2026 - How are sales for you guys?
Summary: In a discussion about sales trends, especially concerning vintage video games, kycoa65 reports a drastic 70% drop in sales since February, mentioning potential store closure due to the decline. Most sales were previously to Canada or outside North America, with tariffs not expected to impact their business. Other participants, like sellingbooksmusicandmore, echo similar concerns about decreased sales since mid-April, highlighting an overall downward trend in recent months.
So far 2026 has been a pretty bad year for sales. I am around 70% less in sales vs this time last year. I feel like it will eventually level out to be better than that but these are bad signs for things to come. If I had to guess by end of year it will be 30-50% less sales than last year, so 60-75% less sales than 2024 (a normal year under normal leaders).
The tariffs got struck down by the US supreme court and the temporary tariffs trump put into place will expire in July so those are good signs but I think the damage is done.
Ebay is still forcing a minimum 2% on ALL promoted listings no matter who buys them (lets not split hairs, this is what they are doing.
Ebay is still keeping the misleading warning message on ALL listings going to the USA about tariffs that arent using the X3 more expensive and X3 slower EIS program.
Trump is threatening the end of CUSMA (I do have doubts he will do this but optically it is a bad look for commoners).
Trumps war in Iran is causing instability, worries of the future and gas prices to spike throughout the west.
I lost nearly 1/3 of my sales last year vs 2024 and I predict 2026 will be even worse. As I type this I am getting close to being at risk of losing my Top-Rated Seller status and predict that by summer time I will have lost it.
For clarity- I have added many new products, run a different sale every month, have better/ photos and descriptions than before, have multiple new entry level products, am ery clear and accomadating about the new tariff changes etc. I am doing everything humanly possible a business would do to shore up sales and still in the negative. Makes me wonder how bad idbe tanking if I didn't do all of the things ive done to shore up sales. I'd be 75%-90% down in sales perhaps???
Is this the end for international small business e-commerce? or at the very least the beginning of a long running decline in international small business e-commerce?
How are you guys faring and what are your predictions?
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 weeks ago@rdemaree Anyone getting the impression when Intl buyers see eIS shipping charges it's scaring them away from completing a purchase?
kycoa65
·2 weeks agoI sell vintage Video Games. My sales are down 70% since February. To the point that i may just shut down my store. 300-500 listings usually posted and it seems to be getting worse not better. Most of my sales have always been Canada or outside North America but now sales are basically non-existent. The tariffs should have no affect on me.
rosscd57
·4 months agoVery poor. I sell vintage radios and in the past have sold about 50 - 60 radios per year. Average price about $250 and up. I have sold two radios this year. One on eBay and one on another platform and both sales have been from Canada. I Have reduced prices and offered free shipping - still nada. If I can get rid of my remaining stock, I'm done.
I figure that even with a no tarriffs and a new administration in the USA, not much will get better for me and perhaps many others. Over 90 percent of my sales were to the USA and I think that losing the deminimus coupled with the excess mailing charges to the Hub in Toronto adds too much to the shipping costs. I checked on some of my listing on .com and the shippin prices in most cases were nuts. Most were three or four times what I used to ship then to the States for - on one the shipping was over $200. I would norfmally ship it to the USA for about $40 bucks, now it takes **bleep** near that to get it to the Toronto Hub; then eBay adds god knows what to the shipping price included there buffer costs for no return shipping. So why should the yanks purchase from Canada when they can buy at a much reduced rate from the States?
visual-sound
·4 months agoI now sell to only Canada and my sales continue to go up. Best numbers that I`ve had since 2020!
isamu.kun
·4 months agoSo far about the same, if not a bit better than last year? Like it feels like it's been worse to me sales-wise but I just got back into being a top seller last month after losing it back in September when de minimis was removed, so I can't be doing that bad. Definitly feeling the loss from lack of US buyers but have had more international ones through EIS (though I don't know /why/ I've had so many opting to use that when I offer cheaper shipping to most of Europe).
brocante6
·4 months agoNo sales since May 5th, the worst month ever...
sellingbooksmusicandmore
·4 months agokycoa65
·2 weeks agoMe too. Mid April and sales went off a cliff. So far from April sales have averaged down 70% per month since.
reallynicestamps
·4 months agoNot great.
