Ebay Sales Completed Dead **************January 2025**************

[theglo-68]

We are a business seller with most of our listing on other platforms. However we still have big chunk of our listings on Ebay platform. Ebay has been dead for us for over few months. Sales reach minimum 1-2 per day out of 100s of listings.

What has gone wrong with our once best platform. I know other platforms are doing really well but what has caused issues with Ebay.

[exponential_developments]

First two weeks of January were ok, this week has died, so not much to go on really, see what next week brings.

There are loads of posts about ebay going quiet.

[auctiongabble]

2 sales in January for me, I've read many others are experiencing the same with low sales.  

It's always confirmed by ebay as nothing wrong with platform.....

I'm looking and listing on many sites now, can rely on one platform anymore 

[santlache_sales]

It's always confirmed by ebay as nothing wrong with platform.....

Except there is something drastically wrong with the platform since eBay started giving free listings to Private buyers. We already had a two tier selling system with Promoted Listings, now we have a three tier selling system with Promoted Listings up the top, followed by Private (free) sellers and Businesses are now at the very bottom.

Not only are we at the bottom, we are paying premium rates and getting nothing back from eBay. We have just had the worst month ever on here, sales have over halved and continue dropping steadily, and with only 58 items sold in three months this is totally unsustainable.

eBay have ruined this platform and in the process royally shafted business sellers.

[auctiongabble]

Completely agree!

It's ridiculous on here now and I noticed major change past few months on here.   Views, watchers and all other stats all over the place and make no sense.  How true any of them really are is anyones guess!

It's not sustainable on here for businesses.  I tried promoting and it made no improvement.

Ebay think business have a constant stream of money to give them.

They can't even be bothered to release any update material, news, platform news.  There has been glitches with system past few days that ebay admitted too but no apology,  no offers to compensate,  

They really don't give a damn about business sellers!

Free selling for private sellers will not make people spend on here when they will have to pay buyer fee that is more on this platform than other rival platform.

Weekly group chat is a waste of time, no updates, no feedback.

[psycho_comics]

there is nothink wrong with ebay maybe you aint got what people want. i have not stopped and stilll orders are  piling in 

[vintagechinashop]

Third week of January some people haven’t been paid in over a month if they got paid early in December  my sales have slowed but still trickling through 

I’m expecting things to pick up next week once the January salaries are paid 

[bravergrace]

---

@psycho_comics wrote:

there is nothink wrong with ebay maybe you aint got what people want. i have not stopped and stilll orders are  piling in 

---

It's very nice for you that your account is doing well.

But that doesn't really prove that "there is nothink wrong with ebay".

It might be that there is something wrong with ebay, but either:

- it isn't something that affects your account

- it is something that benefits your account at the expense of other accounts.

Here's an example (a real-life example, this really happened).

Some years ago, eBay decided that all sellers who were rated "below standard" should have their listings relegated to the bottom of every eBay search list. 

The purpose was to punish them, and reward the best rated sellers with increased visibility.

It was actually quite effective, until the day when someone in the tech department accidentally reversed the sort order.

The top of every search list was now full of ratings from below standard sellers.  And the listings of top rating sellers were hidden on page 67 of the search results.

Clearly, this action affected lots of sellers.  But not all of them.  If you were a seller slap bang in the middle of the list, you wouldn't be affected - your listings would still be in the middle of the list.

If you were a seller of very specific items, you'd still be the only seller in the search results for "Mr Jolley's Specialist Healthgiving Nursery Warmer winder key".

It took a surprisingly long time to get eBay to admit there could be a mistake, and even longer for them to work out how to deal with it.

So there might have been a change that affected other people's listings but not yours - or perhaps your listings did quite well out of the change.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

To be fair it also doesn't prove that there is something wrong with ebay.

In fact, it's more likely that there are actually is nothing wrong if accounts are selling.

Bear in mind, that for many, it was an early pay day for December and a lot of people won't be paid until the end of the month.  So these couple of weeks are generally quite quiet.

The fact of the matter is, nobody but Ebay is able to say if there is actually an issue.

So many times I see complaints on here about search, but I've never had an issue searching for something that I want.  Yes, adverts come up, but wherever you search, your going to get adverts.

And also, with a forum you do have to allow for the fact that the majority of sellers, won't even look at a forum.  Those who tend to post are generally those ones who have an issue.  So it can look a lot worse than how it actually is.

[bravergrace]

Yes, I don't know if there's "an issue".  I mean, there certainly is an issue for some sellers.  But this could be due to a number of things, most of them nothing to do with eBay.   

But some issues are caused directly by eBay's policies (such as the relative weighting given to private sellers/new sellers/business sellers/sellers offering free postage etc).  And others are due to eBay error.

I remember one eBay manager saying on these boards that - with some things - eBay had a target for  comparative sales, and if this wasn't being met mid-month, the visibility weightings would be altered to ensure targets were met and sellers in the favoured group were properly rewarded with sales.  This - assuming it still applies - would mean a reduction in visibility for other sellers.

It was a long time ago, but I think the example he gave was along these lines:

- Say eBay wants sellers offering Free P&P to get 40% more sales than other sellers.  And by mid-month, they are only getting 20% more sales.  eBay will adjust the search rankings in favour of items offering Free P&P so they get 80% more sales than other items.  This means by the end of the month, it will even out and the target will be met.

