eBay Owes Sellers an Explanation - No Sales for Years 2019

[clothes_whisperer]

I have been selling on eBay for years. 

Not a heavy seller, but I was able to get by for a while, thankfully.

Then all of a sudden a few years back things took a turn for the worse, a steep ongoing decline in sales.

So much chatter and no explanations! All these theories, milk us for more money to promote listings that still don't sell...and it's not our SEO, our items...it's greed!

eBay WE WANT ANSWERS! 

[upgradedendmills]

I will do everything possible to get at least 50 of those 100 new sales for myself and then try to figure out why I didn't get them all.

[mam98031]

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@abfabvintage wrote:

@mam98031 

Ummm, I think Patd thought they were replying to the OP, but inadvertently replied to Lucky...and don't think they were making a decision for the OP, just a recommendation. JMO.

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Thank you, maybe so.  I don't know the poster, so it appeared to me they were responding to Lucky.

Still while 99 cent auctions may not work for them, doesn't mean they don't work for someone else.  I know for me they certainly don't work and wouldn't be anything that I would even consider doing, but for others it may not be the same.  We all have to do what works best for our own little businesses.  There is no one right answer.

[zamo-zuan]

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@richard1rst wrote:

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@zamo-zuan wrote:

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The top sellers are not ones that "dismiss" their own inventory, they are the most successful sellers on the entire site. So how is it explained that even they are even seeing drops in categories where the market is up...?

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An overly simple explanation to be sure but consider this:

If there are 100 item sold and 10 sellers then each seller will theoretically get 10 sales.

If the market increases to 200 items sold but now there are 30 sellers then each of the original sellers will see a drop in sales to 6 items each even as the market is up.

Basic law of supply and demand.

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That's only true if sales are split evenly. Is that how eBay is splitting up sales?

That theory is only true if there's not any quality control.

Don't metrics and quality control fit in there somewhere on a marketplace? Especially when they claim to punish sellers for abusing zip code violations, duplicates, etc. Quality control is important to 1) Protect buyers, and 2) To enforce fair competition for sellers where sellers who take care of their customers get rewarded and sellers who abuse their sellers get punished.

The only way for the numbers to add up as you say, is if they stopped enforcing their quality control (which it's clear they did for other reasons anyway) and started trying to split things evenly. 

Coincidentally the drop started when eBay started implementing their AI and changing their search, pushing promoted listings, changing return policies, and no longer punishing sellers the same way for low metrics and instead adding a 5% FVF penalty.

My point is, people on here will quickly blame sellers inventory, as if this would not be the first thing sellers assess. You might be able to claim a new seller doesn't know their inventory, but if the top sellers are seeing drops alongside smaller sellers, you can't blame the sellers inventory. The issues people are facing for the last year and a half moved far beyond sellers inventory and supply and demand. Basic economics don't apply when the supply and demand is being measured by an AI. 

If anyone would like to discuss further as to how they don't apply, or anything I say, please feel free to PM me and I'd be glad to discuss further (rather than derail the topic).

[mam98031]

While I will agree that some posters will quickly blame the seller's inventory, there are others that quickly blame Ebay.  Sometimes it is one or the other.  Sometimes it is a combination of both and sometimes it is forces outside of Ebay.  

While some want it to seem like it is a simple issue, is simply is not.  It is a complex issue that the answer can be different for different people.

[richard1rst]

You are WAY over thinking it.

I was simply offering a bare bones example of what happens when the market increases but the number of sellers increases faster.

Of course sales are not going to be evenly split. I did say "theoretically".

But whatever split of sales an individual seller may get is going to be negatively affected by an influx of new sellers.

I have seen many times a poster coming on these boards and asking “what’s a hot item to sell” or some variation of that question. Anyone who sells a hot item AND answers that question is only shooting them selves in the sales. A bunch of new sellers means a dilution of each seller’s market share. Even if the total number of items sold increases.

And exactly what “quality controls” are you talking about? Only the REALLY garbage sellers ever get punished. A mediocre, but less than you, seller will skate by “quality control” unmolested. In your own post you go on to say that eBay is “no longer punishing sellers”.

