eBay Is A Certified Ghost Town

[vwbus78]

Just picture an Old West Gold Rush Town from the 1860's. Dilapidated buildings, tumble weeds in the street, skeletons of horses and animals. Not a single live human being around. That is what eBay is these days. Yeah yeah, I know that being in a RECESSION (you hear that Joe?), isn't helping one bit but my sales on Mercari are at least moving along at a decent pace. This is terrible and I know that I am not the only one looking at listings that are just dying on the vine day in and day out.  

[lawnmowerpartsstore2]

You are not alone

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

@vwbus78 

Cute! Wait till those 80k gun toting pistol packing IRS agents get moving, your going to see the wild west in ♠️....

[chapeau-noir]

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@silverstatetreasureboxes wrote:

@vwbus78 

Cute! Wait till those 80k gun toting pistol packing IRS agents get moving, your going to see the wild west in ♠️....

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There'll really be trouble when they all get drunk at the saloon.

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

@chapeau-noir 

Lol, Chap you slay me!!!

[inhawaii]

... a 26 billion dollar ghost town.

[norskmediashop]

yep just mentioned in another thread how ebay is dead this week, things are bad.

[rugerskick]

If it was all about the recession, amazon and etsy would have the same downward trend.  They don't.  And etsy is actually growing.

[femmefan1946]

The sellers who are selling are not posting here. They are too busy shipping.

Have you compared your July /August sales to July/August 2019 and 2018. (The pandemic surge in online buying makes 2020 and 2021 unreliable comps).

Worth mentioning that the first complaints about sales being down were posted in October 1995.

[dryophelia]

Side Note:
A Great-Uncle of mine used to be a Ghost Town Certifier. 
His last one was 1968 . We still have his record books, so modern for their time...  The best we can figure, 1187 places were certified just by him. It was a bureau of 19 agents! Nothing to be sneezed at.

 

[stainlessenginecovers]

About 700 items listed; and 10% sold past 90 days.

Mostly 'used' 'collectable' stuff. 

Many of the 'new' generation don't want to 'collect things'

By the way, I've had the single largest week in 12 years- so there IS money out there. 

Just depends on what you sell. 

Bottom line- it's not the site; it's the items you are selling and/or the price of the items you are selling. 

[sakic92710]

No sales this week.  August is horrible after a decent July.   The rest of 2022?  Awful!  I just removed over 60 stagnating listings.  Might continue to remove?  I'm going to change my business selling model on here.  Turn things around to use eBay for MY benefit; not theirs.  If those changes do not work, moving on to other pastures.  I can NOT make sells on free sites without paying for a store.

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

@dryophelia 

That is interesting indeed, wonder if he deemed Goldfield NV one? That place is amazing.

@stainlessenginecovers 

I think the newer generation is starting to spark interest in Victorian age jewelry and seem to be fascinated by older furniture.  I think that they are realizing that the junk that China produces has no appealing interest and longevity. 

[fmwsells]

It is extremely quiet ... lol

[dbfolks166mt]

No sales this week.  August is horrible after a decent July.   The rest of 2022?  Awful!  I just removed over 60 stagnating listings.  Might continue to remove?  I'm going to change my business selling model on here.  Turn things around to use eBay for MY benefit; not theirs.  If those changes do not work, moving on to other pastures.  I can NOT make sells on free sites without paying for a store.

     While I find eBay to still be a viable site competition in the ecommerce marketplace has gotten intense and I diversified across multiple platforms long ago. While I still post on eBay about 80% of my items sell on other forums where I can offer the items at a lower cost simply because there are lower fees, or no fees, some require no shipping and are P2P pickup only. The risk of dealing with returns is almost 0 since the buyer can look at and inspect the item before they take possession. 

     I have even consigned a number of items to consignment auction houses. The fees on those can range from high to low and are sometimes split between the seller and the buyer.