What happened to the sales?

[gifts_of_elegance]

I have almost 1,100 listings and haven't had a sale since the 7th of October (4 days).  I called Customer Support, got a very polite young lady from Asia that could not give me an answer.  She made suggestions that I ship one day, refund 14 days, free shipping, filling in all the item details, etc.  I DO ALL THOSE ALREADY!

I have not been able to access my Traffic Reports for months, its always "Not available at this time".  Last night she made it available for me and the results were very shocking.  For the same day last year I had over 1,300 lookers verses 185 this year.

I am assured my account is not limited in any way.  I am totally frustrated by all this.  Am I alone or are others experiencing the same?

[bb_cool_stuff]

I had one day last week also that had zero sales. My friendly competitors were a little slow last weekend also. Probably due to the Thanksgiving long weekend.

I just started making some price adjustments for the upcoming silly season & listing some unique & deadstock Items on auction.

Check out your competitors completed listings. See how their sales stack up against yours. Make price adjustments if necessary.

I think the traffic reports sre still off kilter. Was mentioned In some recent posts. My traffic is supposedly down 90%, cannot see that.

I wouldn't be too concerned unless you have gone six weeks with poor sales.

[pocomocomputing]

In the eBay.com USA forums, since the start of September, sellers with stores have reported that sales are poor.  Store traffic reports  are off and eBay confirmed that the Omnitiure reports were broken.

I tend to think that all the changes to eBay at the end of August to now are causing search to give different results to buyers from last year so sellers are not seen as much.

Also, the endless free promos for non-store sellers all through September is taking sales away from stores.

Are you using eBay's item specifics in your listings? eBay is pushing item specifics in listings since the spring update and search uses them more.  Make sure you have eBay's Item Specifics filled out.

For example, this listing 400310073535 has none of eBay's  Items Specifics filled out. Same with this listing 400306214688.

Now if you had filled them out, eBay apparently has been changing the IS in some categories and deleting the IS some sellers had filled in.

Try using bulk edit on a few listings at a time to see how many IS are missing.

Also bulk editing may refresh your items that are GTC duration to get a higher search.

Last, try using a few auction format listings to drive some traffic to your store. Take about 5 listings per week (1 per day) and list at a start price 10% less than the regular price with a BIN price equal to the regular price.  A discount if the buyers waits for auction to end or the regular price.  The buyer will have choice to wait to save or buy it right away. Now be careful to choose and item that is a quantity of one because Auction with BIN is now considered a duplicate of a Fixed price Listing if you have both running.

Now it may seem silly to have the auction with BIN running at almost full price. It is not to get bids, it is about the high search visibility an auction gets when it is ending. The extra visibility might get some buyers to your store.

You do not have to list your most expensive items in auction. Save on insertion fees by using lower priced items.

Will it work? I don't know. But store sellers should go back to the old tactic of a few auctions ending per week to take advantage of the higher visibility of auctions in search when ending.

Stores seem to lost in search these days because of all of the free promos to non-stores. But there is nothing stopping a store from paying for a few auctions to try and get seem. Waiting for a store promo seems futile now since stores no longer get the promos.

So using an auction with a BIN is like having a short higher visibility Fixed Price listing. At the same time, being priced 10 percent less is like a sale price for those who will wait for the auction to end. It may also help to get your store to be seen if stores are really broken in search by eBay changes.

Again, will it work? I do not know.  But it may be better to take a more aggressive selling approach rather than wait for for eBay to fix traffic issues if they are the reason.

[brandeentertainment]

I so far have had the best month of the year .. Never a day with less then 10 sales.... Lovin it

[brandeentertainment]

oops thats a lie 1 day was not so good but other then that sales are trhough the roof on ebay and have almost tripled my best month of the year on amazon

[sleepwarmer]

Last month I had 1 week with no sales. I called the superb customer service ebay provided, and she too gave me the very very basic suggestions that I am already doing for the past 100 years. 

Check if you are visible on Ebay.com when you do a search for your items.

Otherwise, Hang on, it will pass. I do not know what they are doing!

As for my business, for the past month I can not complain! Hope the Ebay changes will go smooth

[moltencore]

Otherwise, Hang on, it will pass. I do not know what they are doing!

Going from 30-40 items sold per week to 4-6 per week and from 160 item views/visits per day to 20 per day is beyond a small irritating passing glitch imo.

I'm furious both at myself for continuing to waste time and money on this sinking ship and eBay for ruining a good thing.

[femmefan1946]

Although I have had good steady sales on most of my IDs this year, I can see why the promos for occasional sellers would cut into sales for eBay's core sellers, those of us with a few hundred to a few thousand unique listings in Stores.

I noticed an item last night while updating my listings that has over 1700 hits (and no sales). At first I thought I should get rid of it, they thought, well it is bringing people to my Store.

Unfortunately the item (clippings about the Trailer Park Boys) is unrelated to anything else I sell. Maybe I should branch out into smoking supplies.

