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?

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Do you actually mean a complete removal of limit?

Or do you mean that they just raised it to a silly amount?

[the_book_seekers]

Complete removal. It was way above anything I have listed so the removal appeared to be a pointless exercise.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Fair enough, though I've never seen that at all, and I've had quite a few different accounts over the years.

I still have limits on mine, but I couldn't reach them in years, which is essentially the same thing.  🙂

[the_book_seekers]

This is what I now have on my overview page.

Monthly limits

We removed the selling limit from your account, so now you can list as many items as you like.

ebay has also added in a link to listing items. 

[rainbowtrax]

There was one day earlier this year where overnight ebay suddenly removed all limits on a whole batch of accounts. There were several posts about it all at the same time.

[theelench]

Again I'm wondering if they were all business accounts ?

Some time ago I suggested that one way for ebay to tackle the "private" seller problem would be to stop automatic selling limit increases above a 'basic' number for private sellers.

I don't think for one minute that they took my suggestion on board, but they might have their own plans along similar lines.

If ebay is looking at business sellers and removing all limits for those with the right track record, might that free-up time / resources to look more closely at "private" sellers with thousands of listings ?

Or even stop the automatic increases and insist that private sellers who want to increase their limits must ask for and justify why they want an increase?

It would be a bit difficult to explain why a "private" seller who requested a large increase for selling their collection of thousands of stamps had suddenly started selling lots of new shoes in various sizes?

[yoopietravel]

My other new account was suspended shortly after, i put an item for sell, no explanation whatsoever. Today they use influencers to bring people back to this markerplace, but eBay is no longer what it used to be. Finding other place to sell is the answer.

[santlache_sales]

I think people have progressively been hoping for an upturn with ebay and better things, but from the way they have changed the platform, particularly the hike in fees when there are so many other 'free' platforms around, that slow ten year slide ebay sellers have experienced has greatly accelerated over the last 3/4 years.

I've not had a sale for six days now and others in my line are saying exaclty the same, it's totally dead now.

I never used to go a whole weekend without a sale.

It's quite clear Brexit and the utterly incompetent Tories haven't helped and the economy is flat, but a huge part of this is also the way eBay have been managed, as always ploughing on with a 'we know best' attitude.

The heady days of eBay's success are long and truely over, and like the original OP many long term sellers on eBay are now either shifting elsewhere, or are reducing stock and weaning themselves off this ever failing platform and finding other venues to sell.

Personally I belive it's eBay demand to have full control over every single aspect of a sale, where in the past all they were was a platform that enabled small sellers to reach a global audience, that was it. Now it is total interferrence on their part, like you aren't working for yourself anymore but have to pander to ever changing rules and regulations.

I used to really enjoy selling on here, but in the last ten years it's become a real chore and bore.

Good luck all.

[discountdeals_365]

eBay has now become a very very toxic place to sell.

Even if your an angel and a totally honest seller buyers are allowed to say whatever they want about you with no protection from eBay whatsoever.

The buyers are in total control and eBay stand back and let this happen they do not support the people they take their  revenue off buyers constantly threaten you with feedback when we have done nothing wrong it's disgraceful.

we are one of the tens of thousands  sellers that are leaving eBay.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Actually, I don't believe that it has.

Particularly so if you are a Top Rated seller.  Ebay overall, is fairly fair in sorting out issues with customers.

If a buyer threatens you with negative feedback, then you report them.  If you do this, then the feedback will be removed.

Buyers do tend to get the benefit of the doubt in a lot of cases.  But think about it, you send something to the customer, the customer says it's different or broken etc, then how exactly is Ebay to determine who is telling the truth?  It's a very difficult situation to be put in to be fair.

Yes, you can provide an invoice to show that you bought the original etc, but who's to say what happened to it whilst in storage?

[jontyhunt]

Similar issues. Have seen sales drop from £40k to less than £10k over past 3 years. Constant dialogue with eBay and implementing all their suggestions has delivered no improvement. The situation has simply got worse. At the same time costs have sky-rocketed to 50% of sales or more once recommended promotions are taken into account. To top it all, eBay now crashes on a regular basis when trying to list. My guess is that if you are in a race to the bottom on price with standard, mass production products sold in multiples it might work for you. But for reputable independents eBay is simply broken. 

The upheaval to transfer to another platform is considerable, but there is now no other option.

[moldosgifts]

Yes i'll be running it down over next 2 years. Will get to much slower levels but fees are too high when you include the shop fee. £92.40.

I cheer to myself when i get £20+ sale i will eat that day 😁

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Why do people complain about the shop fee?

You have 1100+ listings.  If you where paying for them separately, it would have cost you about £330 plus VAT.

So it is actually saving you £300!

Just look at it as a subscription plan, it works out cheaper than others ways of doing it.

Whilst I appreciate that you may not be selling very much at this time, you are selling a lot of gift type items and when the market is depressed, these are exactly the kind of things that don't sell so well.

[moldosgifts]

It only works if your getting volume sales at the moment i am not.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Exactly, but as with selling anything, there are going to be up's and downs over time.  So overall, it should still work out a lot a cheaper.  I'm quite sure that on the run up to Christmas, your items will fly out.

I do get where your coming from.

Personally, I would prefer it if it where the individual fees, rather than a shop plan at a better level.

But as always, it 6 of 1 and half a dozen of the other, whichever way you do it.

But if your not selling your normal product range, then look at changing it.  Add new and different products.

Selling is all about moving with the times and not standing still.  If you stand still, you lose.

[moldosgifts]

I've been a seller for last 19 years so don't need telling about the ups and downs.

All i said was i will be downsizing my offers on ebay largley becasue even with reasonable sales after ebay shopp fee and postage costs im left with very little.

So own website will be getting more offers .

[moldosgifts]

And lets face it £92.40 is not competative. It's cheaper on Amazon It's much cheaper on etsy . And i can run a webasite for much less than that. So ebay are not the cheapest by any strecth.

In fact i can sell in 10 other places for that amount.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I was not telling you about the up's and down's, merely pointing out the fact, that the cost is measured over a longer time period.  And not on a month to month basis.

So how about reading what was written, before the snarky answer!

[moldosgifts]

Wasn't snarky , i'm goiung on holiday next week see how i feel when i've relaxed for a week.

May have renewed vigor

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

I have never relied on ebay for a living as the profits have always been to small.

I come up with an idea for a good product and design it and make it.

Then sell it on ebay and within days/weeks someone else comes along selling similar item for peanuts.

This has happened 3 times now.

So ebay is now just a hobby.