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? 🙂

[myjunqueyourtreasure]

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@perfumenmore wrote:

I sell colognes and perfumes and a few other things. Average shipping weight for a 7"X4"X4" box is 12-14oz. My shipping rates just went up for USPS First Class Mail from (top rate) $5.66 to (top rate) $9.70 (same as priority mail rate). At those rates I'll be paying buyers to purchase from me. This is ridiculous. I can't survive making a dollar or less profit per product. It's just not worth the work of listing and bookkeeping. To top it off sales are going to drop with the imposition of sales tax now added to customers purchases. Has eBay considered trying to negotiate a better price with the post office than what is currently being offered? Profit margins are real slim to begin with but at this rate I'll have no choice but to stop selling on eBay.

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@perfumenmore 

It's been explained on the other thread that your settings are the reason it's showing a higher (wrong) rate over 12 oz

[perfumenmore]

Yes I saw that.  I posted this before I saw that.  Thank you. 

[monarch285]

I couldn't say it any better. Even with 10% eBay Bucks. Nothing is worth buying when you are not selling. My belief is it all started when Wall street started to tank the beginning of May 2019?

[turquoisetulips]

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@duncanvr wrote:

Editing old unsolds is a must if haven't sold in BIN for over a month I will send it to auction and often find they sell then. But this is collectibles I don't know how well this works for common goods. Also because my items are unique I can set my own prices based on what I know about the solds for my lots. Sold two more offers to watchers just now, everything has a sell price. Sometimes I edit unsold prices by a few cents I feel this must force Casinni to look at the listing. Another trick is swop categories if possible. 

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I never tried the swap category  method . I sell mainly handmade  jewelry and so naturally I always choose that department. However the stuff I make is sometimes very unique  so maybe I should try collectibles ?  Tulips 

[turquoisetulips]

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@duncanvr wrote:

Collectibles have done well for me since 04. Have had some slow times but it always bounces back. This year has been very good with sales. Seems many people want to buy an old letter from the 1800s or earlier. Or an old document from the 1500s. Or Queen Victoria stamps on old envelopes. Whilst I have competion they have all different items to what I do. Try win a penny black stamp 1841 on cover (envelope) in auction find them on eBay UK. They sell there over 100 pounds plus any day of the week. I don't live in UK but its an open online source.

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About 20 years ago someone gave me a postcard holder book  . It had 600  old delivered postcards  with messages written on the back  neatly tucked in on each page  . All were stamped by the post office  all around  the beginning of  the 1900's . I didn't think they were worth much at the time so I gave them away.  STUPID STUPID STUPID . Tulips 

[vintageparkavenue]

In March, Paypal made some changes. I won't go into the whole thing but many small time sellers (who are also buyers) lost ability to easily use paypal funds to buy. It will create seismic waves -and will continue to do so. Also many small time sellers are purposely letting inventory stagnate to "wait and see" if the state tax issues call for retro active collection. Ebay has played lots of games over the years that have had a negative effect for small sellers. I see many posts in which people are trying new ways of managing their sales. Monthly shop as a one time charge and not for individual listings on the RL. Or migrating to Etsy if items are vintage. Both of those platforms have less impact if a seller should earn a negative (and sellers mostly offer returns, unless they state otherwise). The days of Ebay's hard to understand CSR support, endless rules, and buyers qwick to leave negatives are hurting the platform. The big box stores that are allowed to shill on Ebay will still create profit but small timers need to look elsewhere.

[guaranteedreal]

Today is Lune 3 no sales from May 20th in both eBay accounts, on both same day same tame?????

This is tall me something about eBay they cover items if you are not used PROMOTIONS i thing so.

Also added some PROMOTIONAL DEAL on two or three items, not working,i Google my items using my tattles

no resold.

I sell very rare Antiques and Collectibles no to match items on the market like i have,NO RESOLT IS FOUND.

my stores is not exists anyware.

This is can,t be both stors stop working in same tame ??????????

[clu3]

Are you using to your shopify to retain your listing data for re-list on Ebay?  This is a dilemma I haven't found a solution for.  I don't want to re-do them, there's no way to save them.  Best I've had thus far is to "list similar" and then delete the unsold.

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@baantiques wrote:

Great points.  It's refreshing to see someone share what they've done to try to increase sales, as opposed to just complaining about not making any money.  It's good to complain - I've done my share - but I also try to share the things that have helped.  I appreciate you taking the time to put that post together.

I've noticed Ebay likes NEW listings, and in brand new items.  I also suspect that at some point, ebay "forgets" about items you previously listed and let expire, and will "think" these items are brand new when you list them again.  I originally thought maybe it was 90 days, after it drops off your unsold items, but I'm not so sure.  I did have some increase by relisting items that had expired over 90 days ago, but it wasn't as much as listing new items.  The good news for me is my Shopify store has 3x the number of items as my ebay store, so I can still maintain a full number of listings here while allowing items to "reset" by keeping them off Ebay for months.

