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-layer-laboratory]

---

@chrbac.uye5b7 wrote:

...if the mark-up were reduced to 40-50%, sales could potentially triple.

---

Get real. If markup was reduced to 40-50%, their business would likely be bankrupt by the end of the month!

[technthread]

It really depends on the seller.

As a small part time seller myself buying mostly second hand if I'm under 200% I've made a mistake. I just sold an item on another platform with a 900% markup it's not that difficult to do to be honest. 

[chrbac.uye5b7]

May greed and karma find you together. I’m sure they’ll make an interesting team.

[the-layer-laboratory]

---

@chrbac.uye5b7 wrote:

May greed and karma find you together. I’m sure they’ll make an interesting team.

---

*sigh*

You really haven't done the maths, have you? How much of that margin do you think is left after ebay has taken their cut, postage has been paid for and other 'costs of doing business' have been accounted for?

[chrbac.uye5b7]

Greed + Karma = a lesson coming your way. Let’s see how it adds.

[the-layer-laboratory]

---

@chrbac.uye5b7 wrote:

Greed + Karma = a lesson coming your way. Let’s see how it adds.

---

What on earth are you talking about? You're even more delusional than ebay is and they appear to think that businesses have a never ending margin to take bites from.

Let's hope theres a maths lesson coming your way.

[exponential_developments]

It's usually people with a lack of manners that Karma says "hello" to.

[technthread]

I've just sold a Nike Hoodie for £11.60 on Vinted that I paid £3 for. The markup is 286% am I going to hell? When I take my time into consideration I bet I didn't hit minimum wage on it. 

[howmuchtobid]

Clearly operating an ebay business is very different to running convenience stores. With your suggestion of cutting margins are you expecing sole traders to sell £250,000 a year and make a net profit of circa £15,000 working non stop all week. Do you operate an ebay business we could all take a look at?

[howmuchtobid]

Also what is all the greed and karma stuff about?

How much are you paid for operating convenience stores?......... way more than minimum wage no doubt.

[dazzio-music]

I've tried other auction sites e bi d. Reverb. With no luck. You almost have to give your stuff away to get more sales on ebay.

I'm trying to get a new webshop started, but not sure which is best to use.

Maybe sq are space, or shop ify. 

I invested in a lot bid stock as I was selling loads.  Suddenly it stopped and now my stock is just sitting there.

I blank resist items, raise and lower prices, have sales, make offers, and none of it helps.

[typo_lee]

Closing our shop in the new year due to no sales and too much hassle. It's ridiculous how sellers have to operate on eBay these days. It's almost like a dictatorship 🤔 Concentrating on our other platforms 

[typo_lee]

Can you tell me how anyone lives on 10k per annum?

[typo_lee]

Not sure how you get to eBay taking £40 from the sale price?

[flutterby-enterprises]

Very frugally
No holidays.
Minimal food
No Netflix or any streaming.
No going out.
No social life.
Minimal heating.
No buying others gifts.
No hairdressers.
No Nails.
No car or transport
No days out.
Minimal clothing purchases.
You work constantly when your disability permits
You survive.
Do not expect any help.
If you crying in pain do not tell others its brings others down.
Just work work and work.
Remeber being an unpaid carer whilst coping with your own disability is a must!
Dont expect to earn much on Ebay.
Other platforms are available.......

[howmuchtobid]

Are you making more than 10k a year net profit on ebay?

[theelench]

I've been on e bi d for years.  It works well enough for me as a private seller in a niche collectables category with slow but steady sales.  I wouldn't recommend it for business sellers who are looking for quick turnover and sales.

It might make a second basket to put some eggs in, particularly for items that sell slowly but regularly but even then I wouldn't take out their Lifetime Membership with an up-front membership fee.   I'd be looking at the Pay as you Go, RUS listings.

[digitrade99]

I'm out, eBay makes more than me from my sales and has no responsibility for the product, in fact support it near zero.

Furthermore today I wanted to do a bulk change on my promoted listings and noticed that all my dynamic promotions, which I had switched on with bulk listings , would now only let me turn the dynamic promotions off individually and that I have go through each listing one by one. Now can you imagine how that would affect someone with lots of listings so they're  making it hard for me to stop their money grab. I no longer trust them and have come to hate them,  I've been running down my site all year,  actually I don't even need to try because they're running it down for me.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Just looked at promoted listings and it says:

"Consider a more competitive ad rate to drive more sales. Update to 16%."

If it wasn't November I'd be putting my Ebay shop on holiday mode, I really am completely fed up with this.

[krafty-kreations]

Just looked at promoted listings and it says:

"Consider a more competitive ad rate to drive more sales. Update to 16%."

What it really means: 

"Consider a more competitive ad rate to pay eBay more money as someone has to pay for all these business sellers on private accounts. Update to 16%."