February Sales Dead 2025 - Ebay Sales Completely Dead

[theglo-68]

Any thoughts as why would suddenly ebay sales would do ZERO since start of February.

We have been closely monitoring our sales and since start of January 2025 sales are down. But they have now completely died as soon as February started.

[snagwagon]

I have no issues with this, are you a private seller to? 

if they are getting rid of this for private sellers that would definitely seem like an attempt to budge them off the platform haha. But I’d put it more down to some sort of glitch in the system right now. It does seem weird as I’ve had no problems. 

[honeymonster007]

Yes pvt seller..a few years ago it worked really well but now the algorithm seems to be saying, nope I'm not having any of that. Every book I'v relisted has had no views when they did before, it just feels like somethings not quite right.

Prices maybe or subject matter.

[threadgame]

As a business seller who currently promotes 1200 listings on a dynamic ad rate with NO cap on the %, business is currently awful, it's not just the private seller feeling the decline in sales, I assure you.

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

[snagwagon]

Also Rosie, I don’t disagree that in some cases, this new fee is worse than before. 

this is only due to the flat fee of 0.75p and will affect mainly lower price items. 

if I sell for say £5 before BPF using the same structure my net sale is £4.34

however, because of the buyer protection flat fee of .75p and the additional 4% i have to account for when listing my item, to sell that same item for a total of £5 im only left with £4.09. 

not accounting for anything else other than the FVF once again, you would have to sell an item for over £8.52 for this new buyer protection fee to give you better results/profits as you were getting prior to this. 

so you’re not completely wrong in a sense, as cheaper items in this price range can and will give you less profits than before. But for more expensive items, it certainly works out cheaper than before. 

[snagwagon]

Oh, so it’s not that you can’t actually list these items using that button but rather your views seem down? 

in that case, I have that same issue, but I don’t list anything other than ‘sell similar item’ and having only recently joined back I can’t compare my views to a listing I’ve customised all myself. 

are you seeing more views when you don’t use this feature then? That’s a very interesting one if so. 

I do notice I get a lot less views than years ago, but eBay’s also lost a quarter of their buyers since then, so I expect less

[snagwagon]

When did your sales start to drop off, and by how much? 

without trying to sound too nosy also, and if it’s too intrusive your welcome to call me out, 

have you had to alter costs or stop promoting certain items during the decline because you feel the promotion for that item is just doing way to terrible in comparison to prior sales? 

If no, are you still profitable with the current downfall? 

I ask for obvious reasons, I’ve heard so many users claiming to shut up shop recently, and loads who already have. It seems that even if these business’ are profitable, their profits are obviously squeezed that much that it’s not feasible for them to continue, and they have ended there 15-20 year long runs with eBay. 

[the_book_seekers]

Listings can grow stagnant. If a listing reaches three months the thought is that ending it and then relisting using the sell similar option, which creates a brand new listing and gives it a new lease of life.  What @honeymonster007 has said is this method doesn't seem to be working at the moment. 

[snagwagon]

Being as I’ve just transitioned I have an exact comparison of a business sale vs the new BPF for private sellers.

while the amounts aren’t the same, you can see that the private sale, the customer paid a total of £17.20, that’s £15.84 (my net sale before shipping) and a £1.36 buyer protection fee 

on my second listing, the buyer only paid £16.50, but my fees were £2.59. (£13.91 net sale, not including shipping or the ad fee that was 0.58p)

So, while I did make the buyer pay more on my private listing here, which is more due to seller competition than demand, it was only a 0.70p difference.

yet the private seller account made an additional £1.93 net profit than the business seller account. 

this is the closest representation I have to the old private seller structure. But it also proves that business sellers are not better off as the item price increases in this situation 

[honeymonster007]

Biggest difference Iv noticed is altering the price. Putting the pricing up and leaving it for while then dropping it to what you want seems to gain more views. Ending listings and relisting them to give them a fresh number doesn't seem to do anything now, if anything it seems to have negative affect.