January to March (Q1) is usually my strongest sales period and did hold up pretty well.
Sales to the USA were off, but overseas was quite strong particularly UK and Oz.
Q2 has been much affected by the Trump Tariff and by confusion over whether or not it applies to my product lines.
Especially stamps from dead countries like Newfoundland or Zanzibar.
But I have also been making changes in my product lines, dropping books from one account for example, but adding more philatelic literature to this one.
And I learned that the account that was selling sewing patterns had only about 15% of my uploading patterns still listed, which is cutting into my gardening time.
I also dropped Promoted Listing since it seemed to have stopped working.
modalman57
·4 months agoI have 1300 active listing with quite a variety of offerings, competetively priced. While my sales are never brisk, I do get at least 5 sales every week. Today is May 18 and I have not had a single sale since April 25. Not one. I had my wife find and buy an item. She had no problem. But something has to be wrong for me to get zero sales in that long a period - it has never happened before now. If it continues, I might as well get off of eBay.
When I hit a full month w/o a sale I will contact a person at eBay to see if they have any ideas (the automated system was not helpful). This is annoying.
marnotom!
·4 months agoI don't know if you realize this, but you appear to be registered in the US and posting to the Canadian eBay community boards, @modalman57. I can't see anything for sale from you even if I change my shipping location to a Florida ZIP code. That may be a glitch, though.
lady.stark
·7 months agoFirst month of the year was good. But it has now stopped completely. Not a sale in weeks. Fortunately, eBay is just a hobby.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·7 months agoeIS has made a minor difference to number of monthly sales. 4 of 7 went letter. Had to cancel one due the item being approved but should have been unapproved for eIS shipping. I am seeing 155% more traffic/views but it is not resulting in substantially more sales. I am passing that on to the new way counts promoted drive bys. Translated as customers walking past the building but not coming in the door.
sparx_63
·7 months agoHello
My sales are way up mostly due to EIS program. I have already exceeded my total 2025 sales and have also exceeded my best first quarter which I had in 2024. Canada sales are about the same from 2024 and better than last year. USA sales are slight decline from 2024 but Euro sales have far exceeded any expectation. I LOVE the EIS program.
rdemaree
OP7 months agojust out of curiosity :
-Did you ship internationally before EIS? If not why not? Canada Post ebay labels at a discounted price were always already there (and still are for international). It is faster and cheaper you just had to know the HS code and country of manufacture etc.
-Do you live outside of a large Canadian city? (you dont have access to stuff like chitchats, stallionexpress, swiftpost and netparcel which are all vastly superior to EIS)
EIS to me seems like a great option if you have literally no other choice or if you cant be bothered to keep track of HS codes and manufacturer details.
sparx_63
·7 months agoHello rdemaree
I have been selling on EBAY for six years. I have always sold internationally but stopped selling Europe when VAT for EU rolled out. I considered EU sales at that time to be too time consuming on the paperwork to justify the time spent for the meagre sales I was doing there. I did half my total sales to the USA and I used ChitChats as I live about 10 minutes from their head office in Burlington. I also used Chit Chats Asendia for International shipping when I shipped to Europe. I didn't like using EBAY labels because they were not competitive at that time nor were they trustworthy when it came to pricing. (Huge issues with aftercharges, which were never an issue with Chit Chats). International shipping with Chit Chats has other issues though (Asendia took forever) and I always had the worry about USA returns due to difficulty providing labels and Chit Chats not having a good return service. If the item was undeliverable it was basically lost. If it was damaged Chit Chats insurance took forever and was time consuming. In 2024 I discontinued all USA sales due to the issues with the orangutan across the border.