[pjcdn2005]

gifts, you might want to try using Markdown Manager once in a while. It seems that shortly after I set up a few sale items, that I get more sales than I've had in previous days..and not necessarily just on the sale items. It seems to kick up overall visibility a bit.

[asyahijab]

I'm small seller and still new on ebay. My sale drop down from more than 100 items a month to 40-50 items last 2 months. On top of that I got more problem buyer than before.

I run MM didn't work.

I read on ebay.com discussion, some seller run BO and they see high traffict to theirs store with it. I haven't try though.

[gifts_of_elegance]

Day 5:  Did the ice break?  I finally had a small sale but no payment.  I have been working on my listings steady to make sure everything is in place.  I use Markdown Manager atleast once a month for a week each time with minimum 10% off.  Best Offer never worked for me.  I posted some auctions tonight and scheduled some more for other days.  The listing fees  on them are not cheap, all over $1.  It usually costs me more for auction fees then what I get for the odd item that sells on auction even though I drop the price 10-20%.

I am always studying items in my category to see what they list for and how much they sell for and if anything, I am lower than my competitors.

I was happy to hear that a few people are doing well.  Gives me hope that this too will pass.

[gifts_of_elegance]

I am very grateful to all the posters who have taken the time and trouble to help me.  For the others in the same boat as me, I hope that it will turn around for you soon!  I think eBay sellers are the hardest working people around and deserve the best.

[melissasminis]

Sales really slow here, not happy, but what choice do I have!

[tkam1111]

I am giving things away. With all the eBay fees and Paypal and the final shipping which I always forget about I lose more than I gain. To make room I end up selling $100 plus pants for $10. Can not keep doing this, getting to tough. When people don't pay it even frustrates me more with no means of leaving them feedback|!

[gifts_of_elegance]

I did everything I could to get my sales rolling.  

I cut the price on 80 items by 30-50% and put them on auction.  3 were 1 day, 3 were 3 day and the rest all 5 day & 7 day duration.  The 1 day and 3 day expired without a sale as they only had 1 - 3 lookers at most.  I noticed one of them did not even show up on eBay.com.

I put all my other items on 10% off.

I refreshed approximately 125-150 of my listings by ending them and listing them again.

Over the last 5 days I sold 22 items of which 3 remains unpaid.

Two auction listings received a bid.  I need atleast 4 more like it just to cover my listing fees for these auctions and that does not include the cost of the items.

Hanging in there.

[reallynicestamps]

I know it sounds silly, but if cutting your prices does not work, try raising them.

I am a customer of yours, and you are making original and unique items.

There are those who prefer to pay more for the stuff they buy-- it feels more attractive to them.

Would a small experiment hurt?

[puckstopshere]

Not sure what is affecting my sales - have some but not like a few months ago.  I sell hockey cards, and the lock-out seems to have slowed things to a crawl.

[ammolitehunter]

I have noticed that traffic is down substantially from last year but my sales are still reasonably good because my items are mainly bought by those with some disposable income.

I have much more competition than I did a couple of years ago[some trying to compete with discounted goods and inferior quality items] but I am able to defeat this by offering higher quality items than most competitors.

The global economy is taking a much bigger beating than is generally understood so a large segment of buyers have gone AWOL--particularly US buyers as they have more important places for pinched incomes than frivolous shopping on Ebay.

Oddly my Canadian,UK and Australian sales are better than last year which helps.

I have checked on the visibility of my items by simple Google search terms and they appear very well so visibility is not the problem.

I suspect that for those Ebay sellers offering goods to the lower income segment of buyers--the news is even worse because those are the buyers who have pulled in their horns.

So--in essence--I do not believe it is Ebay to blame here--blame the economy--specifically the US economy--and the endless money printing fraud that is the government there.

I believe things will get worse before they get better--not a cheerful thing to offer--but there it is!

[bb_cool_stuff]

Weird month for me also.

Selling with a great profit margin but the number of items sold is down so far.

I'll wait til the end of the month before i decide to make any adjustments.

I also never blame eBay. They provide the venue to sell on. After that Its up to us. Much like a B & M Store.

[pocomocomputing]

Not sure what is affecting my sales - have some but not like a few months ago.  I sell hockey cards, and the lock-out seems to have slowed things to a crawl.

What about too many listing in your category since there is the free listing promo until Dec 31 in Sports cards? It must be a buyers market with selection of cards, especially for lower priced cards that were not worth listing before because of fees.

I seem to recall that previous free promos when you were non-store worked well for you.

Since the sports promo is for auction and foxed price, have you tried using Fixed Price with longer durations so buyers can buy immediately?

Have you tried shorter durations like  3 day to be seen more often as ending soonest. I guess the shorter durations would eat up the free listings faster in a month with little return.

Do you get 5,000 free on both eBay.ca and eBay.com?

Just curious since you are getting so many free listings per month with the sports card promo. It may be an indication of what would happen if all listings were free in all categories on eBay.

Too bad the NHL strike/lockout is affecting sales. So hard to tell how free listings would do if there was no NHL issues.