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?

[santlache_sales]

Ebay is just the marketplace, nothing more.....

You mean eBay used to be just a market place, allowing private sellers and small businesses to reach a global audience, that was it, eBay didn't interfere and just stood in the background like a responsible adult, ensuring fair play and stepping in when needed.

That was it and they made record profits every quarter......Then they got greedy and now after several years of utterly degrading the site and trust from their users, they now control every single aspect of a sale, with price increases of 300-400%, along rip off charges like 10% on P&P and a 2% extra charge for an overseas sale.

They have abused their position and now it is coming back and biting them in the backside, hard.

They've also made it a very unattractive place to be for businesses now.

[555njp]

If you registered the warranty ok online then they will honour it.

I have a fair bit of experience in this field, but if you google the question “Can I get a manufacturers warranty if purchased by a seller on eBay” you will several responses from Reddit, quota, money saving expert etc. basically saying that manufacturers will generally only honour the warranty if the item was purchased from an authorised outlet.

A lot of the big name electronic appliance suppliers (including the sector I used to mainly sell in) tightened control of their product sale chains about 7 or 8 years ago when eBay was booming.
The reason being that many (correctly registered) businesses were selling products as new that were bought via wholesale clearance and auction sites that were actually selling seconds, ex-display, customer returns and failed delivery products, some of which were known to be faulty.

That is why they now ask for the online purchase receipt before you can register.

If you bought via an online market place, they will ask for the business name and the receipt. If it’s not an authorised distributor then in many (not all) cases you cannot register the warranty.

I don’t really sell in these sectors anymore, but when I did I made it crystal clear on my listings that all manufacturers warranties were null and void (As I was never a franchised dealer) but I did offer my own warranty ranging from 6 to 12 months depending on the product.

If you also search the forums, you’ll find plenty of cases where disgruntled buyers have found the same problem after purchasing something but too late (after 30 days) to get their money back.

[555njp]

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@therenewalworkshopltd wrote:

But if you put eBay via “Joe bloggs slightly dodgy resales Ltd”, you’ll get “sorry, this retailer is not on our authorised product distribution list. Your product cannot be registered”.

Actually, that needs clarifying a bit more.

If you purchase on Ebay from a retailer that has bought the item via a valid supply chain, then you can register a warranty with no issues at all.  You do not tell them it's from Ebay, but just the supplier name.

Yes, valid supply chain includes authorised businesses only for many products.

Ebay is just the marketplace, nothing more.

This is from past experience, where I sold a lot of white goods.

White goods, household and garden appliance (my previous experience) manufacturers have tightened up on this a lot in the past few years putting much more control on who can actually sell their products. These are still available via other outlets to anyone that wishes to purchase them. Many wholesalers sell via auction themselves now AND to the general public, but in the wholesalers and auction sites literature you will see the disclaimer that “even though this product is new in sealed box, all manufacturers warranties are null and void.” meaning the sale is on a ‘Trade Only’ basis with no warranty implied or given.

The problem actually comes from so many dodgy sellers on Ebay.  They are not selling truly supplied items.

There are an awful lot that dropship from Amazon and such.  Or private sellers who pretend to be business and so on. 

Definitely, which is why a buyer may find it difficult to register their product.

At the end of the day, as long as you buy from a properly registered business, then 9 times out of 10, you won't have an issue with this.  I say 9 out of 10 purposely, as there are always going to be sellers playing very loosely with the rules.  Whether that's on Ebay or even the high st.

Sorry, I have to disagree with that last statement. That may have been the case a few years ago, but I doubt more than 10% of ‘New’ goods will have the manufacturers backing now.
Being a properly registered business certainly doesn’t translate to being a recognised outlet for the OEMs product.
Many OEMs control distribution now and insist you are authorised by them in order to sell and transfer the warranty to your customer. They do this as many of the bigger OEMs also sell online (via an approved outlet) so don’t want you competing. They of course will offer the proper warranty.

The issue is heightened on eBay and Amazon market place because there are so many resellers, not doing anything wrong but not entitled to pass on the OEM warranty either.
This link is a bit old but sums up the issue well, some manufacturers honouring warranties but many not when the item has been purchased on eBay: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6225856/manufacturer-guarantee-when-buying-from-ebay

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[triple512]

There was a TV programme covering that topic a while ago. Came to same conclusion. If you want the warranty then only buy from an authorised distributor which they defined as an entity to which a manufacturer directly provides a product for onward selling to a consumer  or end customer (or something like that). 
Exceptions were new vehicles which usually have a transferable warranty based on registration date and subject to service conditions being met and appliances installed in the home such as a built in dishwasher where, as long as the original owner had registered it, the warranty would transfer to a new home owner if sold with the house.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Sorry, but I literally stopped selling white goods less than 12 months ago.

