eBay

store-of-ages · ‎08-10-2021

Our sales have dramatically dropped for this month. Is anyone experienced this too? Actually sales started dropping sjnce "Managed Payments" started. We have over 500 listing and no bites.

t_bjarnason · ‎08-10-2021

There has been a noticeable slowdown recently, and from what others have said in other threads, it seems to be due to two reasons:

Summer time slowdown - sales always drop durring summer months when people are away on holidays and not spending as much time online, and
Pandemic restrictions are lifting, people are returning to work, government financial aid is ending so people are spending less time online and possibly have less disposable income for shopping. It's not like living has gotten any cheaper since the start of the pandemic!

Lastly, make sure you keep an eye on your defect rates in Seller Hub, including late deliveries, as this can possibly impact you listing visibility. If your defects are low or non-existent, then it's probably one of the points mentioned above.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎08-10-2021

@t_bjarnason wrote:
There has been a noticeable slowdown recently, and from what others have said in other threads, it seems to be due to two reasons:

Summer time slowdown - sales always drop durring summer months when people are away on holidays and not spending as much time online, and
Pandemic restrictions are lifting, people are returning to work, government financial aid is ending so people are spending less time online and possibly have less disposable income for shopping. It's not like living has gotten any cheaper since the start of the pandemic!
Lastly, make sure you keep an eye on your defect rates in Seller Hub, including late deliveries, as this can possibly impact you listing visibility. If your defects are low or non-existent, then it's probably one of the points mentioned above.

4 more for the collection:

Sellers no longer purchasing as much because of funds no longer in PayPal. From past experience many of my items sold were purchased by other sellers.
How search is or isn't working like how it used to.
River Prime!!!
Buyers being unable to complete purchases with some sellers for unknown reasons - Un documentable entity but likely a factor.

-Lotz

femmefan1946 · ‎08-10-2021

Since 2020 was a weird year, and since retail goes in waves, compare your sales not to last month or even last year, but to 2019 and 2018 during the same months.

Over four selling accounts, I have had poor sales on one, normal sales on two, and an employee runs the fourth and hasn't done his quarterly report yet.

dinomitesales · ‎08-11-2021

I took a quick look at what you sell and the first thing that jumped out to me was your high shipping costs.

Take this $35 charm for example: It's telling me that shipping is $25.14 to send it to me here in Winnipeg. First of all, it's your choice if you DON'T want to send this by Lettermail (I understand many are hesitant to do so due to the lack of tracking), but just remain cognizant that many of your competitors ARE willing to ship things like this via Lettermail ($1.94) and are able to be $20+ more competitive in price compared to you. If you require tracking/insurance then you could simply send this item as a Registered Letter which would cost you $11.69 before taxes. To make the listing even more enticing for Canadian buyers, and since it's the same price to ship by Lettermail/Registered to any destination in Canada (i.e. a flat rate) you may consider just working that flat rate cost into your purchase price and offering Free Shipping.

If you're still hesitant to do any of these suggestions I still struggle with your $25.14 shipping price. I see you're in a rural location, and understand that that means your shipping costs would be higher than others, but $25.14 is exceptionally high considering Canada Post sells a Flat Rate Box that will go anywhere in the country for $18.49. Is it possible that your numbers are off on Calculated Shipping?

It also doesn't seem like you have shipping costs specified for any location outside of Canada. On that same charm listing I tried changing my location to several different countries on the "Shipping" tab (including the US) and it's telling me I need to contact you in order to get a shipping cost. This will immediately turn off any interested international buyers because they need to go through the added step of contacting you (and waiting for a response) just to see how much it will cost to have the item shipped to them.

femmefan1946 · ‎08-11-2021

While I remain doubtful about the usefulness to eBay Sellers of domestic Registered Mail, I'm glad you mentioned the Regional and National Shipping boxes.

Those can be purchased online from Canada Post

https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/personal/sending/parcels/flat-rate-box.page?

esclyons · ‎08-11-2021

yes, your shipping charges are unusally high.. You may want to add a few bucks to your asking prices, and lower your shipping charge.. many of your items, the shipping is way higher than the cost of the item..

