No Sales in April/May 2025 - Ebay Bank Holiday weekend What happened?

[theglo-68]

We have over 200 ebay listings with Zero Sales all Bank Holiday Weekend.

Ebay was once our best selling platform but since start of 2025 we are going downward with sales. Our sales were exceptional last year but even though we are advertising both paid and General still sales are not hitting.

What is the result of this downward decline - Has anyone else noticed it. We are now paying over £50 to ebay everyday for Promoted listings but getting no Sales.

Please share your thoughts.

[qualitycardsandgifts]

Thanks for the advice, it’s appreciated.    I’m definitely getting out of greetings cards.    I will use up my existing hard backed envelopes, then get rid of my card stock.       I have closed my basic shop, and only just realised that you can list 250 items at 12p for £30 (virtually the same as a basic shop subscription), and the only benefit is 100 free auctions which I’ve never used.   

I’ll relist my more expensive cards and cheaper ones that do sell in order to hopefully raise my visibility.     If that fails, I guess I’m going to retire.  

[therenewalworkshopltd]

You might want to check your costings there.

Without the subscription, I believe that it's 30p per listing.

With the basic shop, it will cost you about 12p per listing.  Assuming not vat registered.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/fees-business-sellers-activated-managed-pa...

[qualitycardsandgifts]

Yes, you’re right.     Im currently being charged 12p as I still have my shop.    Looks like the basic shop will have to stay for a while.   

[bojangled]

@qualitycardsandgifts 

Isn’t it a total of 36p to list without the basic shop?

So that would be 90 listings as opposed to the 250 (plus the useless 100 auctions), for £32.40. 

(Yet if I was a private seller I could get 400 a month for £19.99 rolling over..sorry just my real bug bear at the moment.) 

Jo

[pure5uk]

We Thought we were the only ones to see a decline in sales this month from the 2nd week until now - so, we decided to check out the community forum and found many others in the same boat! 

We called ebay a few times to ask if there was any issues with their platform and each time - we received different answers. 

1 person told us to have patience as there will be some kind of downfall in every business - even though we have been doing business for a long time and using this platform since 2019! 

Another Representative told us that we won't see the same outcome every month - whilst another told us that there were no issues with our viewings going down as They could not see it - when the next person they transferred us to - assured us that they could see the decline! - They must think we are newbies and don't know how a business works....(?!)

And not to forget another representative gave us a guarantee that we should see an increase in our sales in the next few days after they put us on hold for 2 minutes (Only they know what they checked and did!)

Therefore - first advice to anyone new here is do not take these representatives words to be true 100% as they themselves differ from each other. 

One person told us not to send offers to all our watchers as these don't work and majority of them are either 'repeated buyers' or 'other sellers' and much more. 

This month has been one of the worst in decline of business and sales as well as for views from buyers - I agree with someone who mentioned that his month was Easter Hols' and people were spending time with families etc but surely for views to go down in a vast amount is not normal, considering we have 800+ listings! 

We are trying all our level best to get sales started up again - with the amount of listings uploaded etc but still no luck. 

We have 1 more day left of April - hopefully everyone gets some sales in tomorrow and maybe some of you fellow sellers have reached your target. 

Good Luck for May! 

Shakila (Pure5UK)

[gbrtrading1]

As it is the last day of the month, and a lot of people are saying poor sales, I thought I'd look back at April 2025 ebay trading. It definitely seems quiet generally and today has been a total ghost town, but if compared to April 2024, the sales total on my business account is actually up about 9%. So that might seem good, right? But on another marketplace which I won't mention, if I compare April 2024 and April 2025, the sales total is up 85%.

There will be multiple reasons behind that, and I expect some differences between marketplaces, but it does make you wonder.

[denada_3]

Same here.......I have listings without a single view all of which are promoted & sales are none existent 

[6kitkat]

I was a genuine private seller, and bought a lot of bits and bobs though eBay, but the changes in February  killed it for me.  The buyer protection delays payment, while I have to pay an eBay sales tax on all purchases. So I stopped selling AND buying. Nothing bought in 3 months, I how shop elsewhere. 

If I’m not selling anymore I have no reason to visit the site, in rushing to demonise private sellers, eBay shot itself in the head.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Why is it, that none of you actually get what has happened with the fees?

With the BPF, they have just shifted how fees are paid to Ebay.

In actual fact, it is cheaper now, than it was prior to the silly season with free selling.

The only difference, is that it's up front instead of being incorporated into the price you pay.

That's it!  no extra fees!  Actually cheaper, yet nobody can see this for some reason.

It really is ridiculous the number of people calling it a tax.  It's just not true and a little bit of common sense applied and you should be able to see that.

With the delay to payment, I do think is a turnoff for a lot of sellers.  And that itself is not a great idea.

But generally speaking, a private seller just selling off their own possessions, is not going to be in a great rush to get that money in.  After all, it's a bit of extra cash and not what they are making a living from.

So to wait a week or so, really shouldn't be that painful.

[oszkar88]

We do get it, Mate... but the issue isn't about misunderstanding.

The problem is that eBay is now effectively hiding fees. As sellers, we set a price, but buyers are hit with an extra, non-transparent charge of £0.75 + 4%, which feels like a made-up "tax" and isn't clearly disclosed when buying (inspiration from VlNTED), with no benefits compared to the previous buyer protection when they could claim their money back if something went terribly wrong.

