Is eBay a place TO SELL OR NOT any LONGER? Is it dead / dying?

[fixfix]

Does anyone else feel the same? Is eBay no longer a platform for sellers? During my years of selling on eBay, I've noticed declining traffic. The traffic and sales were so much better previously Is it the algorithm that is messing up people's businesses? Always been an "eBay Top-rated Seller." Used promoted listings, shop, keywords, specs, and delivery options including express, "free" postage, and "not-free", promotions. Nothing seems to work. Still getting sales if you can call it this way (0-3 a day), but nothing like it used to be. 

Never actually stopped promoting (not at the full suggested rate but reasonable)

The traffic went dramatically down in the last 2-3 years. Just not picking up. Any recommendations, feelings, experiences, etc.

Thinking of leaving eBay for good... It's draining my energy trying to figure it out, but nothing works.

[padanpcparts]

Honestly I just cant be bothered. It is a small value multi listing item. Each listing would be about £1000 of value and i want about 400 listings to start, so yeah....need £400k from the start or its just not worthwhile spending the time. 

[4_bathrooms]

---

@therenewalworkshopltd wrote:

They need to make the shops either extremely cheap, or stop listing fees entirely.

Though I can't see them dropping listing fees for quite some time yet as I would imagine that it's a fair chunk of their income.  But virtually nowhere else do you have to pay to list an item.

I do wonder if they will ever get that one?

---

I agree. In particular for many sellers caught between the featured and anchor shop levels the gulf in cost between the two will become a huge barrier hindering growth. Here is a breakdown of the cut-off points where each shop subscription becomes worthwhile based on BIN listings:

• Basic shop: 90 listings: 90 x 30p = £27.00
• Featured shop: 140 listings: (140 - 90) x 10p = £50 (£77 - £27 = £50)
• Anchor shop: 8,700 listings (8,700 - 1,500) x 5p = £360.00 (£437.00 - £77.00 = £360.00)

Someone with a featured shop and 5,000 listings - a long way from an anchor shop being worthwhile - is paying £252.00 (£302.40 inc. VAT) per month just to list their inventory; it's bonkers. Despite the illusion eBay gives about each shop subscription's value on the fees for business sellers page there isn't much difference between the featured and anchor shop subscriptions in terms of perks. Anchor store subscribers may receive an invitation to eBay Concierge instead of having to deal with eBay's frontline customer services. They also receive a £20.00 (instead of a £10.00) packaging voucher that can only be redeemed against purchases from a particular supplier that has been hand-picked by eBay based on cost. Oh, and not forgetting they can list in an additional category for free. 

I can't think of another marketplace that charges business sellers in anything like this way. Someone with a growing but somewhat slow moving inventory will hit a barrier where listing more items simply isn't worth it even with a correlated increase in sales. Businesses that list a large amount of bespoke items, specialist items, components or spare parts (like @padanpcparts) will be particularly vulnerable to this listing barrier. 

[red_apple_av]

Even with coupons and markdowns, plus sponsored listings, still only 2-3 orders for very low priced items, I'm doing everything I'm being told to do, but I draw the line at paying for clicks, only pay when someone buys an item.

For instance yesterday I sold a total of £308.11 where as on Amazon the sales were £1651.92

Every item is on eBay and some items are actually less on eBay than Amazon

Just goes to show that eBay is dead and broken. I've lost all motivation to list new items on here now as I feel I'm wasting my time and instead concentrating on Amazon and my own website and soon B&Q marketplace as they invited me.

I must say I also have a Onbuy selling account and this marketplace is also dead and has been for months, so much so I'm closing my account there as again all they do is ram down your throat the idea of boosting and paying for ads.

[angelusscooters]

I concur!   Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[laptopsparesrepairs]

Please buy something from my shop, sorry to beg, I have tried all other avenues! 😮

[simplyessential_uk]

Definitely not a cost of living crisis - People are just choosing to spend their money elsewhere - Tik tok shop, Temu, Amazon, Vinted, Etsy, own websites, High street websites etc there is a lot more choice now so the pot has to be shared more  so we cant keep blaming "cost of living" so poor sales - My sales used to all come from Ebay but they are now spread across several platforms (I still make approx the same amount of money) 

[bojangled]

@angelusscooters

I am actually grateful to eBay for making me look at the other platforms.
I don’t want to leave entirely, but really can’t continue to pay the shop fees and FVF and anything else they think of adding to business sellers while sales are so dire.

Jo

[simplyessential_uk]

I opened my own website about 5yrs ago - slow start but now I make more on there than ebay and most are big value orders -  compared to  ebay orders and ofcourse only paying Stripe fees (which are very low) 

[spwp222]

Well all i see here is people moaning about sales and others on here moaning about sellers who moan about selling!!  as a user/buyer/seller of 20 years (not moaning about sales) i can honestly say that ebay's feature is not looking good... they seem to think that ebay is all about buyers when in reality ebay is NOTHING without it's sellers, as ebay has nothing to sell without them! There have been so many changes over the last few years and in all honesty hardly any of them were helpful.  Thinktank??? more like a septic tank as far as idea's go. They once forced you to use PAYPAL only to stop you using it recently, now they hold your cash to ransom until their list of do's and don'ts have been satisfied, they class ALL money you get from selling as 'earnings' so no wonder the taxman is on the case, customer help is read from a card when you call as they have little to no ability to act on most issues, the new system means no proof of postage then no cash... well that just helps buyers who's postman didn't scan the package to get their item for free, without a smartphone and a printer ebay thinks your a fossil with no place in the world, etc etc etc i could go on for hours! so although i don't have an issue with ebay as such i still wouldn't encourage anyone to start using it, as it's BROKEN. 

[finboorie]

Got to admit I have definitely seen a drop in  views and bids on my stuff I sell since this simple delivery fiasco. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Really not sure why your replying to a post, that is from over 6 weeks ago?

However, you are getting some things confused here.

Yes, Paypal was sold and is no longer the de facto payment method, but you can still use it to buy with.
It is only if you are a private seller, that you cash is held and not business sellers, so again I'm confused as to why you are posting on a business seller forum, where this does not affect them in any way.

Ebay do NOT class your income from selling as earnings.  
The entire reason that they now forward on this information to HMRC, is due to changes in the law.  This affects ALL marketplaces and not just Ebay, so I really don't get your logic, as to how this is all Ebay's fault.

Support is useless, but that is frankly common to most sites these days.

The new postage system again, has zero impact on business sellers.

As regards whether or not an item is scanned, that makes zero difference whether or not it goes through the new system, or standard post.  That is entirely outside of ebay's control.

Ebay is not broken.  It has plenty of issues, but is still turning over billions.....

And frankly, that does not sound broken to me!