I was never an approved seller in any way and sold all of the major brands.

However, I was able to go direct to the manufacturers via the wholesaler I was using and actually supported many warranty claims over the years.

Yes, there are sellers out there that are not following the supply chain correctly, but if it is followed correctly, there will not be any issues with warranty, whether you buy on Ebay, Amazon, Onbuy or a website.

I merely mentioned a properly registered business seller, as a starting point.  As if they are, they should be following the rules correctly, which in turn, should allow for warranties to be honoured.  

[555njp]

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@therenewalworkshopltd wrote:

I was never an approved seller in any way and sold all of the major brands.

However, I was able to go direct to the manufacturers via the wholesaler I was using and actually supported many warranty claims over the years.

So in effect you were approved by the manufacturer via the wholesaler then so you (not the end customer) had to make any warranty claim on your customers behalf?
That is unusual and also very different to the customer being able to register for the warranty themselves on the manufacturers site having purchased via an unauthorised reseller.

But OK, at least the consumer was fully protected when buying from you….👍

Sounds similar to Howdens. Not sure if it’s still the case but their appliance warranty claims had to go via the tradesman that installed it. Howden’s would not deal direct with the public and the public could not purchase from them. They only sold to authorised traders.

Found that out when our oven packed up after 10 months.

[eyewear247]

I am was not planning on running my business down or closing it in 2025, indeed I do not want to. Sadly after 20+ years of mostly successful trading on eBay, it looks like eBay will be doing this for me. 

Since eBay ditched Paypal and brought in managed payments I have seen a steady decline year on year but in the past 12 months sales have been on a steep decline which seemed to accelerate in September and then nose dive in October shortly after free private business sellers populated my categories. 

The greedy fee grab of promoted listings has broken the effectiveness of the search results and is making decent listings, products and sellers virtually invisible unless they pay heavily to sponsor.

I would be interested to find out just how much margin eBay thinks most business sellers have in there products to keep paying out more in fees !.

The upcoming private buyer fees of 4% + 75p will do nothing to improve the situation for effected business sellers who are paying 15%+ in fees and can still be undercut by 10%+ from private business sellers.

Having reported many very obvious private business sellers only to get a response from eBay that they have checked and found nothing wrong with the listing or seller.

I have now given up reporting and my motivation trading on eBay is now at an all time low .

[therenewalworkshopltd]

So in effect you were approved by the manufacturer via the wholesaler then so you (not the end customer) had to make any warranty claim on your customers behalf?

No, that's not what I said.  And just to clarify, I worked with 3 different wholesalers and never had any warranty issues.
Part of the way some warranties work, depending on the company concerned, will involve the customer returning an item to the retailer.  The retailer then returns the item to the wholesaler and then back to the manufacturer.  

But that is not anything like all manufacturers at all.  The vast majority of which are dealt with directly, with no involvement by the retailer. 

Again though, you do not need to be an authorised seller, as long as you can prove a valid supply chain.

I'm sure that there are exceptions to this, but it certainly does not mean all are like that at all.

But don't forget, at the end of the day, depending on the type of item, the customer always has the recourse of getting the retailer to resolve the issue.  They don't have to rely on the warranty directly.  Obviously the length of time involved with this, will vary depending on the item itself.

[mirotra24]

I have been with eBay for over 20 years in the uk and Germany and now back in the uk. In the last few months eBay decided to drop my 20 years of above standard to below standard because of late delivery  which was out of my control and one non delivery despite contacting Royal Mail and was told the customer didn’t respond to their grey card for collection. Meanwhile eBay favoured the customer even after I posted proof of postage . I was forced to refund the customer and never received the item as promised.

That isn’t my main grievance. The fact is eBay customer services insisted that based on their statistics ie percentage of below standard compared to sales I no longer provide good customer service. If they looked at customer feedback of nearly 100 percent and this was true throughout the 20 years,  the picture would be different. When I pointed that out,  they put me in touch with a young American who spoke about natural disasters such as tornadoes storms and droughts would be the only factors to be considered to solve this. Meanwhile I was told that my account had restrictions which stopped me from changing a price for a customer who was desperate to buy my item. They couldn’t help me at all. When I told them if my account is restricted and I can’t change a listing or list any more I might as well close it they then sent me a email saying I’d violated their language policy by using profane and vulgar language, which never happened. I argued my case of course but never use bad language. I just wanted to illustrate what we may expect from eBay. In the beginning they bent over backwards to support the seller. Now all they do is look at their supposed statistics and treat you as a number. I’m very disappointed and will be looking elsewhere.