This would mean a sudden drastic loss in visibility for other sellers towards the end of the month - through no fault of their own, and without the seller having changed a thing.

The same sort of targets are doubtless applied for groups like private/business sellers, sellers offering or not offering promoted listings, sellers offering free P&P, sellers of new/used/reconditioned items...

These means each seller's listings will be affected by a mixture of eBay' actions, and sometimes a combination of factors will affect a particular seller's items - for good or ill.  They may go through the roof, or they may be killed stone dead.

Not through seller actions, or through faulty programming, or external factors in the economy, but by planned adjustments by eBay to meet their own targets.

[santlache_sales]

Which just goes to show eBay are fiddling with the market and not allowing an even playing field.

It doesn't make sense when eBay are making money on sales, why would you mess with it and load it ?

I am clearly one of those 'out of favour' as I've not had a sale for a week now, shocking really and I have never known it this bad before especially as I listed loads of new stock throughout December.

[theelench]

Which does rather give the lie to statements from ebay along the lines of "Reducing your dispatch time by one day increases your chances of a by x%"  and others regarding the efficacy Promoting your listing.

Unless they mean for a limited period and only because ebay have gigged the search results to guarantee the stated effect?

How much of any 'search' results are at all accurate and how much is due to ebay deciding who's ad. will be seen, when and for how long? 

[stormatic2015]

I put it down to it just being January and its not pay day yet, just after xmas.

Also with the fact that private business sellers are still fee free at the moment (lower prices).

Also some people might have intentionally boycotted eBay for a while because of the buyer fee announcement right after xmas.

[the-bee-keeper]

What a load of nonsense!

So many pointless excuses!

"Also with the fact that private business sellers are still fee free at the moment (lower prices)."

STOP involving the private seller it has NOTHING to do with them.

Ebay wants private sellers on the platform otherwise they would have got rid of them all by now assuming the original contract stated they couldn't? so ebay are slowly turning the screw into making all sellers become "business sellers" eventually!

All sellers on ebay have an equal right to be on this platform so STOP pitchforking the 'private seller' they have done NOTHING to you! Perhaps business sellers are pricing too high!!..

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Actually, it's known that search results will be inclined in certain ways.

They do actually tell us this.   ie. They want people to use free postage, Your Top Rated etc.  This means that your more likely to appear higher in a search.  

All of the sites do this kind of thing, so I struggle to understand why it's surprising?

[therenewalworkshopltd]

You are missing a very important word there, that you are railing against.

What was said was:  " private business sellers"

That is not the same as private sellers.

Yes of course Ebay wants private sellers on the platform, but they don't want Business sellers masquerading as private.  That is the problem that people are railing against.

[theelench]

We all know that ebay manipulates the search, at least all the regulars do, perhaps not newly arrived private sellers.  Just how much manipulating it does has been discussed for years, as has how much of the decline in sales has been caused by all the rigging, stream-lining, hiding and these days outright bribery.  It wasn't that it undoubtedly happens that caused surprise, just that a manager had admitted to it.  

For years ebays playing field has been as level and transparent as a sheet of corrugated iron.

For me what proves that there is definitely something  wrong with ebay, even if it is January and a long time since many buyers had a pay-day or any other contributory factors that others may offer is the consistency of the complaints.  

Every month through most of last year had its "Ebay Sales Completely Dead / Off a Cliff / Non-existent...." or an equivalent.  Something wrong with ebay and its manipulated search is always mentioned and in all probability the common factor every month and IMO, goes a long way to explaining why it isn't only .uk business sellers complaining.  The flat-lining or declining official ebay.inc. world-wide results indicates a wider problem within ebay and its appalling search? 

[xxandyxexx]

I was having the same issue on my business eBay account - slow down and lack of sales. I used some free reports and it helped me highlight and fix some issues pretty quickly. Since that, i've seen an uplift week on week. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Well, I'm not saying that a manager did or did not.  But as it stands, it's hearsay.

As such, it's not proof of anything.  Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of thing that can get blown up, simply because nobody can prove it and if it gets repeated enough, it's true.

Though I do think where it found out that they were skewing search results in the way described, they would end up falling foul of the law.  In just the same way that Amazon has done.

Follow their guidance and you have the best chance of hitting top of search.  They do specifically tell us how to format listings.  Go look at the last Ebay open videos.  It's there.

But I really don't believe that it's Ebay specifically.  There are all sorts of indicators showing the retail is down considerably.  I saw a report the other day about toys, parents are specifically buying items for less than £15 (I think) this last year.  Simply to save money.
There have been so many retailers collapse in the recent past.  Prices are rising and everybody has been struggling.  These are the major factors, not that ebay search is not working.  It's everywhere, not just Ebay.

[jokers_toybox]

I know there are a number of things that eBay have said helps sales and listings showing up higher.

Use all your photo allowance, images with a white/plain background get better results as google flags this up in image searches that link to ebay

Use all 80 characters in your title

If something hasn't sold after a month or 2 do NOT relist it, end it and sell similar and update the photos