How many sellers are closing their shops or running down their account in 2024?

[ovbargains]

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?

[rainbowtrax]

@theelench yes, that's definitely needed as well. All they should be doing is matching the words in the search box to the words in the title and returning the results - all of them. Then all results would, as you say, be a perfect match.

The Best Match sort then still kicks in though with the ordering being based on what ebay "thinks" is "best" of all these perfect matches at the top, which is whoever's paying the most in PL to ebay. If we didn't have to pay to play there'd be no need for a "Best Match" sort order, and a default sort order of, say, Newly Listed would make sure every listing was seen. Then listings will either sell or not on their own merits, not because ebay say you should buy this one instead of that one.

[mewde60]

I totally agree. I often search for 'Artist's Acrylic paint' which is top rated, professional, guaranteed lightfast paint. What I get is 7.5 thousand listings for cheap useless *bleep* paint that I wouldn't touch if you paid me. Really frustrating that Ebay disregards simple search requests for the extra coin of paid promotions.

[pillarboxred]

I must say a fall from £13,000 per calendar month to £60 per calendar month is horrific. I spell out "pcm" just to check whether the stats are correct. Are they? I am losing money and now spending more on Promoted Listings in the hope that might do something although it seems ridiculous.

A very well-informed Edinburgh citizen told me today that the businesses which do house clearances have no sales avenue for 90% of the goods they remove from residences, no knockout auctions to sell washing machines for £0.50p and sofas for £1; there are almost no secondhand shops and  the many charity shops are very picky. 90% is going to landfill. It's a weird crisis of oversupply which seems to be happening online too. I don't know what the solution is; I used to think "sell it on eBay".  How? For how much? Does the profit even pay for the Sellotape?

[pillarboxred]

Don't you search for the Brands which have made high quality artists' pigments for centuries? Roberson, Rowney, Winsor and Newton etc? Specialist colourmen shops still soldier on in the big cities offering quality to the handful who understand and need it.

[pillarboxred]

"Blue glass vase" will call up a huge number of search  returns which needs to be winnowed down using filters. Paid promotions seems to me to corrupt the filtering process by offering goods that are shoved in the buyer's face because a fee has been paid rather than because it is exactly what the buyer is looking for. I'm not convinced that it even works as I can't see any uptick in my sales.

[pillarboxred]

A/W is fashion jargon for "Autumn/Winter", the season the goods are created for. You'll soon be seeing S/S.

The problem with the price points is that eBay and Amazon are themselves instrumtental in creating ever lower price expectations so that with sweat shops scarves maybe selling for £1 with free postage, a £10 scarf must seem expensive.

[loftu_23]

Spot on. I've been selling on eBay for 6 years and will be closing tax year-end.

I have lost interest in not wanting to list on eBay anymore. I noted last year what a massive difference that more local people visited the shops and the car boot sales due to constant Royal Fail strikes, courier firms' reputations are somewhat bad, parcels stolen, damaged, still in transit, parcels misplaced, etc.

I'm keeping things under review, but when I do, eBay will be the 1st to go by 28 February/ the end of the tax year. 

My accountant I have known since my teens told me he said eBay sellers in his area have not doing very well for the last 2 years, he told me that eBay sellers have closed eBay accounts and found new jobs with stable fixed monthly salaries.

I noted that the local car boot sales where sellers were selling there last year told me they used to sell on eBay, but not anymore, they seem happy doing it every week for 11 months.  I probably will go to the car boot sale in mid-February to sell the remaining stocks. 

My New Year's resolution is for me to get a new job working for an employer.

[theelench]

There used to be a Category that sellers could use :  Pottery, Porcelain & Glass > Date Lined > (with various sub-divisions and their relevant dates) i.e Art Deco 1910 - 1939.   So searching for "Art Deco Blue Glass Vase" reduced the huge numbers to something I found accurate and manageable, somewhere around a couple of thousand.

Now the only "Dates" I can search by are useless / meaningless decades i.e 1910 - 1920.

I can search by "Style > Art Deco" which will dredge up every "Art Deco Style" item in "Home furnishing & DIY"  (some sellers try this route) category and use further filters to try to reduce that to a reasonable number of genuine inter-war blue glass vases. 

Trouble is, all too often with each successive filter the numbers reduce, but suddenly by applying one more filter the results go from 10K to 5K to 3K to 62.  Three thousand still has irrelevant items, the last filter  gets rid of them leaving next to nothing results and the final answer will change depending on the order the filters are applied.

Or a seller can try the "House & Garden" category route > Decorative tableware > Vases.  But the results can be just as hit and miss.

Just before Christmas I bought a magnificent vase I'd been looking for for a while.  To my astonishment it was listed under "Collectables & Art >  Pottery, Ceramics & Glass > Decorative Pottery Ceramics & Glass >Vases".  An option I've never been offered as a suggestion when listing an A.D glass vase since this rigmarole began. 

Not at all surprising then that I got it for the opening bid when a few genuine items can now be scattered through (at least ) three giant categories with only imprecise filters to use to try winnowing them out.  No wonder that my sales have fallen, as have those of many other collectables sellers.  Sellers don't know where to list stuff, buyers cant find what they're looking for and at every step of the way, often irrelevant  PLs are top of the results.

Rant over, as are most of my attempts to buy or sell A.D Glass on ebay.

