Welcome to retail at Christmas! The photo attached shows my brick & mortar store in a similar situation. The city, without my permission or consultation one day decided to widen the road in front of my store. It killed my young and blossomming business when I had 2 little girls to provide for.
After 6 months of almost no income when the road was complete my customers returned. Thank God. That was 25 years ago. Did I take a hit? ... Yes
I was forced to cut the 1st floor space to 1/3rd so yes. I took a hit but continued at the same location for another 10 years.
Over a month ago, we at intimewithmusic, warned about possible ill effects of Ebay's pending recatorization of your listings. No fake news. See for yourself...
https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/eBay-Fall-Annoucement/m-p/466202#M129887
From that reviews... "I hope I'm wrong and fees are going down like Ebay said about Managed Payments. It's right there in the Ebay For Business 2019 & 2020 podcasts." I hope that all this "extracurricular unpaid time consuming Ebay work" that is keeping us from listing our stuff and running our own good businesses works out in the Seller's best interest. Time time time time time...will tell."
That was September 8.
Since then here's my overview addressed to @lotzofuniquegoodies God bless you my good friend,
A major "cyclone" from this Ebay recat service is happening on YouTube. The major infuencers state ebay US is advising Sellers to refrain from updating listings until after October 19 when they plan to have the new cats operational.
Some have supressed listing altogether depending on how many cats they have affected. APIs used to synch multiplatform listings apparently stopped working as the cats they were supporting no longer exist.
Buyers who utilize "saved searchs" can't find anything as their Ebay searchs have no redirection. Maybe this explains why so much competitive platform adds are out there.
With respect to extra charges resulting from cat redirects watch your banks pariticularily if you did not set up a separate account for MP. No one wants a grab for gallery fees to cause their mortgage payment to be in default so watch closely for any unathorized fees. One reported amount has been $3000US.
It's tragic Ebay picked 4th quarter for this but the timing is so obvious they must have some sort of internal stategy. Maybe the APIs redirecting their listings to other platforms were getting too invasive? Who knows...
If you find yourself angry. If you find yourself feeling cheated. I understand how much work you have done to build your business . So before you quit Ebay try this "litimus test".
- Take one of your listings that is up to date re Cat & Item specifics.
- Find a similar listing on an alternative platform (Etsy, Ruby, Reverb, Amazon, Bonanza, Mercari, or Poshmark etc.
- Don't forget the 100's of newcomers like Facebook
- Compare them.
- Look at their Cats, Item specifics, layouts and their listing real estate "lots", audience, fees, seller protections and customer service.
Prepare for a hail storm (replace "hail" with 4 letter word of your choice mine starts with "Sh") and see what happens. Personally, hailing from wildfire country, I think this smoke will clear in a few days. It's "business as unusual" for now. sales have tanked in my cats (collectibles and musical instruments).
If the road isn't what we all paid for with our FV fees then it's hasta la vista Ebay.
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