The "new improved" eBay has me at my breaking point.

[moltencore]

At the height of the recession my sales weren't this bad. Since store inventory went to core my sales have fallen 50%!

This is incredible. If I wasn't also listing (and actually SELLING) on other venues I'd be...
(heck, I 'll be polite and not type out what I'm thinking).

When I do get sales they will be in clusters. Sometimes a day or more without a sale. Then... boom. SALES, but all within a few hours on a specific day and all on from a certain region. ALL California. ALL Netherlands. ALL New York.

Yet eBay says there is no such thing as rolling black-outs with listings on specific servers.

I beg to differ.

A few repeat customers have even told me they sometimes can't find my items in search. I keep wondering why?

Then I try eBay 'customer service' which has now been scaled back to either live help chat (where sometimes you get to wait 45 minutes for a CSR), or phone. No more concisely laying out your 'problem' in a simple email that you know leaves paper trail in their system. No .. now it's all in-the-moment where the CSR reads from a management prepared script not answering your question, or saying you're the ONLY one they've heard of with this problem (even though at at least 50 other people in the seller central forum have all reported saying the same thing to them!).

IMO this company is going down the tubes and luckily I've been preparing an exit strategy.

Why they wouldn't have wanted my prior $1,000/week average sales is beyond me.

Instead judging by eBay's reaction or lack thereof to my predicament it appears they'd rather see me sink and would prefer that I and others like me to just 'go away'.

end of vent.
:_|

[pierrelebel]

"my sales have fallen 50%! "

I do not mean to question your claim but, is it that bad?

A quick look at your feedback rating shows 490 in the last twelve months (average 41 per month)

In the last six month: 244 (again, 41 per month)

Last 30 days: 42 - right on average.

What am I missing?

[cartoonsinabox]

I have noticed the same thing with our sales REALLY free falling. We used to get 5 to 7 sales a day. Now I go without anything a few days...

[bighillbargains1]

When I do get sales they will be in clusters. Sometimes a day or more without a sale. Then... boom. SALES, but all within a few hours on a specific day and all on from a certain region. ALL California. ALL Netherlands. ALL New York.

I have noted this phenomen too. For example I don't sell often to Newfoundland but if I do it's always multiple sales within a short time period from multiple buyers. The same with some States in the US.
Maybe ebay runs some local TV ads or other advertising?

My Sales were also down in April, but May started out great!

[coxengines]

The only thing that has really declined for us are the fees we pay, which is welcomed, of course.

Sales to the USA took a dip the week before tax deadline (15.04) but then went right back up and have been climbing since then.

Our eBay sales have not really grown overall for about 9 months but that is due to us dragging customers, one by one, to our other store, where sales increase every month.

So, I would say that sales for us have not suffered to to the new rules but the cost of selling has decreased, which is a good thing.

Bernie

[femmefan1946]

One of the things I did when I worked for DH was to record each days sales in the DayBook .

At the bottom of each page was the total sales for the same day the previous year.

At the end of the month, the total for that month the previous year.

It stopped his moaning when he had a slow day or thought that the month had been poor, because comparison was right there.

A day without sales, especially if you work alone, can take on a greater importance than necessary if you don't have those checks.

[canleafmart]

At the height of the recession my sales weren't this bad. Since store inventory went to core my sales have fallen 50%!

This is incredible. If I wasn't also listing (and actually SELLING) on other venues I'd be...
(heck, I 'll be polite and not type out what I'm thinking).

When I do get sales they will be in clusters. Sometimes a day or more without a sale. Then... boom. SALES, but all within a few hours on a specific day and all on from a certain region. ALL California. ALL Netherlands. ALL New York.

Yet eBay says there is no such thing as rolling black-outs with listings on specific servers.

I beg to differ.

A few repeat customers have even told me they sometimes can't find my items in search. I keep wondering why?

Then I try eBay 'customer service' which has now been scaled back to either live help chat (where sometimes you get to wait 45 minutes for a CSR), or phone. No more concisely laying out your 'problem' in a simple email that you know leaves paper trail in their system. No .. now it's all in-the-moment where the CSR reads from a management prepared script not answering your question, or saying you're the ONLY one they've heard of with this problem (even though at at least 50 other people in the seller central forum have all reported saying the same thing to them!).

IMO this company is going down the tubes and luckily I've been preparing an exit strategy.

Why they wouldn't have wanted my prior $1,000/week average sales is beyond me.

Instead judging by eBay's reaction or lack thereof to my predicament it appears they'd rather see me sink and would prefer that I and others like me to just 'go away'.

end of vent.
:_|

I agree with you, we are into same boat. I spot the differences, ever since inventory converted to Core, my but it now dissappear. May be diving between thousand listing! My BIN sales 75-95% down. So far no exit plan Yet. Keep on hanging!

[pjcdn2005]

Canleafmart, It looks like you were getting under 15 feedback a month and in the last 30 days you have more than 30 feedback so double your average feedback number.

But your sales haven't increased?

[bilge21]

Canleafmart, It looks like you were getting under 15 feedback a month and in the last 30 days you have more than 30 feedback so double your average feedback number.

But your sales haven't increased?

Can't really go by feedback numbers due to there being no consistency in numbers of buyers leaving feedback in any time period.