[goingfishinguk]

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@loftu_23 wrote:

I noted that the local car boot sales where sellers were selling there last year told me they used to sell on eBay, but not anymore, they seem happy doing it every week for 11 months.  I probably will go to the car boot sale in mid-February to sell the remaining stocks. 

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Well when you have to hike up your prices to cover fees, promotions etc by sometimes 30% to 50% then it will come to the point, which I think it already has when the end customer says no, enough is enough I'm not paying those inflated prices and I'm going elsewhere, i.e. your car boot sales or markets etc..

[litp*records]

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@gothicrosegallery wrote:

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@simplyessential_uk wrote:

Hope you dont mind me saying - Ive looked at your scarves and they are very nice but expensive

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You think £10 - £12 is expensive for a scarf! lol.

That's very cheap.

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In today's world though people want everything for nothing.  People make ridiculous low offers for stuff now, they don't want to pay more than a cup of costa/starbucks.

Incidentally that's also why charity shops seem to be dying, they've all raised their prices and tried to match online prices, not realising that no one is actually paying these prices....  

[bojangled]

@litp*records 

Charity Shops in my small rural market town (of Broadchurch fame a few years ago- population 12,500) grow year on year, we now have 10 in a square mile of 3 main streets. They all seem to be thriving.
I don't source from them, but one shop manager tells me she knows her ebayers and prices accordingly to turn stock over quickly. Probably in the minority but a wise business move. 

To answer OP's question, not running down or closing, upping output. I jacked it in in 2008 for the 'safety of employment'. My freedom means far too much to me now. Got to adapt and change with it. 
Jo

[pg_kicks]

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@loftu_23 wrote:

My accountant I have known since my teens told me he said eBay sellers in his area have not doing very well for the last 2 years, he told me that eBay sellers have closed eBay accounts and found new jobs with stable fixed monthly salaries.

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With the minimum wage going upto over 20k a year for a full time job I don't blame many for dumping this and going to full time employment. For a lot I bet eBay started as a part time thing whilst kids needed looking after or they couldnt find a job, now if the kids are old enough why put yourself through the stress of self employment when you can be getting 20k a year and you leave any worries at the door at 5pm, plus its very much a workers market at the minute.

[kidmore_kats]

"Charity Shops in my small rural market town (of Broadchurch fame a few years ago- population 12,500) grow year on year, we now have 10 in a square mile of 3 main streets. They all seem to be thriving."

Apropos of absolutely nothing I was in your small rural market town only yesterday. We live further inland but are looking to move to the small rural market town in the spring.

It's a top place, especially the Tiger and the Electric Palace

[simplyessential_uk]

Yes - I set up my business 16yrs ago - I was a senior manager at the time but putting 2 kids through childcare etc paying £12k for them actually going self employed and not paying child care, petrol etc I was making more money, couldnt do that now - Sales are no where near what they were then but now its a part time job as Im in my 50s and couldnt bear the thought of going back to the job market but its a shame that the constant money grabbing fees of Ebay, Face book ads, Google ad, Insta ads etc (and it was all free back in the day) its just so hard to make any profit similar to a min wage job now

[alf2211]

Sadly we have seen exactly the same sort of variance and have closed 2 shops late last year and one this year. Also running down our stock and moving to other ventures. Had Ebay shown support our turn over would have been well into 6 and even low 7 figures by now. There own greed and lack of support for good sellers is driving standards down as the continual lack of C.E.O indecision input continues.

One of the largest Betting firms went under a few years ago through modern C.E.O. tactics they were advised what must be done to survive but didn't want to take it as meant working for a living. Across the board almost all large companies no longer work properly compared to 20 years ago.

Ebay make such massive errors they are performing well below there ability.

Bottom line percentage margins matter more than running your business properly , Gone have the days of running a business properly at this level.

[alf2211]

Most of our listings were top rated until promoted listings. Sales on our own promoted listings are not reflective of what we pay to boost them. Now selling stock off and pulling out as you cant build  a stable business on quicksand. 

[alf2211]

Perfectly summed up.

[alf2211]

I used to shop here as liked the fact you buy from a seller but now sick of churning through dross to find what i am looking for . Needless to say we shop elsewhere now.

[tech-tonix]

Yes, it's the lack of transparency about both the algorithm excluding lower-volume sellers, + hiding what your P.L. gets you in terms of visibilty. Which is why on principle  I wouldn't do "pay per click". I did find upping my P.L. %age from 5 to 10 on a couple of items allowed me to sell at a significantly higher price - all to the detriment of buyers. But for sellers it's of course a "race to the bottom" as other sellers increasingly are forced to do the same ;  and non-Ebay platforms then start to look more competitive relative to Ebay, for buyers.

[theelench]

"In today's world though people want everything for nothing."

But, perhaps rather strangely, I find that attitude is almost exclusive to ebay.  I sell here and on another site.  On neither site do I add  MAO to my listings and on the other site I've had one unsolicited "Would you take £xx?" message in ten years.

On ebay I've had three or four in just 2023, even though I would have thought it obvious that by not enabling BO on the listing, I'm not interested in their offers, insulting or otherwise.

On the other site people are happy to look at my item price + P&P cost and buy the item.  On ebay the site itself encourages sellers to allow offers and encourages "buyers" to add most of my items to their Watch Lists then sit back and wait for me to send them offers to reduce my price.

Only on ebay is a seller expected to haggle and take less than the BIN price.  Would buyers expect to get away with similar behaviour on etsy or amazon?  They certainly don't expect to on the other site I use.