How are your views/ sales faring in 2025? Predictions?

[rdemaree]

How are your views and sales doing this year so far?

I am down 24% in sales vs the same period last year and have't sold anything in 14 days now to any country.

I looked at my views for months during this year and October seems to have taken what looks like a flat plateau downwards in views vs prior months. This is bad news for Q4. I wonder if this has anything to do with the EIS program and maybe ebay pushing listings down that dont want to use their EIS $99999 shipping fee program? Is ebay intentionally trying to strongarm Canadian sellers into using the EIS program by hiding our listings and putting the false advertising blue banner on our listings?

Also I have taken a look at my view count for september - october last year vs this year and my viewership for those 2 months have been cut literally in half by the numbers.  I made a switch from .com to .ca back in March but I dont see how that would account for that drastic of a drop in views.

What makes this even more concerning is I have made and listed more products and made my listings more polished this year vs last year and I also have been running month long themed 25% off sales on select products every month of the year and still have seen a dramatic loss of views and sales both this year. There literally is no winning. 

June 2025 was my worst month in my entire time as a full time seller on ebay since fall 2019. I sold like $250 worth of stuff for the entire month. June is usally a mid level month for me, not amazing not terrible and it wasnt only bad it was my worst month in business ever.

Things arent looking good for ecommerce in Canada. I am planning on downsizing the batch sizes of the handmade paint that I sell and also sourcing less antique art supplies in addition to probably needing to find a part time job because I dont think things are going to improve anytime soon and ebay/ canada post arent helping much it seems.

Going forward I am going to anticipate that sales will be 25-40% less than normal and act accordingly. I am going to try and get my product in physical stores in Canada when time allows but finding a side hustle/ part time job looks like it will have to be the main priority for now. I initially figured by the end of this year I would be looking at 15-35% less in sales vs last year and if this slow October and recent trump rhetoric are any indicators it will likely be closer to the 35% rather than 15%. Currently sitting at 24% so it has the opportunity to swing in either direction or I guess could flatline at that but if I had to bet it ends up being 30-35% less in sales by the end of the year vs last year and next year could be 10-15% less than this year even. Hope im wrong.

I feel like if CUSMA goes away sales would drop 50-75% and by that point in time this would basically be a side income and id need to seek full time employment elsewhere but hoping it doesnt get to that point.

I am curious to hear how your views/ sales are doing this year vs last year and what you have done about it and what your predictions are?

[mrdutch1001]

I no longer ship to the USA and have not had a sale on eBay since early August...and with over 500 listings in various categories that were listed over the past 2 months, less than 20 views in total...

I had hoped that maybe there would be more potential Canadian buyers, but beginning to believe that was all false hope and I just may decide to let eBay go and concentrate on my other selling site where I do still get Canadian buyers...

[rdemaree]

What other site do you use?

I mostly sell handmade stuff but also sell vintage.

I’ve thought about setting mys stuff up on Etsy as well but unsure if the hassle of porting all my stuff over there and learning a new system will be worth the extra couple of sales I MIGHT get.

My only hope is get my products in ohysical stores in Canada and find a part time job because things are looking grim.

And I sell like 80% CUSMA compliant stuff and everything ships out with 1 day handling time and decent shipping rates via chit chats in Toronto so if I’m struggling I can only imagine people in more remote areas and or who don’t sell CUSMA stuff are being decimated.

[mrdutch1001]

well,  THAT is my other selling site! (E**y)...was a seller there with a couple of shops 2008-2016...and returned there 4 years ago with a new shop, but with some of similar items...Until the tariffs, I was doing well there, considering I do this as a "something to do" and not for needed income...but I refuse to bend to the manipulation, coersion and extortionist ways of a felon, so I no longer ship to the USA. I recently had my first sale in over 2 months on my other selling site, and am hopeful for more Canadian buyers...

[byto253]

Seems like your items would be a good fit with Etsy though.  I know a number of creative folks from familly and friends and they pretty well view eBay as evil and Etsy as good.  Verrrry small sample of course but I get that vide in general in Canada. 

[sapphyres-designer-jewellery]

I'm down 65% in sales (both stores combined, but the Canadian store didn't open until the tariff stuff started in March).

As we move forward in time, I'm watching my 90 day total decrease...

C.

[rdemaree]

Do you think it has more to do with trumps rhetoric and policies or eBay and Canada post not stepping up for small business e commerce sellers?

[sapphyres-designer-jewellery]

---

@rdemaree wrote:
What other site do you use?

I mostly sell handmade stuff but also sell vintage.

I’ve thought about setting mys stuff up on Etsy as well but unsure if the hassle of porting all my stuff over there and learning a new system will be worth the extra couple of sales I MIGHT get.

My only hope is get my products in ohysical stores in Canada and find a part time job because things are looking grim.

