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?

[dwtrading2015]

Maybe the idea behind zero fees for private sellers is that this will encourage pre-paid promotional gimmicks to be bought.  So rather than relying on a FVF as long as the items sells, instead eBay bags fees whether the item sells or not.  eBay tried launching fulfilment centres like Amazon where you pay for shelf space whether you sell or not, has tried selling promotions on a pay per click basis, whether your item sells or not.  However, so far all attempts to get income whether the item sells or not has either failed or been unviable commercially for sellers so I suppose the revenue expected from private sellers from additional listings extras fees will also be well under expectations.

Instead they have one hugely *bleep* off and very angry business seller community who are dumping the platform in droves.  I'm back to returning to full-time employment again, eBay is never going to work as a sole income like it did for me for some years.

Coca-cola had the wisdom to do an immediate U turn when they changed the flavour and it bombed; saved the product.  eBay show no sign of such corporate insight.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Traffic these days is simply woeful.

Even two years ago when the platform was already going downhill we would have had 250 page views by 5pm on a Saturday in late November, so far today we have had 79 at just gone 4:30pm.

[the_book_seekers]

The new traffic page seems to have a massive lag. I'm currently showing big fat zeros for views and impressions. Tomorrow I'll see what figures I've actually achieved. Real time information has gone out of the window and we have another improvement that doesn't work properly.

[micksmancave]

We are exactly the same.  We used to run three shops, eBay are impossible to deal with, I feel they are an extremely greedy platform.  Like many others, we have closed all our shops, we are running 45 listings on one account and 35 on another.  Dropped from £3000 a month turnover to barely £400 and that is this month, November 2024, looks irreparable.   We have moved quite a bit of stock to personal accounts as it's "free" to sell.  We will be shutting the remainder of our business accounts on eBay in January 2025.  A big kick in the teeth when it's free for some to sell, but business sellers still get completely hammered on ludicrous greedy fees.  We sell on other platforms and they are making 10 times the amount on eBay.  Flogging a dead horse springs to mind.  

[moldosgifts]

"We have moved quite a bit of stock to personal accounts as it's "free" to sell. "

That is unfortunate as you will be joining the illegally trading brigade.

And will be reported as such.

Please reconsider.

But i do understand your sentiment.

It is a simple as black and white, do or don't, Business or private.

[leadhills_scot]

My sales are down nearly 75% from last November. Although I don't officially retire until April, I'm leaving next month due to all the shenanigans going on. The state pension is worth more than I've made in profit on ebay this year. Even put at top of of my listings that I will cease trading on ebay 15th December and any listings without watchers I'm ending when they are due to roll over.

[yannisjohn75]

How to earn points? Im newbie

[santlache_sales]

"Additionally, we are convinced that more private sellers on eBay.co.uk will bring in a diversity of listings, increasing the marketplace’s attractiveness. Remember, private sellers are not in competition for business sellers....."

What a complete load of utter tosh and a massive lie.

Private, or Businesses listed as Private are very much stamping all over businesses in my line, selling the same items and they can undercut with nothing to pay, no tax etc, whereas we have to pay ebay the full whack in fees etc, not to mention  the shop fees on top.

I've seen it, Private sellers with 90-100 items and of course they have NO FEES.

You have really shafted us, eBay.

[theelench]

I usually agree with a lot that you say but have to disagree this time.

I quote the sentence following those that you quoted.

"We also see that Private Sellers are also much more active buyers."

With the general public seemingly turning its back on ebay, how many of your buyers do you think are also sellers and how many would still buy from you without the incentive of coming to ebay to deal with their listings ?  Would they even bother to try searching for your listings, there are far easier sites to use.

You also seem to say that private sellers (not businesses pretending to be private sellers) with 90-100 listings are in competition with you.   You have 594 listings offering a selection that the private seller cannot match and know that most collectors are looking for specific coins and grades.  My own collection, which I wouldn't think is in any way exceptional, has 108 coins (I just counted them) assembled over years.  One of the last additions and first purchases I made on ebay was bought from you (an 1838   1 1/2d  BUGem @£61) 

If times get much harder, I might have to think about selling them, but probably not on ebay. 

[leadhills_scot]

All done, everything is ended and deleted from unsold. Last few orders will be in the post this morning, no more ebay.

[dazzio-music]

Are you selling elsewhere, or just packed up for good?

