Christmas Sales Completely Dead **December 2024** ‌

[theglo-68]

This is perhaps first Christmas where we are hitting flat zero sales with over 100 Listings.

What has gone wrong to this once wonderful ebay where we used to get many sales starting November December . Last year 2023 was okay but not great. This year we are on flat zero even weekends are dead.

Has anyone else noticed same issue. What do you think has gone wrong. People are still buying stuff other platforms amazon, tiktok but nothing on ebay.

Please share your ideas.

[the-nutwood-collection]

If you don't promote, my guess is that they're not being seen by buyers.  I don't promote, and my listings are invisible.

At one time, they were hot sellers.  Not any more.

Like you, I've delisted loads of stuff.  No point in it being there.  Less choice on eBay = less buyers making eBay their first port of call - but eBay don't seem to understand this.

[bittyboy101]

Even when I paid to promote some of my listings they still stayed on ZERO VIEWS !

I believe eBay are not indexing ALL listings on their site.

They are flooded with millions of listings and simply do not have enough manpower and a big enough server to cope with the demand of the 2020's...  Hence only a small percentage of listings are being fully indexed and shown in the Cassini manipulated searches... Cassini only shows the expensive USA stuff and cheap knock-off Chinese junk and hides all the reasonable local UK sellers genuine stuff...  

[ginapeet]

Same here in u.s.im a 20 yr seller and third of my listings dont get views.i called ebay.after i call,sale.so it is your acct.do chat,say agent,get someone to call you.im up to 3 calls a week.they still wont fix my acct.good luck

[handscartridges]

This has been our worse December / Period over Christmas I have ever had - last year was bad in same period but htis year has been so much worse.  Sales have ticked over ok on other Sales Channels.

[bittyboy101]

With the last quarter of the year 2024 eBay sales being so poor, It looks like all the recent changes eBay have been making have now had a bad side effect...

If only they had, had the common sense to leave everything alone and the way it was since 1995 when eBay first started and was in it's prime... sales on eBay would have still been booming today...

Unfortunately, the people who own and manage eBay always think they know best... clearly this isn't the case... 

[1956glyn]

The last few weeks on Ebay have been very good for us.    Items listed over the Christmas period have been dire.

I am now convinced that it cannot be blamed on the cost of living crisis.    We have just come back from the NEXT sale.   The place was absolutely heaving and the queue to pay snaked all around the store !     It took us an hour to pay waiting in the queue !    Saying that we did have loads of bargains.   On average i would say people were purchasing  at least 20 plus items

[bittyboy101]

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@1956glyn wrote:

The last few weeks on Ebay have been very good for us.    Items listed over the Christmas period have been dire.

I am now convinced that it cannot be blamed on the cost of living crisis.    We have just come back from the NEXT sale.   The place was absolutely heaving and the queue to pay snaked all around the store !     It took us an hour to pay waiting in the queue !    Saying that we did have loads of bargains.   On average i would say people were purchasing  at least 20 plus items

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To be fair, the first few days in December 2024 were good with 3 / 4 items sold in a chain reaction then after the 12th it all stopped once again...  Just like someone had turned off a switch... 

I believe the NEXT sale always starts at 5 or 6 am on Boxing Day and I remember going there one time with my mum back in 2013 and the queue was out of the door in their Chester branch... So it seems nothing in the way of people having money to spend on bargains has changed during the last decade... only eBay has now changed for the WORST during the last decade !

[the-nutwood-collection]

On average i would say people were purchasing  at least 20 plus items

A colleague was a seasonal worker at Next during her Xmas vacation.  She said it was absolute bedlam, shoppers dragging armfuls of clothes off the racks and hauling them to the checkout.  

Within a week - you guessed it - at least 80% was returned!  The the storeroom was piled high.  She said the place looked like the clothing landfill dumps in Africa.

Everything had to picked up, inspected and, if it hadn't been worn or damaged, put back on a hanger.  It lingered on, being marked down time and time again.  When the new season stock was expected, the staff packed up what was left, and a van collected it.  Presumably that was the first step on it's journey to landfill in Africa.

[1956glyn]

We never ever return anything 🙂

Yes the staff today were saying they have never seen anything like it.

Yep a lot will unfortunately be returned 😞

Glyn and i did however both come back with bad backs....holding a few king size duvet sets and heavy jumpers......

[vintagechinashop]

There are resellers who buy up lots of items in the next sale. You may have encountered a few of those if there were people buying 20 plus items 

[the_book_seekers]

To be fair, the first few days in December 2024 were good with 3 / 4 items sold in a chain reaction then after the 12th it all stopped once again... 

Same here. The month started with a few sales and since the 12th it has been awful.

[1956glyn]

What i am finding is that the more expensive collectors items are selling and quality jewellery  whether that be real gold or signed costume......and not a lot in between.

Looks like i will have to be a lot more selective in what i list 😞

[technthread]

I have been using my personal account to sell some of my more expensive vinyl records and CD box sets from my collection. Buyers have been paying top prices in December, I’ve had a good clearout and paid a couple of small credit cards off.

I stopped listing on my eBay business account since November and have been selling elsewhere with zero fees. I’ve had a very good month on that side of things too. It was a weight off my shoulders turning this eBay account off and I won’t be back until the eBay fees come down.

[the-nutwood-collection]

What i am finding is that the more expensive collectors items are selling ...

This indicates that the 'Lipstick Effect' is in play - Google will tell you more but, basically, the effect is that buyers tend to favour small luxury items during periods of economic downturn.

[1956glyn]

I had never heard of the Lipstick effect but now it does make sense.

Well Ebay pushing me hard to spend what we had made on sales on the site has not worked...........BUT saying that it has paid for what I purchased in the NEXT sale 🙂

[1956glyn]

When they reducing king size duvet sets from £60 to £18 its hard for anyone to compete.    I guess there will be a glut of NEXT bedding on the site soon.

[merseyglo]

No good.

This is the Christmas that wasn't.

We usually really get into it we put on Christmas music all day and feel like Elves working to pack people's things but this was so void of packages there was no fuel.

Just horrible.

[mawels_87]

As a buyer I tried to buy a few items that had discount codes on the listings in the last few days. It seems though they won't give those discounts unless I have money in my eBay balance. I would have purchased those items but I don't have funds in my eBay account. I would never keep funds with eBay. Fortunately I was able to purchased off site instead. Why have discount codes if they can't be used I wonder.  

[technthread]

The item price has to be over £10 and you can only use it one time. 

[santlache_sales]

Worst ever December since being on eBay for over 20 years.

First sale today since 23rd December and had to drop down in price on that, with ebay then taking £60 odd in fees. In two days they'll be wanting £92 off me for my Shop fee which will totally wipe out that profit.

It's been an utter disaster, but it is quite clear why when Private sellers can now all undercut us with no fees to pay, which is exactly what they are doing.

eBay has let the genie out of the bottle with free private listings and it is creating havoc, but what is worse is I honestly don't think they know how to rectify it.

It is going to mean someone in top management admitting they made a huge mistake, which as we all know is not what these people do, they would rather see utter carnage like we have now than admit they got it very, very wrong.

I have already been pro-active this last few days, and after this next month the eBay shop is coming down a level and I am removing many items from the platform, as I am wasting my time trying to compete with private sellers having no fees to pay.