No Sales in March 2025 - What happened to our once best selling platform

[theglo-68]

We have noticed a sudden decline in sales and since last week we are on Zero.

Has anyone else noticed this issue and is this related to any new changes by Ebay.

What happened to our once best selling platform.

[toycarsuk]

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@theglo-68 wrote:

We have noticed a sudden decline in sales and since last week we are on Zero.

Has anyone else noticed this issue and is this related to any new changes by Ebay.

What happened to our once best selling platform.

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Had this today via email - another kick in the teeth

”

As a user of eBay Advertising, we want to make you aware of an update to general strategy campaigns on ebay.co.uk, ebay.fr, ebay.it, ebay.es and ebay.com.au. Starting from 24 June, items promoted with a general strategy will use the following attribution definition when reporting sales and charging ad fees:

An attributed sale will be when any buyer purchases the promoted item within 30 days of any click on the ad, regardless of whether the buyer themselves clicked on the ad. The item must be promoted at the time of click and the time of sale. The seller will be charged the ad rate at the time of sale. Learn more

You’ll still only pay when your items sell, so this will remain the same. As always, we recommend monitoring your performance and adjusting your strategy accordingly.

Thank you, Your eBay Advertising Team

[gardenhomeuk]

Thought there had been a bit of an up turn last week - 2 better days then off the edge of a cliff again. Think I will turn off all promotions and leave things run for a week or so and see what happens. Looking at performance of promotions they are hardly getting any impressions and sales are next to nothing. 

Are others still seeing a bad month? 

[juliechulfc1]

Ive traded as a business seller for 15 years, since March ebay has just stopped selling my items ive gone from an average of 3k per month to £400, they are not selling the items, we have many items that are the best value ( cheapest ) on ebay uk and google and they are good seansonal items, they just sit and dont sell. Im looking for new platforms if anyone has an suggestions? 

[the_book_seekers]

A terrible May is just morphing into an equally bad June. Low sales I can deal with, but not no sales. 

[milly*fiory]

Same here, I'm lucky if I have one sale a week these days.

No sales at all over the weekend.

No take up of special offers to watchers.

No purchases of reduced sale items, even if there are watchers.

I even have a few items Promoted (where I could still make a reasonable profit margin if they sell) but this has made no difference at all. 

Long gone are the days when I'd be taking a dozen packages to the post office on a Monday as a result of weekend eBay sales ... and be in a queue of other people doing the same.  

So sad.  

[postpack]

It's terrible at the moment, even with promotions it's almost dead. What happened to ebay UK ?

[totallyretro97]

Sales have dropped off dramatically since Feb, this year, to now its basically not worth it anymore. The new selling platform isnt working and the new Buyer Protection, which lets face it, is a fee, no matter how Ebay try to dress it up, is putting people off. Im not entirely convinced sending people offers works either, its a shame really because Ebay use to be an excellent selling site and led the way.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Sending offers works.  I get at least 40% of my sales from them.

It's difficult though.  How much is due to the changes?  How much is due to the competition?

How much is due to the market in general?  All of these things will have an affect, some more than others.

As it stands though, I see no point in complaining about the changes they have made, they are going to be here for a while at least, to give them a chance to bed in and get accepted.  Which I do think they will.

People just dislike change at the end of the day, and once it becomes normal again, they will in the main, be happy.

[kingdiamond91]

June sales have been horrible  and sending out offers is a waste of time  if your lucky to get a,sale the fees and ad promotion eats a big chunks of the money you make

[bamboid]

Hi.  Just saw your post and have to say that, yes, you are not alone in noticing that eBay is shooting itself and its sellers in the feet with the changes that they have decided to impose on buyers via the so-called Protection Policy and their jumping into bed with Evri as their favoured courier.  My personal experience of Evri means that I would never opt to use them and I will not be pushed into it by eBay.  My long association with this previously fabulous platform has now come to an end and I have now ended all my current items other than collection only or those with bids.  Once this cycle has ended then, sadly, so does my association with eBay.

