Sales dropped 99% suddenly! Am I on a mysterious eBay black list or something like that?

[shopladyin]

I always have a number of sales every month, then all of a sudden there is no sales at all for the whole month.

Is there any seller experiencing the same?

I am wondering if I was placed on an ebay black list, if there is any, for some unknown reasons......what do you think?

Any suggestions will be great!

[bb_cool_stuff]

Might be a little premature to hit the panic button as the month is only three days old.

[femmefan1946]

Based on your feedback left, you've only been selling here since last June. And on average you seem to be selling less than 10 items a month.

So don't worry. There are ups and downs in every business. Keep records by the month, not daily and in a couple of years you will be able to say" Well, April sales are half what I did in February, but they are still double what I did in April last year and nearly twice April of two years ago,"

You will also be able to see if the number of sales is affecting the value of sales.

[froogal_electronic_parts_and_overstock]

There are some that believe that ebay filters out sellers in certain areas and that there is a hidden max you can sell on a monthly basis. 

I have no idea really. 

There are things you can do to help. You might want to auction 1 item weekly or monthly. This will get more buyers looking at your stuff. I auction a few items per week and usually get killed on them, so don't do it thinking you will make money. It's a lost leader for me. 

Here is a link to a discussion about ebay throttling. 

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/letters/blog.pl?/pl/2013/12/1386721872.html

[rose-dee]

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@froogal_electronic_parts_and_overstock wrote:

There are some that believe that ebay filters out sellers in certain areas and that there is a hidden max you can sell on a monthly basis. 

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Yes, I've seen these theories, but I agree with you that there's really no way to ever know for sure if there's manipulation going on behind the scenes. 

My personal view is that this theory was conceived in order to explain away the "high hills and deep valleys" that many eBay sellers began to experience around 2 years ago. 

Those of us who have been selling for a while probably know that eBay "feels" different than it used to -- I think that part is quite true.  My own sales now tend to come in big clumps, with "dead zones" in between, rather than being spread more or less evenly over each month as they always were 3 or 4 years ago.  I still find the "dead zones" or "black holes" rather unnerving, but so far they haven't lasted more than 2 or 3 weeks at a time. 

Why do they happen -- who really knows?  It may be the huge volume now being listed on this site, the variety of items, or the way eBay displays, weighs, and promotes items in searches and placement, etc. etc., but in the end, sellers' own efforts and experience still get results.  The less you put into eBay as a seller, the less you're likely to get out of it.

This is the new eBay, and the most effective thing any seller can do is to follow the Best Practices that eBay recommends, list frequently (and well), run the occasional auction to get attention from buyers who might not otherwise find you, and in short, do everything you can to make your items and your service outstanding -- and be patient sometimes.

[i*m-stilll-here]

I noticed that my sales took a sudden dive, and also that I had more Canadian sales than ever before.

By accident I found that I'd been listing on .ca as opposed to .com

About a month ago I listed a few items on .ca and forgot to switch my preferences back to .com.

It really does seem to make a difference.

[westernstargifts]

I have had a big increase in Canadian buyers in the last couple of months.

This past week certainly has been a "dead" zone for me.

[skylarstuff]

Part of the problem is the promotions that Ebay is running lately.  No 1 day or 3 day auctions.........that alone has caused my sales to drop off a lot.  Who ever thinks up these promotions, needs to also sell on Ebay using the same criteria.  Then they will get a better feel for what works or not.

[skippy527]

Same thing happened to me after a week of high sales, suddenly things plummeted (and in a very strange way - with virtually no watchers on any items and few bids).   After 14 years of doing this, one gets a sense of what feels like the normal vagaries of ebay, and what feels unnatural. This felt unnatural.

So I started to look more carefully into my listings, and lo and behold, when one did a Search by Price (i.e. lowest to highest, including shipping costs), my items were all showing up way down in position, only after the highest priced items. Most people searching would assume that there was nothing but high price items to see at that point and give up the search (my milk glass bracelet on now, is showing up just below  a $1400 bracelet - who would keep scrolling?)

