Are anyone else's sales abysmal?

[tryubik-useonlyasdirected]

Just a quick question - are anyone else's sales abysmal? - I used to sell 5-10 things a week, not much but the items can be higher priced so that helped. I've sold one thing in 12 days... this is not the first time this year that's occured. I get fresh lots up regularly at reasonable prices, all are unique pieces of art - accessible quality and clean. Is eBay dead? Or have I been blackballed somehow? This is my living and with accessibility issues sales are extra important. There are always sales just prior to the monthly store renewal which doesn't help aleve any suspicions.

[electronicifycanada]

Yes eBay has been slowly dying for years and few will admit it. I don't believe it was the pandemic rush that made sales seem slow now. I was selling before the pandemic and I had half the amount of listings and sold triple what I'm selling now.

Every update eBay has done over the past 4 years has resulted in less and less sales. 

[mrdutch1001]

Am not even a small volume seller, but moreso an ooccasional/infrequent hobby seller with a sale here and there....and I don't find my sales on eBay to be any more different and/or any worse/any less than on my other 2 sites...my sales on Etsy are comparable to those on eBay....

[femmefan1946]

It helps to know what you are comparing.

In my opinion, there is no point in comparing to August/September 2020 or 2021, because there was a pandemic surge in online buying then.

Which stopped dead in January 2022-- and that's "online" not just eBay.

AZ returned to their normal profit-free state in Q1 of 2022, and also lost Two Billion dollars in Q2.  AZ does not pay dividends, shareholders must sell shares to see any income and the shares dropped in value.

EBay lost Six Million in revenue, but still paid out $129 million in dividends to shareholders.

We should be looking at 2019 and 2018 for comps. Using 2020 or 2021 must keep the surge in mind.

Which doesn't help anyone who started selling during the early days of the pandemic, which is after all still with us.

[tryubik-useonlyasdirected]

@femmefan1946 ah yes, you do always keep abreast of the business side - good to know! Maybe if they eased up a bit and allowed us to sell more (algorithmically), they'd make more. We experience the typical seasonal waxes and wanes but while we haven't done an analysis it feels unseasonal, unprecedented even. They have really nerfed things around here too. Is there no way to reply to the group rather than just individual comments? And the tiny little Comment boxes? It is very difficult to reply.

[keithsa41]

This is an ongoing theme with ebay.  Sales are tanking.   Many of the vintage, collectable sellers have left this platform many moons ago. I myself have greatly difersafied to other platforms and my own which is necesary for survival and growth onto other platforms.  

It seems the suits here have no idea how to bring back sellers. At one point, ebay was a treasure chest of collectable items buyers were looking for, now it's generic  stuff no one really wants.  Ebay has reported in the Quarterly reports that active buyers have left this platorm. It's a simply equation if you have sellers gone, buyers will leave as well. 

The question is how ebay is going to address this issue. 

[femmefan1946]

Is there no way to reply to the group rather than just individual comments? And the tiny little Comment boxes? It is very difficult to reply.

Just use the REPLY button on the first post. And, as you already know, the "@" to signal the poster you are responding to.

The Comments are a problem.

[flipistics]

My sales over the early summer were terrible, but August was actually pretty good. The first two weeks in September have seen a big bump in both my stores (minus the last two days, which have been slow). If you're selling a large variety of things, you probably won't notice too many slowdowns. If you're fairly specialized, you'll have a lot of peaks and valleys imo.

[lady.stark]

It's been like that for more than a year for me. Sales a few and far between.

[tryubik-useonlyasdirected]

@mrdutch1001 we would agree, having always charged sales tax it seems to have had a negligible effect, and as it applies largely across the board whether folks purchase online and or offline its basically par for the course from what we can tell.

@3islanders I'm inclined to say postage rates are an issue because we can feel them within our costs of doing business. However, if they are built into the cost of the item and are either stated as "Free Shipping" or with a nominal shipping cost (the rest built into the COGS) we still don't see a difference in sales, in fact when we offer "Free Shipping" our sales tend to decrease. It doesn't make any sense and may not be related but its a statistic.