Your idea that somehow eBay controls the market is ludicrous. There are 7 1/2 BILLION people in the world. Even discounting those that do not have internet access that is still BILLIONS of people shopping online. Some here, some not. eBay simply can not herd that many Cats.

[luckythewinner]

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@zamo-zuan wrote:

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@luckythewinner wrote:

But generally speaking, I think sellers are a little too quick to dismiss the appeal of their own inventory as part of the issue.

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Do they have an answer for why the top seller market share dropped from 40% to 25% and has sustained that level across varied categories? 

We can keep working with theories and presumptions on each extreme that "everyone" or "nobody" is doing fine... 

Or we can look at actually verifiable data that show across the board drops that are not arguable. 

The top sellers are not ones that "dismiss" their own inventory, they are the most successful sellers on the entire site. So how is it explained that even they are even seeing drops in categories where the market is up...?

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See my green highlights above.

Nothing in that sentence that I wrote suggests that I was proposing "theories and presumptions on each extreme that "everyone" or "nobody" is doing fine".

I was simply suggesting that when a seller complains about a drop in sales without even suggesting the possibility that their business model is no longer viable, IMHO they may be missing part of the problem.

As for " top seller market share dropped from 40% to 25%", I honestly have no idea what this means.

Are you saying that the share of eBay sales by Top Rated Sellers used to be 40% and is now 25%? If so, I'd need to know what percentage of all sellers were Top Rated when it was 40% and what percentage of all sellers are Top Rated now that it is 25%. For instance if those percentages are also 40% and 25%, then I would say it means very little. And if those percentages are 10% and 90%, I'd say it was a pretty big deal. Can you point me to an eBay press release or reliable third-party analysis that presents these statistics in a more comprehensive way? Context is everything.

[mam98031]

@richard1rst 

Your more recent posts on threads are presenting in a much smaller font that you use to use.  Did you change your settings.  I bring it up because it is hard on my tired old eyes.  Just sayin.  

[zamo-zuan]

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@mam98031 wrote:

While I will agree that some posters will quickly blame the seller's inventory, there are others that quickly blame Ebay.  Sometimes it is one or the other.  Sometimes it is a combination of both and sometimes it is forces outside of Ebay.  

While some want it to seem like it is a simple issue, is simply is not.  It is a complex issue that the answer can be different for different people.

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This is true. There are a very many factors.

I just want to make sure there is awareness there's legit issues that are not in sellers hands. Some cases, yes. But there's a number of legitimate problems, specifically ones introduced from 2018 onward with all the site redesigns and policy updates.

Our situation is a frustrating situation to be in, honestly. We ourselves have a large data set to work with, we work with a lot of other large sellers, manufacturers, etc. In our position, we have seen or experienced far beyond what the average eBay seller ever will, and have enough information to be positive that these issues legitimately exist. 

But getting people to believe any of these things? A never ending uphill battle, lol. There's no way for us to share the entire thought process between the discovery of these issues, trying to narrow down any solution, experiencing correlations with different sellers, working with eBay to try to find solutions, seeing data/reports from eBay that also give signs of the same exact issues, being told they'll get back to you with an answer and never getting responses back... 

Of course common trains of thought will say things like inventory, and supply and demand principles, are possibilities. That's logical. But we seen enough to move beyond this years ago, and those principles don't apply on eBay in 2019 due to design changes. (As mentioned, anyone could PM me and I could explained further).

I just want others to know that "blaming eBay" is nothing something we are doing on a whim or taken lightly. Rather it's something we're forced to do as the only way eBay will *possibly* fix something is if there's enough noise/attention on it making it in their best interests. My goal isn't to "hurt eBay", rather I just want eBay to succeed, for eBay to be a safer place for buyers + sellers, and for eBay to recover from the decline that the marketplace itself is seeing.

[zamo-zuan]

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@richard1rst wrote:

You are WAY over thinking it.

I was simply offering a bare bones example of what happens when the market increases but the number of sellers increases faster.

Of course sales are not going to be evenly split. I did say "theoretically".

But whatever split of sales an individual seller may get is going to be negatively affected by an influx of new sellers.