[all-things-stuff]

Business completely closed in January 2024 and deleted account from ebay just to be sure from a HMRC point of view.

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

[bavarianwerke]

Allow me to join in and share my thoughts about this Topic of conversation .

I have been on eBay from 2009 and even though I personally ,  and I am sure other pro sellers have to thank

eBay for propping our online business in the past but things have changed drastically since I first started selling on eBay. Changed for worse ! 

I have been very loyal for a long time , followed all the rules , always offered excellent customers service only to be let down by eBay with the way how biased they are when it comes to disputes.

I sell rather expensive items , so when some dishonest buyers try to exploit eBay's flawed policies the 

seller has very small or no chance to fight it back no matter how right you can be .

This kept on happening , and I started to be so angry with eBay , you know as if I do not pay anything for the privilege of selling on their platform. 

So I started to remove listing or not replace them when they sell out , so for the past year or so my eBay lost 200 listings  ! My attention now focused on own website ,  it is not an easy way either but you wont be bullied by the BIG brother , and if you do everything right running your website is a lot cheaper   and now I am looking to close my eBay completely , starting with eBay.de .

If someone from eBay will read this I want you know know guys your reputation is so low now , you have become so greedy and totally lost touch , you allowed your platform to be infested with fakes and you knowingly allow these fakes to be sold even when they are reported by the specialists.

Shame on you eBay !

[theelench]

It's good to hear from ebay sellers based in other countries sharing their experiences of ebay, we've had a seller from .com adding a few replies recently (not sure if they were on this topic or one of the others).  Now from you on .de.  

If nothing else it shows that it isn't just .uk that's suffering because of the (to put it mildly) unwise, inept, down-right stupid and totally counter productive decisions emanating from California or Wall St.

To paraphrase a UK politician from the past.  "Never has so much been lost by so many, by the actions of so few."

And yet, they've been paid $ millions to create the disaster we have today.

[vintagevilarosa]

Actually back in the day when ebay was good and fun we were able to purchase our first house with the proceeds we made from ebay we wouldnt have been able to do that with just our wages at the time! I doubt you could do that now because the fees are extortinate!

[theelench]

Thanks for the Kudos you just left for a post I made last January.

Re-reading it, things haven't got any better since then.

[the-nutwood-collection]

Can any veteran eBay seller remember what the fees were around 12-15 years ago?  This was when I cleared out the garage and lots of other stuff, and don't remember thinking that the fees were unreasonable - in fact I thought they were very reasonable.  I think the fee structure was different - you could pay extra for enhancements such as additional images, or a pop-up on mouseover on the search screen.

When I started the business in 2019, I was surprised to find the fee was 12.9% +VAT.  I hadn't expected that.

Have the fees risen alarmingly, or is my memory faulty?  At the time of my grand clear-out eBay was thriving.  Everything sold at a really good price, so maybe this has clouded my memory into thinking eBay was good value for money.  

[vintique*violet]

Except Ebay's Bank Balance 😉 

[sheba-knows-best]

---

@the-nutwood-collection wrote:

Can any veteran eBay seller remember what the fees were around 12-15 years ago? 

---

In 2011 FVF in secondhand clothing were 10% for private sellers (which I was). They are now 11.9% for business sellers (which I am). 

[theelench]

I sold my first item on ebay in July 2012 although I had bought a few things before that.

The basic fees for a private seller on ebay were a small Listing Fee on a sliding scale.  I don't remember exactly how much but really small like £1 - £9.99 auction start price = (perhaps 6p.)  £10 - £19.99 = 12p.

Ebay's FVF for most categories was 10% of the sale price.  (But not charged on P&P)

Then there was the Paypal fee which I think was 20p per transaction + 2%.  (Charged on the total money transferred - Sale price + P&P.)

Then there were optional extras like, as you said extra photos, large photos, second category and even a small charge for scheduling your listing.

Ebay didn't need to hand out thousands of Free Listings back then, so there weren't any  except at long intervals ebay might give sellers a Free Listing Weekend or Free to List at 99p auction start price.

Those Sunday nights were so busy with sellers trying to list before 11:59 that filling-in the Listing Form was slow and I remember making cups of coffee in the time it took for the (5?) photos to up-load.

I don't remember thinking any of the fees were unreasonable back then.  Most of what I listed sold, the money was instantly credited to my paypal wallet and often as quickly spent again as my Watch List always had more on it than I could afford to buy.

What a shame they had to get greedy and ruin it.