Slow Sales

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

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.

[pjcdn2005]

As long as I have been selling people have been saying that eBay hasn’t for small sellers any more yet here we are.  

I agree that the constant changes on eBay are frustrating and a deterrent at times to both buyers and seller. However, I don’t think that a seller can expect to have the same number of sales on any site if they are not keeping up with trends in prices, listing styles, inventory etc etc.   There are a lot of factors that change in any sort of retail business and something that worked 5 or even 2 years ago isn’t necessarily going to work today.

[ricarmic]

That is interesting.

As a seller, AZ is of no use to me, no stamps in AZland.

eBay is a much different scenario. eBay "owned" stuff isn't competing against "others owned" stuff as happens on AZ.

It would require a very significant selling model change for eBay to accomplish that, and it would be detrimental to a number of categories they have that AZ doesn't.

So far I see no reason to put this on my "worry about list"

Some of us in stampland experienced a delayed payment system (during the SG online era). It was annoying but survivable, simply required extra cash flow planning, which really everyone large or small should be doing to some extent anyway.

[valuestore]

So many other factors working against Canadian sellers, I think thats why there are so few of us left. 

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

I think you misunderstood my message. I was not talking about sellers Starting to list their items on Mar. 18th but those listings that were Ending on that date & every day after.  Many sellers would have held back relisting right away & pick & choose which items they would relist.  But now as soon as their listings Ended eBay would have rolled them over into GTC whether they wanted to or not.  So daily the market is flooded with more items.

[ypdc_dennis]

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@2nd-time-around-jewelry wrote:

... I was not talking about sellers Starting to list their items on Mar. 18th but those listings that were Ending on that date & every day after.  Many sellers would have held back relisting right away & pick & choose which items they would relist.  But now as soon as their listings Ended eBay would have rolled them over into GTC whether they wanted to or not. 

Non-GTC listings do not automatically roll over. Any 5/7/10/30 day listing ends -- full stop.

Relisting (on .com for now) by the Seller is required to start them on the GTC path.

As for slow sales -- all of my online venues (not just ebay) have been dead slow the last few weeks.

-..-

[pjcdn2005]

As ypdc Dennis explained, listings that were not previously gtc did not automatically  relist.

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

Update: Have had 4 small sales now since April 1st. They don't cover my store subscription or fees this month at all.  Have one more week left in this month to hopefully salvage things. It has never been this slow in years for me. Many contributing factors probably involved in this. And yes I still believe the GTC fiasco has a bearing. I feel sorry for the small US sellers. Sounds like a nightmare for most of them.

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

Forgot to also add that most sellers are also buyers but with no sales, many of us are also not buying. So one thing affects another.

[femmefan1946]

I see that claim a lot.

And it's probably true that sellers are also buyers. I mean, we're here already and know how the site really works.

But.

https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/03/ebay-statistics-march-2018.html

According to this article, were about 25 million sellers, worldwide, on eBay in 2017 and 168 million buyers.

That's a pretty big gap.

FWIW - the article also says about 68% of users are over 35.

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

I posted this about a month ago. And sadly there has not been much improvement in sales. Seriously considering downgrading my store.  I did not sign up to just pay for the monthly fees but to make a profit by selling. For whatever reasons many sellers are seeing no profit in the last few months. I know some sellers are doing fine especially those selling collectibles like stamps & coins. They have a constant market base. But a lot of us are struggling.

[esclyons]

i am in coins, and have seen quite a drop in sales for the last 2 months, they haven't died, just dropped almost 40% year over year.. and 30% month over month.  So something is going on, either people are slowing their buying, or people are buying from someone/somewhere else..

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@2nd-time-around-jewelry 

Regarding downgrading a store:

There can be fees/penalities for downgrading a store unless you have to be able to do that at the end of your 1 year contract. So may be a case or oopsie if you and oopsie if you don't. 

Part 4:

https://pages.ebay.ca/stores/subscriptionterms.html#termination

Early termination fee

• If you cancel your yearly subscription before the last calendar month of your subscription, you're charged an early termination fee.
• If you cancel your yearly subscription during the last month of your subscription you're not charged an early termination fee.
• There's no early termination fee for canceling a monthly subscription.
• The early termination fee rates are calculated by dividing the (i) the product of (a) remaining months left in the subscription and (b) applicable monthly subscription fee by (ii) 3. Based on the above formula, the fee structure would be as follows:

-Lotz

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

I have never had a yearly subscription. I have always paid monthly. That way if I had to cancel because of family & health issues I am dealing with, I could do it without penalty.