I have seen many times a poster coming on these boards and asking “what’s a hot item to sell” or some variation of that question. Anyone who sells a hot item AND answers that question is only shooting them selves in the sales. A bunch of new sellers means a dilution of each seller’s market share. Even if the total number of items sold increases.

And exactly what “quality controls” are you talking about? Only the REALLY garbage sellers ever get punished. A mediocre, but less than you, seller will skate by “quality control” unmolested. In your own post you go on to say that eBay is “no longer punishing sellers”.

Your idea that somehow eBay controls the market is ludicrous. There are 7 1/2 BILLION people in the world. Even discounting those that do not have internet access that is still BILLIONS of people shopping online. Some here, some not. eBay simply can not herd that many Cats.

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Please PM me and I would be glad to continue this conversation 🙂 

[richard1rst]

Well, at least I know someone is paying attention to what I have to say. LOL (By the way, thanks for the many "helpfuls")

Actually, I tend to write longer posts on Word then copy and paste to here. I went and looked and apparently the font size on my "blank" page had changed, probably because of something I did inadvertently, and I didn't notice it.

Thanks for pointing it out.

[inhawaii]

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@upgradedendmills wrote:

I will do everything possible to get at least 50 of those 100 new sales for myself and then try to figure out why I didn't get them all.

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You and I have got to be related.  😃

[zamo-zuan]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

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@zamo-zuan wrote:

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@luckythewinner wrote:

But generally speaking, I think sellers are a little too quick to dismiss the appeal of their own inventory as part of the issue.

---

Do they have an answer for why the top seller market share dropped from 40% to 25% and has sustained that level across varied categories? 

We can keep working with theories and presumptions on each extreme that "everyone" or "nobody" is doing fine... 

Or we can look at actually verifiable data that show across the board drops that are not arguable. 

The top sellers are not ones that "dismiss" their own inventory, they are the most successful sellers on the entire site. So how is it explained that even they are even seeing drops in categories where the market is up...?

---

See my green highlights above.

Nothing in that sentence that I wrote suggests that I was proposing "theories and presumptions on each extreme that "everyone" or "nobody" is doing fine".

I was simply suggesting that when a seller complains about a drop in sales without even suggesting the possibility that their business model is no longer viable, IMHO they may be missing part of the problem.

As for " top seller market share dropped from 40% to 25%", I honestly have no idea what this means.

Are you saying that the share of eBay sales by Top Rated Sellers used to be 40% and is now 25%? If so, I'd need to know what percentage of all sellers were Top Rated when it was 40% and what percentage of all sellers are Top Rated now that it is 25%. For instance if those percentages are also 40% and 25%, then I would say it means very little. And if those percentages are 10% and 90%, I'd say it was a pretty big deal. Can you point me to an eBay press release or reliable third-party analysis that presents these statistics in a more comprehensive way? Context is everything.

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I've posted records of this for awhile, but one way you could check this is if you have the Terapeak plan that lets you check more than 1 year back. The top 10 seller market share are the numbers I mention. 

Not only did the market share drop, but the majority of top sellers in those statistics have also dropped. 

We sell in Motors and see this happening here, but the trend could also be noticed in various categories across eBay. Top market share used to be varied but usually between 30-45%. Nowadays it's quite consistent at ~25%. Definitely not natural market activity.

Please PM me and I could share more information (I don't want to take up too much space of this topic).

[mam98031]

Any reasonable person trying to run a business knows that there are more than one way to do most anything.  If a seller is so myopic that they can't see past a specific set of perimeters they had set up for themselves, they have far more problems that possibly understanding why they are having any particular issue.

[gamersbaystore]

Those promoted listings haven't really helped to boost sales for me. The problem is, the amount of traffic they bring is dependent on how much traffic is available on platform, which right now is practically none.

The answer is more advertising, which ebay is currently doing in small spurts. But its not enough to really drive sales.

[mam98031]

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@gamersbaystore wrote:

Those promoted listings haven't really helped to boost sales for me. The problem is, the amount of traffic they bring is dependent on how much traffic is available on platform, which right now is practically none.

The answer is more advertising, which ebay is currently doing in small spurts. But its not enough to really drive sales.

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Because they significantly slashed their marketing budget.