permanent decline

[keziak]

Ebay until last year was a solid 40% of my business. Now, perhaps 20% or even worse, despite boosting my listings. Meanwhile the same boosting on Amazon has made my sales there surge so I venture to say it's not just because I sell books and nobody reads anymore. I think about cutting back to a Basic store but unfortunately sales are so unpredictable here that I can't identify which books are worth keeping, versus a large purge.

Hats off to you sellers who make something like a living here!

[thenobletuckylife]

Morning,

I think that as the "dust storm" of the past few years of ecommerce has begun to settle folks have found the venues they are most comfortable with.

Saying this, selling books has been something long established elsewhere.

Personally I never dreamed that the surge of drop shipping would ever become paramount here but I stand corrected now. I have no idea how folks make any money nor do I know how they work that business plan into selling here with all the inherent pitfalls but from my observation, it seems drop shipping is gaining ground.

I am glad that at least you have sales somewhere because for many, ebay was about the only option and those folks are really hurting or have had to walk away.

Mr C

[jklfindings]

I would venture to say books will almost always sell better on Amazon.  Personally, our sales have been on a steady increase ever since we started eBay 5 years ago, but we can't sell preowned jewelry on Amazon, so who knows.  We've tried several other venues successfully, but they just don't have the volume of buyers that eBay has, so we're happy and growing here.  I think a lot of catagories change year to year since there's a new generation starting to buy, and one stopping.  In the end at least you have enough business sense to go where the buyers are!

[keziak]

Another thing about books is that I have many more on Amazon because the pricing here is significantly lower than there.  But other things have changed. For example for years I did a brisk business in combined orders. I still get some but nothing like the olden days when people went on a shopping spree in my store. I guess they just have more options now.