Here's what eBay has to say about suddenly poor sales

[moltencore]

I used to sell up to $1,000 USD/wk or so of sales here on eBay EVERY week. Then 2 yrs. the recession came and sales dropped by approx. $300-500/wk with the occasional regular wee.

Then... suddenly this year my sales have gone down to $120-300/wk approx and rarely higher. WTH? My sales on another site without any effort (or selling fees) is now higher than here! It boggles my mind.

So... I thought I'd go to the customer service board to ask why. knowing they probably wouldn't say anything nice... but I just felt like seeing what the company to whom I'm a customer to might say.

here they are:

"As much as I would like to be able to assist you with this, we do not have a control on buyers who would purchase your items."

"What I am saying is that eBay is a place for both buyers and sellers to meet. We do not have a control as to which sellers buyers should purchase their items from."

This despite my saying how long I've sold on eBay, That I'm TRS and Powerseller, that I'm selling stuff I used to sell easily etc etc.

This to me says how much they now care about their long time customers. Not at all.

[ricarmic]

I have seen sales slowing down, but for me it is across all sites including eBay, although eBay is still the strongest for me. My personal view is that people have less discretionary income at this time because of the high gas prices. If you're paying $50 more for gas a week, that's $50 less you have to spend on stamps (with me) or music stuff with you. Alternatively they are worrying about all the bad stuff happening in the world including high gas prices and they're choosing not to spend as much discretionary income. I wish I knew the real answer, and tomorrow it will probably be something different causing the change anyway.....although I'll put on my optimistic hat and say maybe there will be a big positive change all the sudden!!

[moltencore]

I would say that if my sales weren't INCREASING on another site right now. The sales over there are currently 3x eBay's and have never been that high.

[ricarmic]

My presence on the other sites is not as established as on eBay. I only began on the other ones in earnest in October last year as a result of the scare I had over the duplicate listings, which didn't turn out to cause a problem for me but it scared me enough to force me to begin putting stuff on other sites because I depend on eBay too much against my overall online and offline sales and sooner or later they are going to do something that will cause me a big problem. If I were established on the other sites I might be seeing the same as you. I have peers who have similar experience to you in that ebay is not their primary $$$ source any longer.

[westernstargifts]

I found that my sales began to decrease last year when store items were placed in search and the market was flooded with listings from Chinese sellers. At exactly the same time, according to Omniture, views dropped drastically and have stayed down ever since.

Sales are up and down and are not consistent. This past month has been really good for some reason. One thing I did notice in the past month is a great increase in the number of buyers making multiple purchases. I hope that trend continues but I'm not holding my breath.

[axe_n_gear_music]

Molten, what other venues do you sell on? I am looking for other options as well to augment our eBay and website sales.

AXE

[gifts_of_elegance]

"As much as I would like to be able to assist you with this, we do not have a control on buyers who would purchase your items."

But that's exactly what "Best Match" does by prioritizing certain sellers.

[moltencore]

"As much as I would like to be able to assist you with this, we do not have a control on buyers who would purchase your items."

But that's exactly what "Best Match" does by prioritizing certain sellers.

Well, that means that eBay IS controlling who sees what doesn't it? ?:|

[moltencore]

This past month has been really good for some reason. One thing I did notice in the past month is a great increase in the number of buyers making multiple purchases. I hope that trend continues but I'm not holding my breath.

You're very lucky as my sales have dropped over 70% in the last month. I keep wondering WTH eBay is doing that rotates stock so much.

[moltencore]

Molten, what other venues do you sell on? I am looking for other options as well to augment our eBay and website sales.

AXE

It's just vinyl, CD etc sites. not for music gear unfortunately.

[godboma]

My sells on eBay have been dropping since more than a year now. Actually since they introduced the best match... and then TRS.

I do not want to go through that discussion again but just to say that this pushed me to make my own web site and that did work well. My sells on my site are more than what I had on eBay before it started to go down.

I lost my TRS this month and the sells are even slower right now... I will (or should) get my TRS back on next evaluation so I will realy see the impact.

Having my own site was a smart move. I have tried other auction sites but with no real success.

[godboma]

Hit the post button too soon!!!

I am not sure that eBay cares about these stories (yours or mine). I think they consider them as collateral damage from their big changes and at the end they (eBay) will be more successful...

[westernstargifts]

"As much as I would like to be able to assist you with this, we do not have a control on buyers who would purchase your items."

But that's exactly what "Best Match" does by prioritizing certain sellers.

Even eBay thinks Best Match sucks...or did.

Link

[cottonwoodindustries]

so why are they still using it

[westernstargifts]

Because they think they have improved it and now have allegedly fixed the "position bias" thereby rewarding those listings that get stuck a few pages back and still manage to get some sales...which makes one wonder why they weren't on the first page in the first place.