And I sell like 80% CUSMA compliant stuff and everything ships out with 1 day handling time and decent shipping rates via chit chats in Toronto so if I’m struggling I can only imagine people in more remote areas and or who don’t sell CUSMA stuff are being decimated.

---

I reopened my Etsy store earlier this year and have had 4 sales in total there (to one buyer in Canada who bought 4 items, same item, just different colours).

Etsy is a little bitter sweet because it's jewellery I made, and I'm now visually impaired (for viewing close up, even with glasses), I have a treasure trove of materials for making stuff, but my vision has declined a lot in the past 5 years, so now I'm just listing and selling what I have. Perhaps if I can get a new pair of glasses they will help me for a while make more stuff.

To do coins and stamps I photograph everything and look at the pictures on a big monitor so I can see the faults and describe stuff accurately. I can't see the coins well enough to grade, even with a magnifier.

C.

[rdemaree]

My main reason for not opening up an Etsy shop is that I started here on eBay and have a following on here and eBay has a wider reach.

Also I’m worried about splitting my customer base up and losing my top rated seller discount.

Basically I’m not 100% sure all of the effort of setting up on Etsy would be worth all of the effort. If I had good reason to think it would boost my income by at least 10-15% I would do it but if it would only net net me a sale or 2 extra per month it wouldn’t be worth it for me.


Porting all of my items onto Etsy would take a lot of effort on my behalf. I did semi try it in early 2020 just before the pandemic broke out and it didn’t make any difference so I stopped it.

Plus Etsy charges to list and renew listings and my items are replenishing items whixh I always make more of so if they sit around too long I get charged.

I might consider maybe selling only my most popular items over there.

[musicyouneed]

I was doing just great until October of 2024, then the PO went on strike and it has been slow ever since but really slow since July.  Sales in the last 31 days is down 88%.

For me #1 was the PO uncertainty since Oct 2024.  Probably I have lost $5,000 or so in sales to date.  

#2 Global economy and uncertainty 

#3 De Minimus removal and US buyers

I've made some sales to both the US and Canada.  For the US, I think the removal of De Minimus has caused most of the slow sales and will continue to.  I think that US buyers will be weary of buying anything from another country other than the US.  My Canadian buyers, I am not sure but I think their financial worries are causing them not to buy as much.  

I took promotion percentage off, am relisting my stock, putting it on sale and when all else fails put the promotion percentage back on. 

I am not sure what the future holds for me or ebay.  Thank goodness I still enjoy it or I would be hooped. 

[flipistics]

@musicyouneed  Honestly, I think the post office uncertainty and strikes have hurt me more than Trump's tarrifs have. It really needs to be resolved.

[byto253]

Makes sense.  I would be very interested to see what the current results would be without the knee capping import charge scare banner that eBay still shows.  Have to think that for made in USA, CUSMA and non-tariff items like media and publications sales would be up a lot.  

I am into vintage audio and am on some boards and tariffs and fees are a topic, and the eBay banner has been mentioned.  Hobbyists have been stung with import fees and blamed eBay for not warning them, which is where I am sure the banner came from.   Preaching to the choir but we know the banner is totally inaccurate and steers buyers away from items, unless they have expensive EIS shipping.   ds

[rdemaree]

Yeah I figure so far this year I have lost at least $3000-5000 that I would normally have made which sucks because this is my only income source and I am already considered lowincome.

When things were normal I made enough to pay my small amount of bills (which I am very strategic about keeping low especially since I live in a very accessible area which allows me to walk most places) and then id make a little extra for fun and to save a little. 

Now im barely able to keep up with bills and have to dip into savings for some months. 

Its a tough spot to be in. I miss sales from 2020-2021. I sold alot back then and I offered maybe 1/3 the amount of products and was much less organized and polished back then. If I could take what I know now and my current product lineup and business model back then I would have made a killing! Unfortunately for me I was just starting to take off back then and wasn't nearly as organized or polished as I am now and now that I am trump is ripping up ecommerce, global trade and small business. Can't win! 

I have noticed a small uptick in Canadian customers this year, nothing towrite home about but I have noticed it. We are much smaller than the USA in terms of population size and we are more spread out too so I didn't expect to see any huge surge in new Canadian customers. 

My customer base has traditionally been roughly like this:

65% - USA

20% - Canada

15% - International

Ideally I would like to get it to something like this:

50% -USA

30% - Canada

20% - International

Thats probably the most realistic approach I can take at least.  If I were to get my product into a Canadian store I could get that Canadian number to 40-50% but that in itself is proving to be a tough challenge as I had a deal lined up with a brick and mortar store and they ghosted me. Huge letdown. Eventually I might try and find another one but there are only so many stores in big cities in Canada my product would fit in.  Might just have to settle for selling online independently and picking up a reliable part time income for when disasters like trump happen. 

[reallynicestamps]

My sales were normal to good until October. 
January to March is normally my strongest selling season, based on over 40 years in retail, online and Real World. 

October had two problems.