But overall, my sales are down almost 90% since May 2017.  That was my high point.  The first week of June was when the nightmare scramble of falling sales began. That's when I noticed that I stopped getting a boost from brand new listings.  I was able to keep things semi normal through November or so by having a fair number of 99 cent starting bid auctions, but it was A LOT of work and usually resulted in losing money on half of them, so I quit.

Nowadays I've been putting out technical proposals in my old field - marine geophysical and hydrographic survey - and I'm beginning to pull in some work, so fortunately I can relegate Ebay back to a hobby or just for extra money rather than a living.  But then I've got the problem of not being home for my family, which is the reason I quit in the first place.  Argh.

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[lady_biker60]

Same here, last sale was May 22nd...

[the.quality.goods.store]

I offer reasonable prices that are comparable to others. I generally don't do best offer since that invites lowballers. My sales have been consistent until the April May time-frame when the bottom dropped out. Fighting my way back with promoted listings and sales. Seems like that's the only thing keeping my sales out of the gutter. I need to list more items of the quality I usually sell in my store. But there is definitely something wrong with ebay. I have no idea what it is but it's like being in the twilight zone. Never experienced theses anomalies or anything similar. Of course, customer service knows nothing. They have promised (on my mothers life) many, many times to call me back with any explanations for the weird glitches with my account and I'm still waiting.

[morrisjer]

Ok. I will start here:

For nearly 6 years I have had a best selling item. No more! This **bleep** started in late summer 2018. Then I gave a percentage plus the 10% more to them. I had some good sales. Now...NOTHING but just a few scattered sales here and there. My product is handmade and I cannot give it away. Note: if a sellers sales are great over a long period of time, ebay should leave it alone. I talked to ebay representative last year and they said ebay was trying new things. WELL...I think since ebay doesn't want power sellers, probably they are changing over to some kind of Socialist **bleep**! Socialism has never worked anywhere in any country.  I will not peddle my item on the streets! Thank you.

[equid0x]

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@vintageparkavenue wrote:
In March, Paypal made some changes. I won't go into the whole thing but many small time sellers (who are also buyers) lost ability to easily use paypal funds to buy. It will create seismic waves -and will continue to do so. Also many small time sellers are purposely letting inventory stagnate to "wait and see" if the state tax issues call for retro active collection. Ebay has played lots of games over the years that have had a negative effect for small sellers. I see many posts in which people are trying new ways of managing their sales. Monthly shop as a one time charge and not for individual listings on the RL. Or migrating to Etsy if items are vintage. Both of those platforms have less impact if a seller should earn a negative (and sellers mostly offer returns, unless they state otherwise). The days of Ebay's hard to understand CSR support, endless rules, and buyers qwick to leave negatives are hurting the platform. The big box stores that are allowed to shill on Ebay will still create profit but small timers need to look elsewhere.

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Retroactive laws are not legal. The oldest date they could even try to collect back to would be the date the law went into effect. I'm still not clear on how these states plan to collect against sellers that do not reside in their jurisdiction.

The only legal options would be to file suit in the seller's state of residence, or to try to file some type of criminal charge against the corp and then force extradition(yeah, right). They can file suit out of state, and the seller can easily request dismissal for wrong jurisdiction. This is exactly why I said on earlier threads that congress needs to take action on a federal level to make this happen. 

A federal sales tax would not be legal, constitutionally. The states could agree to a compact, charge the same tax in the compact states, send to federal for redistribution back to states - similar to how drivers licensing currently works in all but (I think) 6 states. They still need a system to track and collect it. The piecemeal approach being taken now is obviously unworkable on a large scale. 

Just like use tax, they're still not going after individuals - they're pursuing the "market facilitators." Its totally unfeasible to try to go after individual entities for this. 

[jon1515]

I 100% agree. Since the Good til Cancelled was applied, my sales have dropped roughly the same as yours.  There is no sense of urgency for a buyer anymore since there is no fear that it may not get relisted or they may lose out somehow.  3 to 5 sales per day down to 1 or 2 if I am lucky. I have had more 0 sold items days this year (since GTC) was enforced then I have had in a full year previous years. BAD BUSINESS EBAY!! It is getting time to source other sites for revenue since eBay seems to be trying to lose theirs.

[oldaudionz]

That's weird,I also haven't sold a thing since May 20, coincidence probably, but it's odd how even enquiries have just stopped dead in their tracks.

[laurabeardsley]

I had 1 good week and now silence again. I do not know how it can work like this even though I list new things constantly. I believe my items only get seen randomly.So disgusted with Ebay. I finally started selling on another site and it is so much more seller friendly. Ebay offers NO seller protection and encourages poor treatment by buyers by making the feedback system so 1 sided.