eBay

2nd-time-around-jewelry · ‎04-08-2019

I have not had a sale in April except for one cancellation sale. Do you think the forced GTC listings could be having an impact on slow sales? The market is being flooded constantly with listings now. Before sellers decided which items to relist or which to just keep on hold for another time. Someone on the US boards suggested that GTC could be contributing to slow sales & it makes sense to me.

great_junque_finds · ‎04-08-2019

GTC has only been mandatory in US since March 18th. Most "forced" GTC haven't even started to rollover yet and I doubt buyers have noticed any changes.

I have noticed ebay has been a total pig to work with the last week or so while trying to do listings etc. Photos not loading, pages not loading, timeouts when submitting etc etc. If it's this bad for a seller, imagine what it's like for a buyer. Plus the continued issues with buyers not being able to checkout with an ebay gift card.

Sellers hang in there and battle through it to get listings done etc. Buyers? Not so much.

femmefan1946 · ‎04-08-2019

April is income tax month in Canada and the USA.

We might see a bump when refund cheques arrive, but the US buyers seem to be getting less than their president promised.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎04-08-2019

January was slow. February not bad. March slow. Slow so far in April. The new pattern if its a pattern is a spike in orders at the beginning and end of the month. Veryyyy slow in the middle.

-Lotz

cumos55 · ‎04-08-2019

March 31 is tax due in the US

April 30 is tax due in Canada.

The weather is very good and people are getting ready for the summer and spending more time... outside... also saving for vacation time....

No more winter.... spring is here..... Summer soon

ypdc_dennis · ‎04-08-2019

@cumos55 wrote:
~~March 31~~ is tax due in the US
April 30 is tax due in Canada.

IRS tax deadline for Americans is APRIL 15

cumos55 · ‎04-08-2019

Live and Learn.....

goldnideas · ‎04-08-2019

Super slow, on Sale page by ebay statistics 47% lower -Compared to prior period.

femmefan1946 · ‎04-09-2019

Because sales go in cycles, it is not really useful to compare your monthly sales to the previous month.

Compare instead to the same month last year, and in 2017 then in 2016.

2nd-time-around-jewelry · ‎04-09-2019

Actually there will be daily rollovers for everyone in the US whose listings ended on March 18th & every day after that. So there will be more listings flooding the market each day from now on.

valuestore · ‎04-09-2019

@2nd-time-around-jewelry wrote:
Actually there will be daily rollovers for everyone in the US whose listings ended on March 18th & every day after that. So there will be more listings flooding the market each day from now on.

But at least in theory all those fp listing are rolling over from a higher visibility 3,5,7,10,30 day FP to lower visibility positions of GTC. A 3 day FP listing for example, assuming a seller was continuously relisting every 3 days, that seller was getting a new listing visibility boost every 3 days (10x per month), and an ending soon visibility boost every 3 days (10x per month) for a total of 20x. . Now they have 1 time in 1 time out for a total of 2 per month... ide think this would be good news for existing GTC and 30 day sellers...my sales are saying otherwise at the moment, wait and see how it all plays out..

reallynicestamps · ‎04-09-2019

@valuestore

and an ending soon visibility boost every 3 days (10x per month) for a total of 20x. . Now they have 1 time in 1 time out for a total of 2 per month...

No-- GTC lisitings don't get the Newly Listed bump.

Sellers can end GTC listings any time, and then relist as Sell Similar.

If they do they miss the About toClose bump and because the listing number changes, also miss on the (possible/promised) Google placement.

I suspect sellers will be depending more on keywords in titles as time goes on.

katlover1952 · ‎04-10-2019

I find that my sales on eBay seems to go in spurts. No sales for a week or more then 4 or 5 all within a couple of days. To be honest I have found it rather slow since just prior to the rotating postal strikes. I did not close my store but only kept it open with about 100 items or so; ones where you could justify the cost of tracked shipping. I just had 6 sales this week so am hoping April will be good but you never know. I use promoted listing pretty much all the time too. If anyone knows the secret to increasing your sales on eBay I would love to hear it.

2nd-time-around-jewelry · ‎04-10-2019

I agree that sales go in spurts. But I have never had 10+ days go by without a sale. I have over 1300 items listed, so this is not at all normal. I had one cancellation, one question about an item & someone in Hong Kong who has a forwarding address in the US wondering where their parcel is after only 7 business days. So nothing looks promising. I still believe the GTC listings are having an impact on sales. Too many items flooding the market, too many choices for buyers & no urgency to buy. Also this is income tax season, so that could be a factor too.

ricarmic · ‎04-10-2019

I've mentioned this in other threads, so you may have been subjected to this before, but I'll put in here incase....

When my sales slow, I:

-check my competitors to see if they're selling similar stuff

-check similar stuff to see if it is selling

-check the categories to see if stuff is selling

-check how my competitors are selling stuff, what's different from me

-try to figure out how I can make myself different, more visible to buyers

I try experiments like:

-using promoted listings

-using sales

-using auctions

-varying timing of auctions etc

-varying style of lising items

-varying days, quantities of new items listed

The last time this happened to me last year, I experimented until I found a system that works, and it is almost working too well, I can hardly keep up (it is just me).

Having said this, it will eventually stop working because:

-other things change

-competitors figure out what I'm doing and emulate it

-buyer habits change

-ebay changes (things like search algorithm etc)

And then I repeat the process in the hopes of figuring out something that works for a while again.....

2nd-time-around-jewelry · ‎04-10-2019

Thanks. Yes, very good suggestions but you are a big time seller, with an established selling base of customers & probably do this for a living. I am just a lowly seller with lots of extra obligations. I just don't have the time & energy to put any more effort into my sales. I have a full time job of looking after my elderly parents as we live with them. Having a store on eBay is something I can do in my spare time at home while still looking after them. I am used to just listing my items for sale & shipping them when they sell. I already put too much time into my store without getting back the results. Anyways we will see if things pick up or not.

2nd-time-around-jewelry · ‎04-12-2019

Correction! Not Slow Sales But No Sales!

rose-dee · ‎04-12-2019

@2nd-time-around-jewelry wrote:
Thanks. Yes, very good suggestions but you are a big time seller, with an established selling base of customers & probably do this for a living. I am just a lowly seller with lots of extra obligations. I just don't have the time & energy to put any more effort into my sales. I have a full time job of looking after my elderly parents as we live with them. Having a store on eBay is something I can do in my spare time at home while still looking after them. I am used to just listing my items for sale & shipping them when they sell. I already put too much time into my store without getting back the results. Anyways we will see if things pick up or not.

Yes, I think this is a huge part of the problem for the small eBay seller. The amount of time and effort required to "feed the monster" constantly (not to mention keeping up with ever-changing eBay policy), in order to maintain any sort of steady level of sales is completely disproportionate to the return. That is, unless you have a high number of listings, high enough volume and enough time in your day to devote to it almost exclusively (or can pay employees to do it for you).

Simply put, I don't believe eBay is set up anymore to facilitate small-scale selling, particularly in its original "traditional" categories. They now like big sellers, big discounts, free shipping, preferably on mass-market products. Just wait until they change their payment system so that you no longer have direct access to your sales proceeds (coming soon as I understand it). Then you'll be waiting even longer to see the fruits of your labour.

pjcdn2005 · ‎04-12-2019

Gtc started on March 18 on .com so anyone lIsting on that day or later has not yet had their listing renew as a gtc listing so the number of listings on site has not been affected. Unless you normally list for less than 30 days at a time I don’t see how gtc would have affected sales st this point.