IMHO, with supporting data, there is something else going on with sales not related to tax or shipping costs.

[3islanders]

I can't see any listings for you, active or completed.

I am not a frequent seller, but for my current round of abysmal-sale nonsense, I'm blaming eBay's sales-tax grab, as 3 of 5 sellers either asked to cancel or just didn't pay because they didn't want to pay sales tax.

I've always thought Canada Post's rates killed sales, and when you add sales tax, it makes everything that much more expensive.

[mrdutch1001]

I am not of the belief that the implementation of Canadian taxation has all that much to do with less sales/no sales,etc in any long term capacity. Amazon implemented the taxation over a year ago and that never stopped me from purchasing nor did it stop many others I am sure. When most of the the USA States implemented their online "internet" taxation, that did not deter the buyers, I was still getting sales from the USA. I sell on another site where the Canadian taxation was just implemeted and I still have sales to Canadian buyers. I am not saying there wasn't/won't be an initial impact for some sellers, depending on what they sell, but buyers get over it...buyers are still out there...it just may be buyers are having to make choices WHERE they spend their money.

and BTW, this is NOT a " sales grab" by eBay...this is NOT unique to eBay...this DOES encompass other online selling sites...this is NOT about eBay This just happens to be Canadian LAW and eBay is required to abide.

[ericsells75]

I should mention I’ve tried a number of things - increasing promotion rate, offering shipping discounts, blanket 15% off but none of it has had any real impact.

Buyers being charged tax certainly hasn’t helped either.

[tryubik-useonlyasdirected]

@ericsells75 Same here, we've even tried raising prices (which counterintuitively used to work in the beforetimes); however, my sales seem to be predicated on a completely different configuration. We've always charged tax so have not likely experienced any change there. The first difference noticed was with the new managed system and being forced to sell from ebay.ca. In the past we had a PO Box in the states and used eBay.com --> How exactly does selling on eBay.com work these days w/ managed payments? Is it different? <-- Does anyone Etsy? Is it different over there? Thinking of trying them again on the side.

[ericsells75]

I sell 1 very specific product on Etsy that is considered homemade. My sales there have been steady. My eBay inventory would likely do just as poorly on Etsy as they have been on eBay. So at the end of the day what you are selling does matter but I consider the two platforms to have very different audiences

[lady.stark]

@tryubik-useonlyasdirectedI'm selling under this ID since 2011 and the first years were really cool for the small hobby seller that I am. The first time I noticed my sales going down was the change from US$ to C$ only. My sales have been going down since then. You can still list on .com by the way. The only thing is that you have to charge fixed shipping costs and that USA is "local". I do list a few items on .com, and when I make a sale, eBay converts the US$ into C$ and then deposit the result in my bank account (because I chose C$ as my prefered currency - you can't have both unfortunately and can't change it).

[tryubik-useonlyasdirected]

@lady.stark Where do find how many listings we can sell, that are included with subcription, on ie. .com for a store subscriber?

[lady.stark]

@tryubik-useonlyasdirected You need to log into ebay.com and you will find it in the "Promotional offers" section of the Seller HUB.

[reallynicestamps]

in fact when we offer "Free Shipping" our sales tend to decrease.

At a guess, the decrease may be from the apparently higher cost of the item conpared to sellers who split out the shipping.

Which is higher  $10 with $5 shipping or $15 with Free Shipping?

While most buyers love Free Shipping others will be turned off by the  higher asking price.

I've seen sellers put FREE SHIPPING in their titles, but that could lead to misunderstanding with foreign customers.

[ericsells75]

I had a small flurry of sales a week or so ago but for the most part this year starting in March has been non existent. Ridiculous shipping prices, slowdown from covid, inflation, etc… I guess but yeah abysmal.