How many sellers are closing their shops or running down their account in 2024?

[ovleisure]

We have been a seller on here over a couple of our accounts for many years now.   Over this time we have seen a reduction in sales from a max of £13k pcm to £60 pcm.    We have been through mass seller culls, more and more control over the seller/buyer relationship, the forcing of managed payments, increases in fees and requirements to use promoted/advanced promoted and now bid for clicks, to the point where ebay is taking an unsustainable percentage of profit.  

This in turn has lead to such search manipulation as to be virtually impossible for any of our listings to be shown unless we implemented all of the additional promotions, and even then since everyone is in the same boat, it makes little difference.   Search has been broken as a result of all this, and whereas in the past, if your product met the search terms, you could get your item to show, this is now not much short of a miracle!

Maybe you could argue some of it is the economy, but when your listings barely get any visibility unless you pay through the nose for it, it becomes a weak argument at best.

We have closed our shop and have halved our listings, and will be running down all of the stock we do have via other marketplaces.  

I'm just curious what other peoples plans are in 2024, are you bearing with ebay in the hopes of better times, or moving on?

[the_book_seekers]

Your figures are missing the Vat element. Basic shop is £27 plus £5.40 vat and extra BIN listings are 12p with the Vat. So @qualitycardsandgifts  figures for the basic shop would be £32.40 plus £34.32 for extra listing = £66.72.  Take account of the saving of £10 with packing vouchers and there is nothing in it. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

That really depends on whether you are vat registered or not.

So you are both right.

[therma-tec]

And the featured shop is £77+ vat so they would save £15 a month, which is better in a sellers pocket rather than ebay's.

The £10 packaging voucher doesn't get you much in reality. 100 off ebay plastic mailing bags for over £10, I can get a pack of 200 (larger size) for £3.46 (plus VAT). They don't offer the sizes or packing I use, so the voucher has never been an incentive for me to ever go down the featured shop route.

[iposters]

I sell around £10,000-£15,000 a Month on eBay (Average) My Fee's with Promoted Listings are on averge 28-32%. Reason mine are high is most of my Products are £7.99-£9, regardless if it's £9 sale or £300 sale, that 0.30p Transaction Fee Kills us! (Don't forget the VAT Added is also part of the %) But 0.30p + 0.35% Made up Regulator Fee adds another 4% on my Sales on Average.

To be honest, the greif I get from eBay for an average Profit of 20-50p per poster, I am considering significantly scaling back my Listings to just have Framed Posters (They are £44) and my Memorabilia and more expensive items. 

Sales today on eBay have been Awful. Worst I have ever had. It just seems to be getting worse. 

I have done more on Amazon today (Where I have only been selling a month) than I have on eBay all month. More on my Website today than eBay all week 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

If you have a lot of the lower value selling items, have you considered splitting your account and using the second one with the Low cost item fees instead?

It could make a difference to you.

I found that yes, you can sell a LOT more on Amazon, but the hassle just isn't worth it.

Margins can be incredibly tiny, depending on the product and whether or not they are selling it as well.  But pretty much anything that is not unique, is squeezed.  That plus the complete and utter lack of support on there.....

Watch for the fees, they can crucify you and an awful lot of people simply don't calculate them properly.

[jpredman1]

He didn't receive anything broken, is the point. The item supposedly broken was in a box in the middle of the package. He broke it and claimed a refund to steal the goods. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I have literally no idea what your talking about!  This thread isn't about broken items in a box.

[cke786]

Things have been taking a downturn in this past month for us, I'm not sure how much longer our store will be up for on eBay.... fees and lack of sales have been killing our profits big time, doesn't help that the boss won't try getting something different to sell for a change, now as of next week, my hours on Wednesday have been cut by 4hrs, a loss for me of just over £181 per month, which is not really something I can easily absorb!

eBay is trying to be like Amazon, but that's not what eBay is and unfortunately seem to have forgotten that fact! eBay needs to change back a few pegs, get back to helping sellers make money, which will in turn make eBay more money, Trickle Up Economics works far far better than Trickle Down Economics!

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Assuming that your posting from your bosses shop, then I would suggest that you get him/her to take a look at selling on Amazon as well.  The electricals etc are far easier to sell on there.  Onbuy may well be ok for them as well.

I can understand why they don't want to change product lines, but standing still is never a good idea.

Ebay isn't Amazon and it never will be, unless they kick off the auctions etc.

