of new consumers entering the market increases every year ..that's not going to change. So how does a company fail in that environment...thoughts to ponder.

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how, they become ebay protege's, then hope they can sleep at night 😄