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]

As the ads says 'Etsy has it'. 

[mewde60]

Hello darth.
Some people are complete idiots and like to advertise it!
I would have replied: “Thanks for great advice, I’ll happily lower my prices and make sure ALL my photo’s are blurred especially when using my Amazon account. In fact, I’m so impressed with your advice that I might just start giving everything away for free because it’s such good fun!”

Good luck in 2024. Mark

[silveroboe]

I am not a professional seller, more often a buyer, certainly these days, but how I agree with you!!

"Best match" means nothing of the sort - along with "UK only" which is another misnomer.

Now, all ebay seems to be is a marketplace for Chinese sellers. No wonder private and business sellers in this country are looking elsewhere.

Speaking as a private seller, who used to sell a few items occasionally, I no longer do so - there is far too much hassle. Selling on Ebay has become a nightmare, and I am not at all surprised that business sellers are looking elsewhere.

[mewde60]

Hi Siveroboe,

I know what you mean about Chinese sellers. I used to buy a lot of Jade\Jadeite carvings from Chinese sellers. They would always put the value at less than $10 so nothing ever got pulled at custome and they always sent the items free p&p. I just couldn't figure out how they managed to make a profit on some of the items they were selling.  The long and short of it that you can't compete with the most of the Chinese sellers which is great if you are buying but bad news if you are a seller. I bought hundreds of items and never had a problem!

If the west ever decides to sanction China the same way they've sanctioned Russsia (which USA will probably try to instigate at some time in the future) then I don't see how we'll be able to survive.

best regards and good luck in 2024.     Mark

[btr.style]

Chinese sellers aren't the problem. It's Chinese sellers masquerading as UK businesses so people think they are buying from the UK but then find out it's coming from China. 

When this happens, it takes a bit of time to arrive over and the quality is mostly terrible, that's how they profit even with postage costs. 

If people knew they were buying goods coming over from China, there would be much more reluctance to buy from them mainly due to these quality issues, so it's only 'bad news' for sellers because of this, not because they are selling the same quality of item at a lower price. Part of their strategy is when the items arrive and someone realises where it's shipped from, it's too difficult or too much hassle to return the item. 

That's not to say everything that comes from China is terrible quality, it's far from it. Just like anywhere in the world, they can make excellent quality or bad quality items. It just seems to be the sellers in China on eBay opt for cheap low quality goods. 

[theelench]

Neither am I, I also used to buy more than I sold, but not any more.  I'm down-sizing, but sales get slower by the year as many buyers (like me) just can't be bothered fighting with the search to find something worth buying.

I still list stuff on ebay, but with falling expectations of selling anything as I won't pay ebay 25% of the sale price AND the P&P costs.  (13.8% is more than enough IMO and that's all ebay's getting out of me)

Comments on a blog (I'm not allowed to name) are of the opinion that the recent increase in FVFs on Jewelery is just the first of a wider wave of increases to come.  Is ebay trying for 30% of sales taken in fees??   With anyone who won't pay, finding it ever harder to sell anything ?

I think that, like you, many non-business sellers have stopped selling on ebay, especially since Managed Payments started.  Their loss, as more leave with every change for the worse, has probably hastened the departure of many businesses because in addition to their increased fees, they're now chasing buyers who were once far more plentiful. 

[silveroboe]

You are quite right - much of the problem is caused by the sellers who masquerade as being in the UK but are actually in China, and send the item from there.  I have a suspicious nature(!) and ensure I check the seller's location.

Of course, some sellers based in China have UK stocks - but I do get very annoyed when I search for "UK only" and find the majority of items are listed by sellers in China.

Surely this is something ebay could put a stop to?

[silveroboe]

You are right - the managed payments have driven away a lot of buyers who have become very disillusioned and dispirited with ebay's constant tinkering which always makes things worse. It was much easier when ebay and Paypal were linked - and not as expensive, either. Ebay are pricing themselves out of business - like so many organisations in this country, they have lost their original reason for existence, and callously discarded their "core" users, both buyers and sellers.

There is a limit to just how much people are prepared to pay - and as far as business sellers are concerned, though I am not one, I think ebay have reached it.

[charmkeyrings]

Not me as it turned out.  I was sick of this place and was looking forward to binning it off at the end of 2023.  Over 1000 listings and dreadful ROI.  I hated ebay, the robbing so and so's.  I just had a re-think and adjusted. All the best.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Downgraded my shop from featured to basic 3 weeks ago. We did have 600 listings on however we decided to end all listings and relist some.

A featured shop on Ebay now costs around £1100 a year, not sure where the value is when we are paying over 20% when you add final value fees and promoted listing costs toegther. 

I may be wrong however I would guess many business sellers now pay Ebay more in fees than they end up with in net profit themselves. How did it get to this point ??  Even when we sell items we look at the selling costs and shudder. This place used to be a great platform to grow a business.

[theelench]

I saw your similar reply on another thread and your even earlier comment, which seemed quite angry, where you talked about how you were going to bin your stock and reduce or stop selling altogether.

I'm having similar thoughts (although the stuff I sell would go to charity shops rather than in the bin).