[dazzio-music]

This is exactly what happened to me.
I am still trying to sort this out after 6 months.
They don't anymore. It's just money now.
They say they restrict your account for defects, even if its the buyers
fault.
They say they will even charge you extra in fees if your rating drops. How
does this help anybody?
They add time to delivery, block your promoted listing, and make it very
difficult to sell. The way they say to solve it is to sell lots more and
get your rating back up!
Where is the logic?
I sold a guitar. The buyer said its faulty. Its not at all faulty. EBay
refunded them, without them having to return it. I had to provide a return
label AND refund their original postage.

I have a website now, bur its really hard to promote it, and can't find an
alternative to ebay just yet. But I'm still looking for one.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I have a website now, bur its really hard to promote it, and can't find an
alternative to ebay just yet. But I'm still looking for one.

If your struggling to promote your website, then there is lots of free advice online to help you with this.

There are also many companies out there that you can pay to do this for you.

You can even go to the likes of Fiverr etc and find someone that can help.

As to not being able to find a viable alternative to Ebay, I am more than a little flabbergasted at that one.

Amazon, Ebid, Onbuy and many others come to mind without much thought.

But why would you be restricting yourself to a single site anyway?

[sexytigger30]

Totally agree my sales have dropped from nearly £600 a month now I'm lucky to get 40 per week some weeks worse than that all these changes ebay are making are definitely for the worse and I've lost my mojo with it I have a ton of stock not even listed yet so need to carry on but so disheartening when I barely get any views to my listings and with the reduced amount of 300 it's an absolute nightmare ebay are a joke might have to try another platform to sell but not had much luck there in past good luck to you hope you get some improvement 

[thenextlevel-uk]

eBay dropped me lol last year even though I had 100% feedback! And they
said it was to protect the buyers! So told them it was there loss! Never
buying or selling on fleabay again!

Chris Lawrence

[exponential_developments]

How do you mean, ebay dropped you?

[santlache_sales]

When I started on ebay destiny in my own hands is how it seemed. Now ebay dictates so many aspects of selling in a lot of ways ebay feels more like an employer. 

Same here, the more work you out in the better the rewards, then Big Brother eBay and the suits started to interfere more and more until we get to where we are today, where eBay control every single aspect of a sale.

Believe it or not we are eBay's customers, the people now who are keeping them afloat now with their excessive fees. Yet I know of no other business that treats it's customers (Business Sellers) with such utter contempt as eBay do to us.

Over the years they have taken more money from us and despite all the lies they tell to justify it,  instead of increase in sales we have had less and less as they now stride to con more money out of sellers through Promoted Listings. Then manipulate the search engine so it is no longer a search engine.

I know of no other company which has cut its own throat so many times for such short term gain, they had a winning ticket when they started, it was the goose that laid the golden egg, but eBay have slowly but surely ruined it and erroded any trust they once had, primarily through greed.

2025 for me means seriously scaling down on here as eBay have seriously let me and thousands of other businesses down. I've already started chopping items and the cull will continue for the rest of the month when I will come down a level in the shop.

[santlache_sales]

I think it all started going wrong with "promoted listings" 

The rot started before Promoted Listings, that was the lid going on the coffin for Businesses.

Free Listings for Private Sellers saw the nails being banged in.

Business Sellers are now being lowered into the ground by eBay.

[vintagevilarosa]

Well I am trying to sell as much of our crepe as possible from the last downsize we did which was from an 8 bedroom house to a 4 bedroom house now we are moving again only this time to a new country so I really dont want to be hanging on to things that I will have to pay to move! I just wish I could do it faster but with the search on ebay being totally useless there is no hope of that happening!

[sky-news-aware]

Ebay don't want you to sell it quickly, it is all a 'drip feed'

Its that ebay advert on tv that makes me laugh what a joke it is!

Making out it is that easy to sell items.

things. people. love Yeah IF they can find it on site!

[vintagevilarosa]

Back when we lived in the UK we used to buy vintage cars that didnt work and my husband would get them working because that was his hobby.  In the end it was impossible to find any vintage cars because of the search not working correcting and all the new cars that were listed!  So he gave that hobby up...I was glad because he had 10 cars sitting on the driveway all in various states of disrepair!

[luby_vintage-247]

same here time to call it a day.