@gemaddict wrote: I suppose I should try harder to not let any of these things bother me so much but it's difficult because I want the best buying experience for my customers, though seemingly eBay doesn't believe me or perhaps even care. All in all it is very depressing and I am going back and forth constantly between packing it in or giving it more time. Confusion reigns.
Oh boy, I think you and I have a lot in common, and I have to say that almost every comment you and 'dutchman' have made rings true for me. I've been feeling the "bum's rush" from eBay for at least a couple of years now, to put it colourfully, watching policies shifting toward favouring the biggest sellers.
It is depressing, especially since it seems no matter what I do, I can't seem to increase my sales level. I've literally done everything eBay has recommended, and kept my seller status squeaky clean but the net result has actually been a serious drop in sales overall in 2015. I feel I've exhausted the available strategies, to no avail. It seems over the past few months as if my buyers have vanished, despite listing more items, and with more variety than ever.
Ironically, back in 2013 and prior, when I was only listing 60 to 80 items per month, I was selling most within 3 to 4 months. Now that I'm regularly listing twice or three times the number of items, I'm getting a sell-through rate of under 3%, and it's taking months and months to turn over existing inventory. It's very hard to run a thriving business like that, or to do any meaningful planning.
Personally I suspect that all of eBay's promotion and marketing to customers who are looking for retail-type goods (i.e. new, factory-produced, and especially techno-gadgets) has been successful. I simply don't think a lot of people are coming here anymore looking for that OOAK item that can't easily be found anywhere else, or just to have fun browsing for something unique and interesting.
I liken it to the difference between big-box stores compared to funky downtown shops run by independent owners. And I conclude that eBay is really no longer interested in the latter. You are probably right that eBay has turned not only its retailers, but its customers, into automatons, who neither expect nor really want any contact with the person behind the sale.
So the question is: what to do? I completely relate to your comment about having been on eBay for so many years and feeling reluctant to look elsewhere to sell. It is a big leap, that's true -- and a lot of time and effort. I felt toward the end of 2014 that I could see the writing on the wall, and I branched out. To give you an indication, I've done better with less than one-quarter of the listings on another site than I'm currently doing here. Mind you, I must admit that sales volumes are not quite what they used to be on that site either, but they are far livelier than here, and listing and selling is fun again.
It wasn't easy, shifting the mindset after so many years, and to be honest I felt a loyalty of sorts to eBay, which is where I got my online start. I wish really that I could have stayed here exclusively and built up my business as I'd originally planned. But that's just not feasible now.
However, I sadly was of the opinion that eBay had demonstrated very little loyalty over the past few years to the legions of small sellers like me who have kept buyers happy (and coming back!) for a decade or more, and would have stayed on for many years still, making eBay money, if only eBay had provided the right conditions.
At one time, back in a happier year on eBay, probably prior to 2013, I had great plans to expand my listings and business here, but still remain as a "boutique" seller. Those have by and large been thwarted by a combination of eBay policies, mistakes, and ill-conceived decision-making that have kept the sands shifting under my feet so that I feel I never know what to expect next.
It's very difficult to plan on the longer term when every few months the whole kaleidoscope picture changes.
I agree with you and 'dutchman" that to eBay we smaller sellers are probably just a big collection of time-wasting troublemakers. Consider the level of resources that need to be allocated to deal with millions of individual sellers, as opposed to the very streamlined and automated workings of the larger retailers on this site.
There does come a point where even the most optimistic person, after being beaten over the head for years, begins to wonder why continue. Yet I personally feel I have a unique set of items to offer to my buyers, and if more and more small sellers like me leave, then those that remain will have a harder time attracting the right type of buyer. It's a symbiotic relationship I think. Who is going to go to a site to buy a unique craft item when that site heavily promotes technological or mass-produced manufactured goods? Every time I see the ads on eBay's landing page I feel rather ill -- "70% off big-screen TVs!" "50% off the latest fashion trends!", etc. etc.
All in all, I've morphed from being an eBay cheerleader a few years ago to an eBay realist/cynic. Now I will hold on here only as long as I can make enough profit to justify putting my time into this business, but margins are getting thinner and costs are getting higher. Once my heart isn't in it anymore, and the returns aren't there, I don't know what I'll do. It will be a sad day for me if I have to close my store.
Sorry I couldn't end on a more upbeat note, but I'm afraid I see even this most recent Seller Update and the new seller standards as favouring those largest sellers who can afford to play the "numbers game" on eBay. This despite eBay's touting a new focus on their "traditional core" (smaller) sellers. They should have thought of that 2 or 3 years ago, as many of those sellers are long gone.
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