Since I always price my items very low, they should have been showing up on the first page of the search,  but they were on the fourth, fifth (or whatever) page, and staying there for the duration of the auction. I checked this on three different computers with three different browsers - all the same. When I confronted ebay with this information, they said they couldn't see what I was seeing - that in fact, my items were showing up on the first page! Huh? I have screen shots to prove it! I was staring at it while on the phone with them!  Clearly the underlings I spoke with were seeing where my items SHOULD  have appeared, but in actual fact, weren't.  There is monkey business going on. I don't know if this is a case of ebay being protectionist, since I'm a Canadian seller. Maybe they are trying to discourage sales outside the US? Maybe it's a case of the much lamented "throttling" of sellers, though to what purpose?  Whatever their reasoning,  I'm going to find another site to sell on - this is impossible.

[pjcdn2005]

So I started to look more carefully into my listings, and lo and behold, when one did a Search by Price (i.e. lowest to highest, including shipping costs), my items were all showing up way down in position, only after the highest priced items.

Your listings are not showing a Canadian shipping price so they automatically go lower in search.

When I confronted ebay with this information, they said they couldn't see what I was seeing - that in fact, my items were showing up on the first page! Huh? I have screen shots to prove it! I was staring at it while on the phone with them!  Clearly the underlings I spoke with were seeing where my items SHOULD  have appeared, but in actual fact, weren't.  There is monkey business going on.

The ebay reps would have seen a different search as their location would show as being in the U.S. and the listings do have U.S. shipping prices.

[valuestore]

Watching the category we mainly sell in for many years,  it has substantially changed order a few times over the last year, currently best match shows 2 main name brands flooding the first 5+ pages(near zero variation), all the old players are buried/gone, then sprinkle of random items begin appearing page 5 onward mixed with more of those 2 main brand names.

[skippy527]

Thank you! Mystery solved! Too bad the reps I spoke with didn't have that info...

[Anonymous]

I read this article and see one of comments: "eBay don't want sellers to growing too fast".

May I ask who the heck does eBay decided to which sellers can sell how many and which sellers shouldn't sell how many, etc??

I think it is none of eBay's business!!  I would think eBay would be glad that we are able to sell lots of items so they can "earn" millions, even billions of $$$$ in final value fees???!!!  Sheesh, eBay, make up your mind!!

[Anonymous]

To shopinlady, I agree that it is happening. Last month I sold items worth over $1,500.00 and now it is only nearly $100.00 in 3 weeks and I have a week left before the month of May is over!!  That is NOT normal, something fishy about eBay!

[authenticantiques]

To Shopinlady,

Same here, fantastic last couple of months, nice and steady, this month? Not even a 1/4 of what the last couple months have brought in.
I've been considering that same "black list" you brought up before and upon reading all the answers here it seems evident that some think its more than a black list, like perhaps manipulating masterminds are at work 😞
I need to pay my rent! 😞

Wouldn't it be normal though that the first spring weeks and nice weather would slow down internet purchases as ppl would most likely be outside rather than in the house?

[bb_cool_stuff]

While my sales are average with a 15% growth thus far, I have found Traffic is down about 25%.

I have found traffic increases when I add a few Auction Listings.

This is The New eBay Universe, one must be willing to tweak Business Models constantly.

We must find a way to compete by listing different, but similar items in our categories.

[amethyst1415]

I refuse to pay eBay to list my items when there is no chance of them selling.

[skylarstuff]

To make matter worse read this article......

Google Action Against eBay SEO Practices Hurts Traffic

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y14/m05/i23/s01

[skippy527]

I get the gist of the article, but wish someone could paraphrase in English, lol!  Not an easy read....but it's clear that traffic patterns have changed on ebay. Welcome to the new normal of fewer and fewer customers!

[femmefan1946]

Yep.

Because sellers selling more items is bad for eBay's bottom line.

Absolutely.

Never put down to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity or coincidence.