Is Ebay Now The Unhappiest Eccomerce Platform For Sellers

[mwdirect_uk]

Days With out Selling on Multiple Shop

then when ebay Fees roll Around You guessed it Will Be given scraps then Nothing 

have asked when the main changes will stop so the site will settle no one knows since june my sales have gone to the Floor Get This Its Asking For 17% Promotional Ha Ha 

Have tried Promotions i got less sales 

Cant buy stock as its not worth it for ebay 

since cassini the site is awful i mean who in the right mind would Put this In Place of The one they had 

 No one seems to be able to say when the ever messing i mean changes will stop 

Am I the only One who sales are effected 

ive tried ploughing stock on

promotions 

vouchers 

standing on my head 

speaking to customer service 

live chat

different shop levels basic featured 

spliting stock on to multiple sites 

social media till my fingers are raw 

Praying to all Gods 

And Nothing no growth A Decline since cassini 

Am I the only One 

[9150simon]

No you are not the only one, there are lots of threads about sales getting less and less, mine included and like you I have tried everything going to try and get some sort of normality back, but all is in vain.  I get an odd day or two every month where I think momentarily that things are picking up, and then it goes back to nothing.

I think this is the new normal!!

[padanpcparts]

This year has been the toughest for selling on E-bay by some way. Facebook marketplace has also died a death this year which is a real shame. 

[wyntersemporium]

Sick also of the so called private sellers who sell in costume jewellery category 

just seen a private seller selling 4000 items of costume jewellery 

and given loads of incentives to do so. 
and here I am plodding along. EBay seem to not care about business sellers who are making them money. 
and when I do put a item up in price I get the email to be competitive please adjust your listing price 

[mrob7487]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as you, only I sell vintage jewellery. I've seen numerous business sellers on private accounts with 100+ sales every 3 months and making thousands over those 3 months and here I am following the rules and I can see tumbleweeds. Had a grand total of 2 sales last month which just about covered my fees. So at the minute I'm selling my items and the pittance I'm making goes straight to eBay to pay fees.

[the-layer-laboratory]

I've honestly lost all hope with this platform now.

2-3 years ago, it would’ve been unusual to make less than £1000 of sales a week on ebay. In the last 7 days on here, I’ve turned over less than £40.

Game's up!

[Anonymous]

The thing is, eBay isn't really the issue.

eBay is a platform, it has grown over the years, however then other sites came along and could offer people better deals and saving, saving money is the priority of the buyer.

So for example...
AliExpress/Temu - in the last year has really come on leaps and bounds, free P&P if you spend more than £8/£15, a £ voucher if it arrives a day late, free returns, delivery within a week, payment by card, dirt cheap prices,

People are more savvy now, they may not go to those sites for electrical goods due to safety concerns but they'll go there for pretty much anything else.

The pandemic got even the most old fashioned people to try online shopping and most of these sites are easy and quick to use,

Years ago you could search eBay for items from Chinese sellers and save money, now the Chinese sellers on here are rarely any cheaper than UK sellers – why? Because they want you to go to Chinese sites.

If eBay want to be one of the most used online platforms again they need to implement something like AliExpress and Temu’s shipping programme.

You order 10x items from 10 x different sellers – they all get sent to a hub and then arrive in one package, meaning one single postage fee is paid.

Until such a time and now that private sellers can sell for free – business sellers who sell items under £10 or items that you can get on those sites - have literally just been killed off.

I didn’t like the high fees eBay were charging private sellers but they didn’t need to be free, most sellers would probably tell you that they had no problem if they sold and item for £5.00 paying 50p fees,

It all seems too good to be true that eBay have dropped fees altogether for private sellers in my opinion, that must be thousands of pounds every week they have decided they don’t want.

So I’m guessing this is all to reel in new sellers, they will stick with it for 6 months and then they’ll be taken over or re introduce the fees.

Imagine being a private seller right now – hmm eBay want me to upgrade to a business account – nahh, I’ll ask my mates to list some of my items and in return I’ll give them a percentage out of the eBay fees saved... they’ll be setting up WhatsApp groups to exchange item photos ready to list.

[mwdirect_uk]

ive dropped 50% On each siteSince June ,,,,,

and Every Year Since cassini ive dropped 

i have not seen any growth it doesnt matter what i do .... Ebay customer Service you have to feel sorry for cause they dont know either they are kept in the dark and are there to apologies 

i just wish they would let the site settle stop working on it a button that no one will ever use 

i wont buy stock for ebay so christmas will be a wipe out again on here 

its not worth the shope fee im on amazon 9 platforms and will try the usa One ...

and if that works after 18 years on ebay i will show loyalty to those Platforms who want it 

[the-nutwood-collection]

Haven't you heard?  All these newbie sellers, attracted by the no-fee policy, are going to spend their riches in business sellers' shops.

Then we'll all be rich!

Get that ocean-going yacht on order.

[mostwantedfashion]

Thank you mate I actually laughed out loud youve made my day 

As you you said trying to get back to what they had Before cassini 

I'm old enough to remember the small businesses and private sellers warning not to break the circle of the small sellers being the buyers 

But they did and now we have a site that has constant problems and unhappy sellers

And no growth 

[padanpcparts]

The good news is....they wont have to pay fees anymore....oh....

