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! 

[j.s_and_k.s_finds]

How long do you wait before you end your listing and repost it?

[yem_crystals]

I read a financial news article that reports Ebay has cut way back on advertising and Google search dollars and that the result last quarter  was a substantial drop in sales revenue...however overall profits were up due to ‘promoted listings’ which jacks eBay’s commission up to as much as 20%.  I got fed up and started cross listing on another platform....the same listings tahat are not moving on eBay are selling there...so it is not stale inventory.  If sales don’t improve, my plan is to move all of my listings and close my EBay store once my store subscription is up in December. Will gladly leave  eBay to the Chinese Dollar Store Sellers....

[scarlett0214]

And this helps how?

[miyasamaco]

---

@yem_crystals wrote:

I read a financial news article that reports Ebay has cut way back on advertising and Google search dollars and that the result last quarter  was a substantial drop in sales revenue...however overall profits were up due to ‘promoted listings’ which jacks eBay’s commission up to as much as 20%.  I got fed up and started cross listing on another platform....the same listings tahat are not moving on eBay are selling there...so it is not stale inventory.  If sales don’t improve, my plan is to move all of my listings and close my EBay store once my store subscription is up in December. Will gladly leave  eBay to the Chinese Dollar Store Sellers....

---

I have started using the other platforms as well. eBay is indeed the Internet Dollar Store. Other platforms are taking off and doing well because they are actually following eBay's original business plan. I encourage everyone else to leave this sinking ship.

[dogofwar777]

As a buyer, I have noticed there are very few deals here. I will see something I like and will search ebay for other items of the same thing and lots of time they are close in the price so I will go to other places on the internet and find it far cheaper. 

[mam98031]

---

@scarlett0214 wrote:
And this helps how?

---

@scarlett0214 

Beats me because I NEVER said it helps?  Is there something else you wanted to ask me.

[scarlett0214]

---

@mam98031 wrote:

---

@scarlett0214 wrote:
And this helps how?

---

@scarlett0214 

Beats me because I NEVER said it helps?  Is there something else you wanted to ask me.

---

You said:  "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."    How does such an answer help sellers up against higher ebay fees & paypal fees, shipping fees and fees on shipping, promotion fees, loss prevention , (grifter buyers who will say anything to get something for nothing), and foreign competition that is allowed to skirt the rules and the Rule of Law in the US?

[mam98031]

---

@scarlett0214 wrote:

---

@mam98031 wrote:

---

@scarlett0214 wrote:
And this helps how?

---

@scarlett0214 

Beats me because I NEVER said it helps?  Is there something else you wanted to ask me.

---

You said:  "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."    How does such an answer help sellers up against higher ebay fees & paypal fees, shipping fees and fees on shipping, promotion fees, loss prevention , (grifter buyers who will say anything to get something for nothing), and foreign competition that is allowed to skirt the rules and the Rule of Law in the US?

---

When running a business, especially an internet business.  Trends change, buyer's change, lots of things change all the time.  We all have to move forward with the changes.  To stay stuck in the past isn't going to help.  Probably the two biggest changes in the past decade are so is mobile shopping / payments and buyers desires to find what they need, purchase it and move on.  These two factors are extremely important.

The why most buyers shop now as pretty much killed off auctions in many categories on Ebay.  Some are still doing well, but most aren't.  

Yes as anything else in life, prices go up in time.  However Ebay fees haven't increase in quite a while.  Overall they have stayed close to the same for a long time.  As has PPs fees.  Promotional fees are set by the seller, so they have full control over that.  Shipping fees are outrageous and they are going to get worse.  We have another round of increased coming in January.

"...foreign competition that is allowed to skirt the rules and the Rule of Law in the US?"  That I'd need a bit more information before commenting on that.  I could guess at what you mean, but I'd rather not.

Return policies are important.  It doesn't do a seller much good to have a No Return Policy because there is no such thing on Ebay.  All sellers must meet or exceed the MBG.  So if a buyer files an INAD correctly or incorrectly a seller with a No Return policy will still have to honor that return or let Ebay force them.  A No return Policy is likely to keep some perfectly good buyers from purchasing from sellers with this type of return policy.  Sellers would be better served to have a 30 day return policy with buyer pays shipping.  That way on a Buyer's Remorse claim [properly filed], you can have the buyer pay for return shipping and if you separately state shipping in your listing you can withhold the original shipping from the refund.