That in itself will scare most potential buyers..

intimewithmusic · ‎08-11-2021

Yes to all of the sellers who have answered you. In summary:

1. It's not just the summer it's also that due to the pandemic there are more sellers than last year (IE: more competition). Most of them are having sales 10 to 40% off to push stuff out the door and sending offers to watchers etc. If you haven't tried sendong out private offers give it a go. I just sold an Everly Brothers shirt today from a sent offer to a watcher.

2. You probably sell to the USA where they enjoy cheap cheap domestic freight. This Hot Wheels item in your store can ship anywhere in the continental US with tracking for about $20. esclyons is right. The seller in the USA can ship it anywhere in the US for about $6. When I checked your charges they were $40 Shipping.

3. Have you looked at the other selling platforms? I won't put names to them here but there are more this year and most of them seem to be growing. More competion.

4. One last thing no one has mentioned.

I recommend being careful about "No Returns". Don't use that policy if you don't have to. I do that too on a lot of certain items like a cymbal that can crack by an inexperienced drummer or be used for a studio session and then returned. You don't need it on low cost items (under $30 or $40) and even some higher value ones. Most people won't return those things because they have to pay return shipping. The fact they could return it is a big feature. Allowing 30 Day returns as much as possible adds a competitive edge over another Seller with same price/shipping but who has No Returns. I think you have to offer returns on most clothing to compete. Clothes that you sell are selling well at this time of year. You may want to compare with the return policy and shipping charges of your competitors.

Most of us are slow. Put the time to good use by implementing what the others have noticed.

Best wishes!

ITWM

@store-of-ages wrote:
Our sales have dramatically dropped for this month. Is anyone experienced this too? Actually sales started dropping sjnce "Managed Payments" started. We have over 500 listing and no bites.

intimewithmusic · ‎08-11-2021

PS. Tracked Packet to the USA (Under 2 KG) is much cheaper and usually faster than Expedited parcel USA.

rocketscollectibles · ‎08-11-2021

While I remain doubtful about the usefulness to eBay Sellers of domestic Registered Mail

tyler@ebay wrote:
A shipment needs to have an electronic tracking number (meaning I could look it up on a carrier's website and it would show transit events as well as an attempt of or actual delivery). An electronic tracking number should also be able to display the date of attempted or actual delivery, the city and postcode of the attempted or actual delivery, and also provide signature confirmation if it meets the required 750CAD threshold.

As long as the registered mail service meets those requirements you should be fine!

Canada post registered mail page:

Track: You can track mail in Canada using the unique tracking number

Signature: Available for Registered Mail sent in Canada and by Xpresspost –USA

I can't help for the main subject of the post, but as a part of all the confusion recently about registered mail, people need to stop providing false information and creating confusion about it. Literally everything seems to point in the direction that registered mail is legit to use on ebay, we even had sellers using it who shared that they won disputes with it. Not to be rude but people needs to stop spitting on that service for obscure reasons, while it seems to be the best tracking option domestically for lettermail size packages. I've been confused a lot recently by comments like this, sorry if it triggers me

I don't understand there's like propaganda against registered mail on the net. It's tracked, you got signature, insurance and it's 3-11$ cheaper than regular/expedited parcel, with a flat cost, seems to be 100% the best option

ilikehockeyjerseys · ‎08-12-2021

A lot of sellers on multiple platforms seem to be reporting slow sales this summer.

It is difficult for me to tell how my sales are going, because COVID creates so many unique factors. One big factor for me is that most of my inventory sourcing is not possible when there are lockdowns. If there is a 6-8 week lockdown, after I burn through any items in my backlog to list, I do not have as much new inventory to replenish what sells.

The implication being, while my sales are up this month, I am listing more items than I was when I was locked down. So I am getting a boost that wasn't there. I find sales are very inconsistent. Let's say a seller averages 15 sales a day, what I find is that instead of 12 one day, 16 the next, 14 the next, etc - it seems to be more like 25 one day, 4 the next, 5 the next, 18 the next, etc.

I don't think your sale numbers look that bad. eBay is a numbers game. You need high volume to increase sales. It looks like you have sold a bit less than 10 percent of all items you have listed in the last 90 days, which is pretty good.

The only way to increase sales is to add value either by lowering prices or improving your listings. Ways anyone can improve their listings are better photos (square aspect ratio, good lighting, solid color backdrop), better titles (with words people are likely to search related to the item), and better shipping policies (free shipping worked into a higher BIN price, rather than charging high shipping amounts).