But your right, they probably are leaning a little too far that way now.  I always did like the Wild West of Ebay....  🙂

[cke786]

We've been listed on Amazon for several years now, but they've been really stupid for a while, recently demanding new documentation without explaining what it is or where to get it from, plus they keep on refusing our payment card to pay the fees for our store and such, despite all the details being filled in correctly and actually using the very same card to purchase items off Amazon as well! Really really stoopid stuff from them!

Besides, the fees there are ridiculous (far more so than eBay), also, Amazon has a habit of finding stuff that is selling really really well, then jumping in and selling it themselves, undercutting the original seller, they've done that a few times with us!

I agree, standing still and doing the same thing each time is not good, when he actually does buy something that we don't normally sell, it does well, so I really don't understand why he won't commit!

eBay really just needs to get its focus back, stop trying to emulate Amazon and start supporting sellers again!

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I disagree about the fees.  I sold on Amazon for over 10 years sucessfully, selling very similar products to what I see you have listed.  

It actually works out very similar in costs, but the biggest issue I had, was that on Ebay, people sold even cheaper, which killed the margins.  I could never make it work properly on Ebay with those kind of items.

I can help you with the issues, if you want to PM me, as the mods don't like talking "Off topic".  🙂

But I do understand where your coming from, it's one of the main reasons why I stopped selling on there.  Far too much "the computer says" and not enough real people interacting with help.

[vintagechinashop]

I too have had my limit removed and like you I've never reached or will reach that limit after all if I did I'd be paying the top shop fee and honestly I really wouldn't want to pay that each month on my lowly sales. I think even if I increased my listings it would never be worth my while 

thinking about this it brought to mind the shop fees and to encourage us sellers the odd promotion wouldn't go amiss to us who hand over a shop fee each month. Also I think if they introduced more levels in the shops. For me the jump from 1500 listings is one too high 

I also wonder if they have removed the selling limit for everyone now because it would open up the floodgates and I'm really not sure that's a positive step 

[theelench]

Just looked at my Selling Limits and they're still the same, 200 per month and have been for years.

But I'm a private seller so could the removal of limits be for Businesses only?

I've never asked for my limits to be increased, the most I've ever listed at one time is about 40 items or less, so even 200 is way more than I've ever needed.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

From what I understand of it, the selling limits are based upon the volume that you sell.

So unless you increase it and looks like your going to need more, the probably won't increase them for you.

But it's really not something to worry about anyway, if you have sufficient for your needs.

It is obviously going to hit business sellers far more, as the aim of the game, is to sell more and more.

I still have limits, but they are so high, it's not something I'm going to reach in many years!  🙂

[pg_kicks]

Its not based on volume, I have access to a couple of other accounts which have only ever sold a handful of items and at a guess I'd say 70/80, the one with a handful has a bigger selling limit in both listings and price point. They have both been used for buying and the account with less sales has bought more so could be described loosely as more trustworthy.

[rainbowtrax]

I think you're both right in a way. The initial limits on an account seem to make no sense whatsoever, some are ridiculously high, some as low as 5 items for no apparent reason. But once you start to list, you only need to get close to your limit to get an automatic unasked for increase, usually double in both volume and value. List close to the new limit and it'll be automatically doubled again the next month as long as you've had no selling issues.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Yes, there will of course be some sort of basis on "trust" as well.

I'm quite sure that it's a fairly complex calculation, that will bring in other factors.

But I do believe that at the end of the day, sucessfull sales and regular growing sales = rise in limits.

[pg_kicks]

Yeah I dont think it'll be something simple, mainly as eBay and simple dont go hand in hand, just going off the accounts I have access to it seems a bit strange to allow somebody on a private account to list 350 items a month and upto £23k a month when they sell 2 or 3 pieces of used clothing a month if that, eBay wont care though they just hope one month that account lists hundreds and makes them some fees and or traffic I guess.

[the_book_seekers]

ebay removed my limits and due to the timing I think it had more to do with the news of the new HMRC regulations than anything else. I suspect there was a knee jerk reaction from a great number of sellers who pulled their listings and ebay wanted numbers back up again. The removal of the limit was accompanied with a number of messages encouraging me to list all I wanted.  A decent promotional offer for businesses would have had more effect.

[geowri_98]

You are entirely right I'm a buyer and it is ridiculous what they are throwing at me I've tried to sign in 3 or 4 times even today enough is enough eBay is getting rubbish now