On top of that, eBay adds VAT to the BPF (if you check after a sale), which, as an insurance-type service, arguably shouldn’t even be VAT-liable.

So I'm afraid you're wrong here. This isn't just a change in payment structure. You're approaching this from a business (LTD) point of view, but for private sellers, the new BPF system forces us to lower our prices just to stay competitive. We're effectively penalized, and it’s driving many of us away. I had around 10 sales before the Buyer Protection Fee was introduced... after that, I was not able to sell the last item I listed.

Add to that the delays in receiving payment... something that used to be quick and reliable, and it's genuinely frustrating now you have to wait 2 days after delivery, usually until 8am not even midnight. I've sold a few personal items recently and bought quite a bit, but after this whole experience, I won’t be using eBay again unless absolutely necessary.

Whoever came up with this brilliant idea should be fired with immediate effect 🙂

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Don't be ridiculous.

Before the fee, you had to include fees (before the stupidity of free listings).  So the price was higher.

After the fee, you excluded it, so the price was lower.  

You actually receive more now than you did then because the fee is less overall.  Other than for very low value items.

Clearly you don't get it.

Someone actually did the calculation (this thread or another) a little while ago the displays the disparity that you are complaining about.  You get more money at the end of the day and it's a bad thing.....

As to displaying the BPF.  Why on earth does it matter to the customer, when they are presented with a price that they pay?  It's not like it's added on after they press buy it now, it's included.

[peturning]

No views = no sales.

[superchallenge]

---

@oszkar88 wrote:

So I'm afraid you're wrong here. This isn't just a change in payment structure. You're approaching this from a business (LTD) point of view, but for private sellers, the new BPF system forces us to lower our prices just to stay competitive. 🙂

---

Oh no.

I'm sure business sellers who have never had free listings, 80% off fees vouchers handed to them every other fortnight, or had seller fees scrapped completely couldn't possibly know what that feels like.

You want to sell an item for £9.99, you list it at £8.91 and £1.08 BPF gets added. You get £8.91.

I (a business) want to sell an item for £9.99, I list it at £9.99, and eBay takes £1.46 in fees. I get £8.53.

I also have to pay for a shop subscription every month, or pay a listing fee for each item, whereas you list for free.

Tell me again about how hard it is to compete with me on the same item, please.

[biblioshelf]

As a buyer/collector in a specialised genre of secondhand books, memorabilia and ephemera I can say that no-one has been selling anything much in my sphere of interest since Xmas.  I have never known such a dry spell in 20 years of searching on Ebay, so it does not appear to be just a deficit of buyers.

[iposters]

It has been abysmal for us this year.  Its just getting worse and worse and we are putting more and more into ads to try and catch up 

April 2023 - £7793

April 2024 - £4998 

April 2025 - £3097

Sales are falling off a cliff!

As for costs, Fees are high for us. 

Our Posters are mostly £9.20. 

Transaction Fees £1.36

Ad Fee £1.43 

eBay Shipping £2.94 

Poster Cost £2.15 

Tube Cost and Label 0.64 

Gross Profit £0.68 

[vintagechinashop]

My fees are crippling at the moment. I only promote a few items so my fees are mainly made up of my shop fee of £92 and my selling fees 

this month I’ve sold £309 18 items and the amount I have cleared after fees is £159 so eBay have taken half of my profit just for the pleasure of selling here 

18 items at an average cost to post of £4.00  ( some are higher because they are heavier) which included my packing materials £72 so profit is £87 but that’s not factoring in the cost of the items themselves or my time 

it’s getting clearer that I’m working for almost nothing and eBay are rubbing their hands 

I’ve too much stock to sell so a basic shop wouldn’t be an option unless I wanted to be plugging away here till I’m in my 90s and I don’t want to do that 

so my options are looking more like selling on another platform who don’t charge fees which I have to say I’m doing more successfully I have less listings on those other platforms and my prices are slightly cheaper as I have no costs to pay but I have to say the money is all going in my hands   I’m also selling at boot fairs again I don’t get the prices I want but all my money is going in the bank 

EBay used to be the only place to sell back in the day but sadly for me it’s becoming a bit of a millstone.  I’ve said before that I’m selling up and retiring so I don’t buy any more and haven’t done so for a year but that target is taking much longer than I’d like 

[stampsnallsorts]

My sales so far this year 1st April to 19-05 £2,900 compared to same period last year £5,900. My business needs £1k per month to pay all its bills including my business unit. Excluding any funds left over to pay me.

I believe there are many factors why sales are falling. The biggest being customer confidence. Getting political for a moment. I feel the biggest is what Labour have done to this country. Sales are not only falling on eBay but across the entire retail and manufacturing sectors in the UK. Last month was my worst in 50 years of trading only having sales of £200 total. All we can do in keep on trying. A saying I learnt in Amway.

1. Quitters never win & winner never quit. 2. If the dream is big enough a winner WILL always find a way to win.

NEVER NEVER GIVE UP. Times may be hard at the moment but eventually things will get better.

[nerf-herders]

I have complained to ebay until I am blue in the face. They just don't care if you have zero sales. They could not give a sh#t about private sellers. EBay have become the face of corporate greed. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Maybe you should check your sales history, as it certainly isn't zero at all.

[stampsnallsorts]

Check your sales history

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_ssn=nerf-herders&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1