I gave EIS a try in December when it was offered to me and I was skeptical as i never had good experiences dealing with EBAY on general issues with customer service. I gotta be honest, I have been VERY pleasantly surprised. My sales value and shipments are way up. International sales are better than Canadian sales and virtually all high value items are selling Internationally. I had one shipping breakage, and EIS handled it seamlessly (I kept my money and customer got reimbursed and better yet- I didn't have to deal with insurance) . Another customer requested a partial refund for shipping damage (it was debatable) and I just told him to start a return..win,win. I use Chit Chats and Canada Post lettermail to ship to EIS and -- NO ISSUES.
I sorta get a vibe from your posts, pardon me if I am wrong, that you do not like EIS. I think maybe your opinion is formed by past experiences with EBAY?
I think anyone selling on EBAY that doesn't try to use EIS is doing themselves a disservice. I encourage you to try it , you may be as pleasantly surpised as I was.
mrdutch1001
·7 months ago"I think anyone selling on EBAY that doesn't try to use EIS is doing themselves a disservice. I encourage you to try it , you may be as pleasantly surpised as I was."
Not everyone wants to ship to the USA, not everyone wants to be a part of this eIS ...not everyone wants to contribute to unnecessary Tariff costs...
and Not eveything is feasible for shipping via eIS, nor feasible to ship to the USA by any shipping method...
and I for one will NOT "try" eIS... also,I will not engage in any of this Tariff **bleep**...
but you do you...
I will continue to support Canada, support Canadian business ,support the Canadian economy and eff the USA!
sparx_63
·7 months ago...... What does your post have to do with the topic of this thread?
mrdutch1001
·7 months agoIF you don't want comments on your suggestion that you " think anyone selling on EBAY that doesn't try to use EIS is doing themselves a disservice", then don't post that type of suggestion for "the topic of this thread"
sparx_63
·7 months agoYeah, your right . I am here to sell not talk. You won't be seeing me in the threads again. I really don't need someone with TDS commenting on posts I make, and I also really don't need to waste my time trying to help others. BTW, no need to respond, I won't be reading it anyway.
rdemaree
OP7 months agoI enrolled in EIS when it came out and my shipping prices were nearly triple what chitchats and ebay canada post discounted labels are. I particularly have no use for this artificially induced spike in shipping cost and transit time when I live in Toronto and have Chitchats, swiftpost, netparcel, stallionexpress etc. It just wouldn't make sense to use EIS other than to bypass the fraudulent tariff warnings that Ebay forcefully puts on my CUSMA listings which do not incur any tariffs because I primarily sell handmade art supplies and have all HS codes properly documented. I would make more sales if ebay used a nuanced approach for items being shipped to the USA. The EIS is mostly worthless for GTA sellers and CUSMA sellers other than to bypass their tariff warning which is an artificial roadblock imposed by ebay not by my performance as a seller or market conditions.
That is just on the seller side of things. As a buyer I have also found the EIS to be particularly bad for the sort of stuff that I like to buy. 70% of things I have purchased via the EIS have been confiscated for overly bloated lazy nonsense restrictions. In fact here is a very recent example that is mindnumbingly insane! I bought a vintage set of artist oil paint from the USA via EIS and it got confiscated before it made it to Canada and then the EIS resold it through an ebay account (EXACT SAME ITEM) and I bought it again and had it shipped to my mom in the states who then shipped it to me via a UPS label I bought through Netparcel. Total insanity! Tell me how this beaurocracy makes any sense at all. Btw we are talking about artist oil paint not weapons! I already know their logic is that it can be "flammable" but the conditions are so unlikely that you are more likely to have an asteroid strike the plane than for artist oil paint tubes to become flammable in transit. Obviously artist oil paints are already shipped globally too seeing as how I do it via other carriers and European and Asian brands frequently sell in shops in the USA/ Canada etc. Just insanity. Most the time I refuse to buy from sellers using the EIS because it is only good for super basic and simple items and nothing antique or even slightly ambiguous is safe to be shipped with it. Whenever I see a seller using it I have the item shipped to a middleman in that country (either USA or UK) and then have them ship it to me through my preffered carrier to avoid issues. Totally unnecessary and bloated, just like the tariff warnings. Rules and restrictions for the sake of rules and restrictions.