In short, there have been multiple threads like this over the last few months, so I don't think it is just you. But it is a good opportunity to try and find ways to improve your listings with the aim of delivering the most value possible to increase sales.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎08-12-2021

edited

intimewithmusic · ‎08-12-2021

After reading the good suggestions from ilikehockeyjerseys

I took a look at your title which can be seen below in message #6 and compared it with the one attached herein. I get that this one isn't the exact same as yours but it does illustrate the changes needed. Many are unaware that putting ANY sort of punctuation or symbols other than words IN A TITLE will drop your title down in search results on Ebay but especially on GOOGLE search. Caps are OK for emphasis. I recommend you compare the title and other parameters on this listing from your competitor with yours and get rid of the non script in yours. It should be also noted this seller has sold 2 already and has 5 available. Unless your listing is changed it's highly unlikely yours will sell until all 5 have been sold by "keengatoys".

All the best!

IT

feedbacks

intimewithmusic · ‎08-12-2021

Hey Lotz, I can't see anything in your message attached above. Using the white font again? Just kidding.

I have a question. When you quote another contributor's user name do you simply copy and paste the name from the top of their msg into your message? When I try that I get html error messages.

If anyone can let me know it would be great.

Thanks

ITWM

dinomitesales · ‎08-12-2021

@femmefan1946 @rocketscollectibles

Tyler confirmed in the recent weekly chat that domestic Registered Lettermail is perfectly acceptable proof in the event of "Item Not Received" claims, as the electronic tracking provided by Canada Post is the same as that for any parcel services.

Also to @femmefan1946 , a point of clarification: unlike the Xpresspost and Priority flat-rate envelopes, the flat-rate boxes do not have a discounted "Regional" option - it's just a flat-rate "National" price anywhere in the country.

vig1lant3 · ‎08-13-2021

There is another reason. Resistance to Managed Payments. Take me for instance, I spent multiple tens of thousands of dollars on eBay with hundreds of sellers over the course of a decade+ because it's where I also sold casually every now and then. But, there's no way I'm giving eBay access to my personal bank accounts, and since I'm not a volume seller it's not worth my time to have to maintain separate accounts just to accommodate greedy management decisions. Since I can no longer sell on eBay, I will no longer buy on the site either. It's not the community I joined anymore. While it's unfortunate since that's where I used to buy everything (especially when eBay bucks were still around), there are many alternatives these days, and I refuse to be handcuffed or inconvenienced by bad management. Life is too short.

Now, I'm a marketing guy. Part of courting consumers is making them a part of the e-commerce ecosystem. Amazon does this by packaging a number of perks with Prime memberships. Folks may watch Prime video, read free books, and everybody loves 2-day shipping, right? Well, eBay is doing the exact opposite of that these days. By erecting barriers for casual sellers like Managed Payments and the headaches that come along with it, and getting rid of perks like eBay bucks, they've basically driven away potential buyers as well. The quarterly earnings report indicated a decline in active buyers, not just in revenue. Summertime and the lifting of pandemic restrictions haven't changed my shopping habits at all, nor the amount of money I spend monthly. EBay simply changed where I spend it. Since Managed Payments went into effect, I've spent about $6k on computer hardware. All of that is money that would have been spent with eBay sellers previously, but these days it goes to Newegg, Amazon, and Best Buy instead because I am also a member of those e-commerce ecosystems as well, and they are not actively disincentivizing me from spending money with them.

To be clear, I'm not posting this just to rant. I'm hoping that as time goes on, and volume sellers see that the decline in active buyers isn't a seasonal fluke, but one caused by bad executive decisions, more complaints will be registered with management by members. Unpopular changes made to the community to chase revenue or increase margins may be popular with stockholders in the short term, but eroding the consumer base is not a winning long-term strategy. Based on historical precedent mapped by any number of failed businesses over the past century, it's oftentimes the beginning of a death spiral that ends in bankruptcy and irrelevance.

marnotom! · ‎08-13-2021

You make some interesting points, but I fail to grasp how Managed Payments would have an effect on buyer behaviour. Buyers don’t have to provide eBay their bank account information.

ricarmic · ‎08-13-2021

I think vigilant's main point was that there might be enough sellers who aren't buying now because they don't have the separated funds to be noticedable.... ie there are a lot of buyers who are buyers because they are sellers here....