One was that I closed almost all my Canadian stamp listings and a lot of my Commonwealth listings while that stock went to an international stamp convention (BritishNorth America Philatelic Society).  It has taken most of the past month to relist these, since I had to check they did not sell at BNAPS.  

And we did very nicely at BNAPS.

More to the point for most sellers, Canada Post was on strike from Sept 29th and is still on rotating strikes. As part of that the discounted eBay/Canada Post labels were not available. *

That made for little incentive to promote or list.

FWIW, rather than going by your feelings about sales, check the Sold Items List at the left side of your Active Listings page. 

I was surprised that I made slightly more sales from Sept 26 to today than I did over the same period in Sept 25- August 25.  And my records show more sales from my hobby-centric site.

Again, I consider April to December to be my off-season.

*Note that even though eBay had closed those on this site, Canada Post was  still selling labels. They were slightly more expensive and definitely less easy, but they were and are available. 

[rdemaree]

October- January is usually my best time of year with February - May (and September) being my worst and June - August being somewhere in the middle.

In theory I should be going into my busiest time of year. If it doesnt hit by mid November i'll know what to expect for the holiday season and more importantly what to expect for next year.

All of this back and forth and policy changes is really hard to keep up with tho. 

I have no interest in using Canada Post for USA until both:

1. Canada Post can handle formal entries going into the USA to accomadate for CUSMA items going duty free.

2. Ebay offers discounted labels for those listings.

If that doesnt happen I wont use Canada Post for USA. Simple as that.

If Canada Post/ Ebay can get a system setup like I mentioned above I can go back to offering simplified calculate rates for my customers again which right now I only offer calculated to Canadian customers and am FORCED to offer Flat to both USA and International ( I know ebay counts USA as international but it really shouldnt). The USA should be counted as its own separate thing, which is how all shipping carriers treat it anyways already.

If ebay would solit selling into 3 regions Canada (domestic), USA, International I would offer calculated for Canada and International and offer flat rate to keep up with whatever the orange dictators policies currently are and what my 3rd party shipping companies are offering. No sense in having to offer flat rate shipping for all countries because 1 country is spoiling evertything.

In an ideal world once the dust settles Ebay/ Canada Post offers discounted label to sellers which are capable of accomadating CUSMA shipments and Ebay treats USA as separate from international and CUSMA continues as is or is very marginally modified and perhaps maybe some sort of lower new de minimis for the USA is set. Ideally I want to have chitchats and other 3rd party shippers as backup for when Canada Post goes on strike but ideally I want to go back to how things were where I was able to use discounted Canada Post labels with calculated rates for ALL countries and I only had to go to 1 post office.

^^^I know thats all a very tall order but hopefully at least part of it comes to fruition for the sake of small business ecommerce in Canada's future. 

[brocante6]

There is no more blue banner!

[byto253]

The banner only goes away if you are shipping with EIS.  Otherwise it is there.  So your choice is inflated EIS shipping costs that make you uncomptetitive for most items, or the banner that falsely says ALL shipments will have import fees.   Crippling for sales in either instance. 

Image 1 is a listing with Canada Post shipping, and the banner is there.  Image 2 is with EIS and no banner but double the shipping cost.

 

 

Anyway, just wanted to address the banner confusion, not derail the thread!

[rdemaree]

The blue banner only goes away if you use the EIS program which is actually worse than the blue banner itself.

Yes the blue banner is annoying but its basically just an ad filled with false information on the behalf of ebay and doesnt effect the purchase at all.

The EIS on the other hand is doubling and tripling fees for the buyer.

Neither the EIS nor the blue banner are good for Canadian sellers.

We need a real alternative. If we cant use Canada post without getting hit with 35% tariffs we need a real option. 

Even if you choose UPS and prepay the tariffs ebay still shows the blue banner.

There is almost no winning for sellers who sell on ebay and do it seriously and not as a pastime. 

The only people the EIS helps are people who live out of range of 3rd party shippers and only intend on selling as a very casual hobby OR people selling impossible to find items that people will pay anything for. Neither of those descriptions describes the average serious seller on ebay. We are being kneecapped in all directions.

BTW- I just checked one of your listings of a soup platter and toureen worth $50 using the EIS and the shipping + import fee to the USA is a combined cost of more than $200! That is absolute insanity. If I was you id hunt down a 3rd party shipper if possible and get a better rate. Sure the blue banner would come back but theres no way in hell a buyer wants to pay 200 on a 50 item.

Good luck to you tho

[byto253]

"The only people the EIS helps are people who live out of range of 3rd party shippers and only intend on selling as a very casual hobby OR people selling impossible to find items that people will pay anything for. Neither of those descriptions describes the average serious seller on ebay. We are being kneecapped in all directions."  

.. and eBay.. the margins on EIS must be nice and juicy.   

[rdemaree]

are there any tariff warnings or banners on etsy? I am seriously thinking about uploading some of my more popular products on there for a trial run since we are moving into the holiday season.