So basically what my gripes boil down to as a buyer and a seller for the EIS is that it is an unnecessary bloated middleman that is costly, slow and overly bogged down with rules and restrictions. Great to use if you have no other choice and if you sell super common items that cant on the off chance be deemed as offensive or dangerous.
If it works for you that great but my point is it doesnt work for everyone so I dont understand why ebay is trying to force buyers and sellers to use it more or less. They make not using it a hassle.
sparx_63
·7 months agoKeep up the good work 😉
john_koenig99
·7 months agoSince enrolled on eIS, my sales are up...way up (almost triple, for the past 6 months).
Can't complain.
rdemaree
OP7 months agoHow often did you normally sell before trump?
and I wonder if EIS is actually making you sell more or if the removal of the fraudulent tariff warning banner is helping you sell more.
I'd bet the program itself (trash) isn't doing the heavy lifting here. It is the removal of the banner and/or your strategies as a seller.
Good luck either way!
clemowbooks
·7 months agoQ1 is usually my best quarter but sales do seem to be down.
Definitely down to the USA, but up for overseas.
I have added a note in my Descriptions that "US residents may be subject to Trump Tariff" and use eIS for shipping, so no one can Refuse to pay the American import fees whatever they may be.
On another site, where the organizers have not been so enthusiastic about warning US buyers that they might be paying tariffs, my US percentage is normal, the overseas are normal, and only Canada is off though not by much. However, that site is less than 10% of my online sales.
flipistics
·7 months agoMy sales are up almost 50% over last year, but down about 15% over 2024 through the first 2 months of the year.
I expect this month to be a bit rough as gas prices cause people to worry about their finances (not to mention a sharp increase in shipping rates coming really, really soon).
mrdutch1001
·7 months agoI stopped shipping to the USA in August 2025 so no worries for me about tariffs...
As to losing USA customers, well here on eBay those had been few and far between during 2024-2025 anyway...
I don't use promoted listings so no worries for me about that...
I don't do discounts or sales>my prices are what they are and that's the way it is and will be...
I hadn't shipped Internationally(other than to the USA) for over 10 years now so that is not of concern to me either...
Now with DT creating unecessary wars with other countries, threatening to invade & take over other countries, making more enemies around the world, this world chaos and instability continues with peoples around the world being more and more cautious with their monies.
Adding to that are the skyrocketing oil/gas prices so the cost of shipping just got more expensive.
I am thankful that I am shipping within Canada only and am able to utilize Canada Post oversize lettermail rates for one of the categories in which I list/sell here on eBay.
Although views/watchers/buyers are scarce here on eBay, my other selling site is doing just fine with same/similar and other categories in which I sell ... selling to Canada only. eBay is no longer my focus, and without a doubt, I am faring reasonably well on my other selling site and I believe that site will endure over the coming months. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about eBay, and I don't hold out much hope for any improvement in sales for myself here on eBay.
ricarmic
·7 months agoTomorrow I'm dropping off decent sized sales to Ireland, UK and Japan. (About half the $$ value of weekend sales!)
I would say that I've noticed an increase in international buyers, note that I can't/am not enrolled in EIS because I sell stamps which aren't allowed.
I'm starting to wonder if other countries are doing more "non-USA" shopping because my international orders are definitely averaging higher????
Sales "everywhere" went dead when the Iran situation started, over the week sales are crawling back up again, as before folks are worried about increasing prices, and are holding back on discretionary spending, that will intensify when gas price increases etc start to be more visible.
I don't think interantionally one can predict even next week anymore, really all we can do is batten down the hatches and do what we can to weather it out......
rdemaree
OP7 months agoI have noticed more Canadian and International sales since last summer but also the sharp drop in American buyers is very depressing and people are ordering in smaller quantities and dollar amounts.
For small businesses, especially in Canada who needs American business this is a downward spiral and ebay policies are hastening it.
I wish I could bolster my Canadian and International sales adequately to at least semi keep up with the sharp drop in American sales but mathematically its not feasible.
ricarmic
·7 months agoHmmm today is decent shipments to Australia, Chile, China (and USA) not a domestic sale!