The view count is an odd thing though, it kinnda plays tricks on your mind. I'v had items sell out the blue with little to no views and others sell that have had 100+ views. Not that Iv sold a lot mind, only 20 odd things at the min.

[jlovie]

"im unsure if the structure was different than this recently, but according to the information I’ve found, I’m pretty sure the 12.8% was still being charged before they implemented BPF"

For a few months eBay made it free for private sellers (to try and compete with Vinted) thinking they could make all their money from business sellers.

Instead, many business sellers started selling on private accounts.

eBay could see revenue plummeting, so hastily launched BPF, but it was too late, many private sellers thought no fees was going to be a permanent thing.

On top of that, SD for private and NINO regs added more hassle.

Business sellers had GPSR regs added, packaging to EU rules, NI postage complications, etc.

For everyone, GSP suspended to US isn't helping.

eBay has somehow managed to discourage both private and business sellers, and buyers, at the same time as an economic downturn, and when competing sites are doing what eBay used to do but better.

[threadgame]

Absolutely no problem!

Business is still profitable, as fortunately I can source at the right price, it's just the volume of sales is way down. As for the price of items, we trialled listing our items around 10-20% less, but reduced our promo code and advertising %. This did Absolutely nothing, as whilst the items were cheaper and far more competitively/ under priced, they simply didn't get the views.

Aside from the Christmas slump, sales started to drop off dramatically once April hit and the new BPF was introduced. The impressions, clicks and sales all correlate to being down around 30% since that time.

I have found recently that the pay per click advertising does get you clicks, views, sales, BUT the cost is ridiculous. We used the promotional 50% credit and ran a campaign for a week. We ended up spending £240 on advertising, for £350 worth of sales, totally not feasible.

[the_book_seekers]

eBay has somehow managed to discourage both private and business sellers, and buyers, at the same time as an economic downturn, and when competing sites are doing what eBay used to do but better.

I think this is the best and most succinct description of the current situation I've seen. ebay has created its own perfect storm on .UK and adding new ways of making money will only make it worse.

[cobwebcottage]

I agree with most of your points although I don't think the BPF was a hasty decision. This smacks of long term planning to increase their profits and the 'free selling' before SD was introduced just a sweetener for private sellers.

I also don't think they will make any changes, a part from tweaking SD. All the changes look to be here to stay.

Once it all settles down, it will be no different from V which personally doesn't matter to me on my private account but they have upset so many sellers in the way it has all been launched including the phone app fiasco. So everything they have done in the past 5 months has had an impact on all users of the platform. Buyers and seller. PS and BS.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

edit: I also don’t understand how after the examples I’ve given, that business sellers think this is a good thing for them? 

Business sellers don't pay the buyer protection fee, so it has absolutely zero effect on us.

Nobody as far as I'm aware as said otherwise.

The issue that business sellers have, is all to do with business, who are selling with a private account.  An entirely different thing.

[snagwagon]

I did not know this and it slightly changes things as I can see why certain buyers would have negative feelings towards BPF after months of completely free selling. 

but I have to agree 100% with cobwebcottage. 

Personally I don’t see why eBay would have even considered putting a completely free selling period for private sellers for months, considering they already had a massive problem with private (business) sellers prior.

this is just asking for exactly what you explained, business sellers turning to private sellers. Plus, they would lose tons of revenue, they could have kept the fee % lower than Vinted to compete in this respect, rather than completely take away all fees. The only way they could profit off private sellers in this respect, is when they are buying on the platform or promoting listings. 

I can only assume that eBay done this as I mentioned in previous posts to claim ‘it’s free to sell’, for free publicity. During those months I’d be willing to bet they had a massive increase in sellers, but potentially seen an overall drop in profits due to business sellers switching accounts as you said. 