Good luck to you if you decide to stay with them - I hope that those of us who vote with our feet might make it better for those who remain when eBay sees the error of its ways!

[jlovie]

"Sending offers works.  I get at least 40% of my sales from them."

How many more sales could you get if you reduced the prices on the listing to what you were offering?

Can't really work that out, but would be an interesting experiment to run.

The downside of sending offers is it notifies competitors who only looked at listings to set their prices to lower theirs too.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Can't honestly say that I want to even think about trying that one out.

I only do the offers on the clothing, it's not worth it on other things that I sell.

But it does make an impressive amount of sales, as I think that quite a few are simply those who are undecided and suddenly getting an extra 10% off tips them over into buying.

Whereas, if it had already been priced at that, they will still be undecided...

I'm not so sure about competitors, though that will depend on the category your selling in.

But it's cutthroat enough, that nobody want's to drop any further.

In any case though, the vast majority of these items are individual, so it's not so easy for people just to go elsewhere.  As finding the same item, in the right size etc, is not so easy.  even on mass produced stuff.

[dwbeautystore]

Just come across this post. I have noticed a huge drop in sales the last few days. I usually sell between £200 & £350 a day over the weekend. This week it's been less than £100 a day. I added loads of new stock yesterday which usually boosts sales but had virtually nothing since then. No offers have been taken up either.

I have never paid extra to promote my listings, I pay ebay enough in fees already!

I do regularly check my prices to make sure I'm competitive but the sheer volume of fakes being sold by people based in China at ridiculously low prices is hitting my sales hard in some categories.

I've reported these countless times but eBay continue to let them trade (despite awful feedback) and instead throw off odd items of mine as 'counterfeit' which I have never sold, as my 18 years of trading shows them.

Unfortunately I'm holding to much stock at the moment to quit but it's so disheartening now.

Look up Cassini if you haven't heard of it already. You might be able to boost your sales if you know how this works.

[jlovie]

Maybe I should try adding 10% to all my prices, then sending 10% off offers on all of them.

There's definitely some sort of psychological effect with discounting.  

I do see a strange pattern if I try auctions - e.g. list item at £10 start. No interest. Relist at £20 BIN - sell within a few days.

I also had a strange pattern once when postage prices went up a lot - I increased prices on cheap items with free P&P and that seemed to trigger a lot of sales.  Or more likely changing the price did something to visibility.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Well, it certainly can't hurt to try.

Do bear in mind that it might not work in your categories though.

As I said previously, with the clothing, it's quite a bit easier as even with the competition, there just isn't that many available that will actually fit the person wanting it.  🙂

I sell a fair bit of refurbished small appliances and the like and I would not even dream of using the offers for them.  Unless there was one that was particularly stubborn in hanging around.  

It's a long time since I have used auctions and to be honest, only really when I was using Ebay as a private seller.  But I always listed at 99p and I don't think that I ever didn't see one go for at least it's true value.

But that is a long time ago now.  Not entirely sure that I would list at 99p now.

I'm not so sure that auctions these days are so viable.  I know that it put's me off getting something as you might have to wait an entire week to see if you have won it.  Though you don't get that excitement any other way, unless your gambling or something of that nature of course!

Maybe they have had their day now.

The last auction I listed, was for an entire pallet of nappy bags.  I have been trying to get rid for a long time.

But I listed at 99p, put in a reserve at the cost price and it didn't go any higher than £10!

I'm actually not that far off just giving them away now, just to get some space back.  But nobody seems to want them.

[jlovie]

I only do the occasional auction for something I'm finding difficult to put a value on, and if it's likely there are buyers actively searching for things like it. e.g. Boys' Brigade memorabilia.

I'll start quite high though. e.g. if my gut feeling is it should be worth £29 but perhaps a lot more, I'll start the auction at £29. I do get the odd thing like that gets bid up to a crazy price.

Gone are the days when I could list most stuff at 99p auction and let it find its value.