[hudsonsclothes]

There are many many issues with the site that could and should be fixed that would make the whole thing a lot more successful as a relative newbie who never really shopped or sold here until 2 months ago coming in with a new set of eyes.

The searching results and landing pages are all over the place and look a mess with random suggestions and hundreds of results thrown at you, it all needs cleaning up for a better buyers experience. I tried to buy some mens size 12 trainers the other day for personal use, I purposely tried to find a small seller rather than the large companies and fake overseas accounts and every item I clicked on I would have another 20 or 30 suggestions thrown in my face. In the end I bought elsewhere.

The other thing I have noticed (even some of the posters on the discussion boards and their accounts, no one on this particular thread however) is sellers with awful practices and attitudes which just drives buyers away from the site. One seller the other day for example on here, was dropshipping electrical components from China, and then calling his customers liars on the feedback because the items were faulty or weeks late.  This despite him never seeing or touching the product. 

Theres loads of other things, as a new eBay user I have noticed but I wont bore you all 😂

[papso22]

---

@the-nutwood-collection wrote:

Haven't you heard?  All these newbie sellers, attracted by the no-fee policy, are going to spend their riches in business sellers' shops.

Then we'll all be rich!

Get that ocean-going yacht on order.

---

Beautifully summarised and shows how nonsensical the propaganda actually is!

[1956glyn]

and back to reality i fear the site will be even more cluttered with tat 😂

[billtev]

just seen this on line last night 

HMRC fine warning to anyone selling items on eBay and Vinted

People who make money selling items online may have to inform HMRC within days - they have to 5th October to register or will be hit with fines if they dont comply - anyone else seen this 

[1956glyn]

Hi

Yes i saw that on Birmingham live.    Very basic and in my opinion scaremongering information and ones personal circumstances should be taken into consideration.   As usual its rarely "one size fits all"

The bit i read also did not differentiate between business and private sellers.....or those in between

[theelench]

It worked before when ebay tried to split itself in two, launching Ebay Express to sell new stuff and leaving all the "boot fair tat" and the worlds biggest "collectables fair" on the old site.  The latter carried on booming but "Express" didn't do too well, was discontinued and had to be taken back into the main site.

Will it work this time?    I don't know.

Since last time ebay has spent years making the site more useful to businesses and mostly ignoring the complaints that the site has become so complicated and user unfriendly made by private sellers.  Ever since paypal was dumped so ebay could grab the extra income from payment processing, I can't think of a single change that increased my sales as a private seller, usually the opposite happened and presumably for many other private sellers also.

Every change saw another tranche of private sellers leave as they fell foul of new metrics, demands for new verification standards, demands that they engage in a continuous learning curve just to stand still, payment holds sprung on them unexpectedly (and soo often after they'd made a decent sale or two and most recently the growing realisation that their chances of selling anything were heading towards zero unless they "volunteered" to give ebay 20 - 25% of their sales proceeds (plus of course the same % of their postage costs).

IMO ebay has, step by step, alienated the very sellers that made it great, saved it from its own growing greed and allowed it to maintain its position as a house-hold name and a commonly used verb.

Are there enough would-be sellers left out there in the real (UK) world that haven't already tried ebay and given-up, or know of someone who has.  Not amongst the people I know.

No doubt there are many who will try, drawn in by the "Free to Sell"  hype.  But with the site structured as it is now, how many will succeed when so many who had been using ebay successfully, sometimes for years, have abandoned it?  Or will they arrive, make a few attempts to sell and (like their predecessors) grow disillusioned, having decided that all the effort is not worth the meager rewards?

Ebay may have thrown business sellers under the bus, as it has done before, with sudden shifts in policy.  But this time it has newer, easier to use, sites to contend with and the unquantifiable effect that reporting even moderate sales to HMRC will have on private sellers. 

It's certainly in for an uphill struggle (IMO) because its been hacking away at the branch that it rests on for so long and sticking it back together again will be very difficult.

[goldenlolly]

Totaly agree, ive closed down my jewellery shop this morning. It was already really tough but now having to compete with private accounts (i wont say sellers as there are very clearly dealers doing so too) that can literally undercut me by 25% and make twice my margin on gold. after 10 years i've had enough, will use other platforms and prioritise other revenue streams.

[mwdirect_uk]

Well Said .....

couldnt of put it better .... 

ebay customer service and ebay discussion page was full of warnings buy both sellers (private & Business) and buyers , 

that it was its own circle the small sellers and Small businesses were the buyers , you would buy from your paypal balance , the google platform was awesome it  let you grow, cassini has not worked and i really think if they went back to google and scrapped cassini the site would be somewhere back to where it was ,

but ebay never listened and i feel so sorry for ebay customer service , the kept in the dark, 

But well said 

[goldenlolly]

I've worked for large multi nationals, the staff at the 'coal face' can usualy see exactly what is going wrong and how shortsighted some decisions are but their voice's aren't heard by those at the top.

I've been one of those frustrated workers, utterly demoralising having to defend the actions of idiotic "leaders"  who think they know better.

Stock is now removed from shop, subscriptions cancelled. Im off to the pub to start the weekend early and ponder my next moves. good luck all