I can only assume without facts, but I’d say the plan was always to implement a BPF at some point, these few months was more of an advertising attempt to bring eBay back to life, it would have allowed private sellers to sell cheaper, and in turn, bring their buyers back to the platform as they’ve lost 25% of their buyers since 2018. 

obviously all these commerce sites are competing with each other, it’s always the case. EBay needs to try something to gain those buyers back, because, eBay are profiting better than ever before with less buying power on the site. 

I can only assume this has come from changing all different types of fee structures to allow them to gain more money, while throttling seller profits more and more. 

if they don’t do something, they will not survive long term. And making it completely free and relying on ad revenue etc is probably not a feasible option. 

As for SD, it is brand new and I assume it will be tweaked, they are still working on fully integrating this. So currently I think it’s early to say whether this may be good or bad. 

as for NINO, I’m not sure if this was required, I have noticed there has been a recent change in law in the UK, and ebay has a duty (not as much as the seller) to identify people who are running business through private accounts, before, they would have to be taken to a civil court but with this law change, if eBay does not do a better job at managing this huge problem they can be fined either 10% of the yearly gross income, or £300k, whichever is higher. 

during these changes, I think every platform will have to do more to abide by this and selling may be down while these changes are made, across all platforms. 

the problem is, there’s been so many recent changes, and all variables have effected how buyers and sellers are reacting to it, and it’s a negative reaction. 

once it all balances out, we will see if eBay can survive the storm. 

I just don’t see why they would try competing with Vinted by using BPF, while keeping business sellers at a premium fee rate. That’s not the same as Vinted approach, but it’s a way to keep income higher, I’m willing to bet they are atleast considering doing the same for business sellers. If something is not sorted by the time Vinted adds more and more categories and weight limits to shipping, I’ll 100% switch. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

as for NINO, I’m not sure if this was required, I have noticed there has been a recent change in law in the UK, and ebay has a duty (not as much as the seller) to identify people who are running business through private accounts, before, they would have to be taken to a civil court but with this law change, if eBay does not do a better job at managing this huge problem they can be fined either 10% of the yearly gross income, or £300k, whichever is higher. 

I know which change your talking about.  But that has absolutely zero effect on marketplace's having to report to HMRC.  That is the law that would have to be changed and it most definitely has not been.

But of the many things happening on Ebay, this one, nobody can blame them for.

They are required by law, to report to HMRC!  That's it, end of story!  🙂

[snagwagon]

I have never stated BPF is paid by business sellers? I’m unsure where that came from? 

The person I had replied to said ‘business sellers are rubbing their hands over this change to private sellers’ (not a word for word quote) 

I was merely showing that, with the business account, private sellers are still ahead in terms of fees, I.e BPF vs Business seller fees (which are similar to the original private seller fees) 

im unsure where your coming from with this reply as I’ve completely agreed with that point that you made, and I’ve made that point myself on this thread/forum

but if you want to be technical, eBay has stated that BPF is included in seller fees. So while they don’t advertise the fee to buyers, it’s mixed in with our percentage. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Ok, then I've misunderstood what you said.

[snagwagon]

I appreciate that information too, I try to be very careful how I type or say things,  it I may slip up. In this case I said I’m unsure, I wasn’t technically saying that this law states they are required to ask for NINO, and I know they are required to report to HMRC, 

what I’m unsure about is wether the implementation of NINO is solely just an attempt to make reporting to them easier for eBay, or wether there has been another law change (not the one stated) that required eBay to ask for this information. or wether the doing this makes it easier somehow for them to detect these private (business) sellers. 

I don’t think the last point there is the reason, but as stated I’m not sure. I appreciate the information but without solid evidence as such to disprove any statements that what everyone here is doing, is just speculating. I’m just making it obvious that what I say is speculation vs what i say is fact (like the figures I shown one one of my replies) 

[snagwagon]

Appreciate that, I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said. I’m just trying to help you in that debate by putting things in a way that can’t be argued. 

BPF is worse for private sellers if they sell low value, because of the base 75p charge, but after a certain value, BPF is way better than the 12.8% fee we had once before, you can see a exact comparison from the photos ii posted from the same product before and after my transition to business