I sell one-off vintage items and started thinking about how I sell on ebay last May and even started a new strategy in about June last year.  That seemed to help for a few months, but then sales went back into the doldrums.

Care to share any of your thoughts?  Are they making any difference? (I do understand that some things will take a while to come to fruition and results may be small so far, I'm not looking for miracles)

I don't think I should pay ebay any more in fees for a worsening service.  I don't see why I should  accept / send insultingly low offers or under-value my stuff just to get a 'quick' sale.  I can't really do Multi-buy or Coupons etc. and in any case all they really are is variants of "reduce prices" at my expense.

It really does seem that now, for private sellers, ebay is "sown-up".  Pay 25% to ebay to get ads. visible to anyone at all.  Pay up and they are mostly seen by penny-pinching re-sellers who only want to buy at bargain basement prices.  How do I get some real private buyers / collectors to even see my ads.?

Do you have any answers to this dilemma??

[naturesactiveshop]

I have been selling since 2018. Had good times.. Since June I am just going down.. All my listings are promoted (dynamic+standard) .. No change at all. I have changed my packaging, labels, listings , photos recently (Pro Trade programme), I have coupons promotions.. If I am lucky  I  do half of what I did last year without any of the promotions with much smaller profit margin.  I feel like I am so insignificant and worthless.. Whatever I do I cannot sell as long as ebay wants me to sell. I cannot afford click pay I have already pushed my limits. My profit margin is so so low now I dont see my Ebay shop as a business now unfortunately. Closing some days with 10 - 20£ sales is so demotivating..

[litp*records]

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@exponential_developments wrote:

Now some of my suppliers sell on here, i can't even sell at break even to match their prices, is this good for ebay, who knows, but i do know those companies are busy building up their own websites, so maybe ebay is just used to direct customers there in the longterm.

It's not what it used to be, what does stand out is ebay seem to think sellers margins are sort of 100% or some other crazy amount....lol...lol..

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I was shocked to hear, at the Ebay Business Roadshow, an Ebay rep stand up and announce to the audience that they didn't care what platforms you sell on. That they want you to be successful on any platform including your own website.  

How does that help Ebay exactly?  Is that like McDonalds saying they don't care if you eat at Burger King.  To say something like that you have to be really confident in your brand/product!  Otherwise it comes across as a Ratner moment.

[litp*records]

Apologies, I meant to quote @simplyessential_uk  post instead

[litp*records]

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@british-ceramics-and-paintings wrote:

Downgraded my shop from featured to basic 3 weeks ago. We did have 600 listings on however we decided to end all listings and relist some.

A featured shop on Ebay now costs around £1100 a year, not sure where the value is when we are paying over 20% when you add final value fees and promoted listing costs toegther. 

I may be wrong however I would guess many business sellers now pay Ebay more in fees than they end up with in net profit themselves. How did it get to this point ??  Even when we sell items we look at the selling costs and shudder. This place used to be a great platform to grow a business.

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And you know the real kick in the teeth?  You could have saved that £1,100 a year and masqueraded as a private seller instead, getting 1000 free listings a month and reduced FVFs!

You'd most likely not be caught unless you were selling lots of brand new trainers, for example.

Just yesterday I saw a "private seller" who had over 14k (fourteen thousand!!) sales... and getting away with it for years, apparently.

Believe me, if I did not have the Job Center picking up my slack (you are penalised for making a profit) then i'd cancel my subscription too.  I'm incensed at even paying £34 a month when fake private sellers are getting it all for free.

To answer the actual question of the topic...in a word, yes. I've already run down from 250 to just over 50 listings.  I'm looking for a job so I can ditch this place altogether.

Maybe get a paid job at a charity shop. Haha i will tell my customers.. buy all this stuff and you can sell it on Ebay for loads!!  What they don't realise is, it's actually a curse...

[rainbowtrax]

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@litp*records wrote:

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@british-ceramics-and-paintings wrote:

Downgraded my shop from featured to basic 3 weeks ago. We did have 600 listings on however we decided to end all listings and relist some.

A featured shop on Ebay now costs around £1100 a year, not sure where the value is when we are paying over 20% when you add final value fees and promoted listing costs toegther. 

I may be wrong however I would guess many business sellers now pay Ebay more in fees than they end up with in net profit themselves. How did it get to this point ??  Even when we sell items we look at the selling costs and shudder. This place used to be a great platform to grow a business.

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And you know the real kick in the teeth?  You could have saved that £1,100 a year and masqueraded as a private seller instead, getting 1000 free listings a month and reduced FVFs!

You'd most likely not be caught unless you were selling lots of brand new trainers, for example.

Just yesterday I saw a "private seller" who had over 14k (fourteen thousand!!) sales... and getting away with it for years, apparently.

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Yesterday I saw one with 49 and a half thousand active listings.

[litp*records]

I am sure it's all working as intended, @rainbowtrax , and their system found nothing wrong!

[the_book_seekers]

How long has this particular seller been trading?

[rainbowtrax]

Five years so by no means the longest.

[krafty-kreations]

How does that even work 

Surely only 1000 would be free and the rest they would have to pay for or am I missing something?

In answer to the op, I have closed my shop and will be ending listings the end of the month, I sell more on my little old website I threw together than on here!