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.

[auctiongabble]

I too reported a seller in China clearly selling counterfeit silver britannia coins as they were half price of.market bullion value.  Reported it to ebay, they could see no issue, me tinned it in weekly chat and was told.they can comment as agents dont have knowledge on specific items and values.  Its honestly a joke! Ebay allow fakes and makes life hard for every business seller.with ever increasing fees and the constant problems with the platform, ebay tech constantly fiddling and breaking more than they fix.  Even agents I spoke to at jewellery show were clueless of real problems on this platform and they dont even read the forums.  Ebay is far from what it used to be!

[moonlight-rhapsody]

"Have you read @nutrafituk’s first question on Wednesday’s weekly chat?

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Chat-with-the-eBay-Community/Weekly-Chat-with-the-eBay-Community-Tea...

The response received was insulting."

I dare say the Community Chat team are hamstrung about what they can say, so without wishing to shoot the messenger, it was nevertheless a total abdication of responsibility for ebay not to have any interest in applying their own rules, particularly on such a far-reaching matter.  Or should I say, applying the rules selectively because whilst ebay turn a blind eye to what some accounts do, the OP was left in no doubt about not to do it.  I was surprised at the suggestion that the OP contact Customer Service over the matter, because time and time again I’ve seen the Community Chat team or CS say that it’s not possible to discuss individual accounts, so why the team thought the OP might get some satisfaction from Customer Service on this matter is beyond me.  Presumably they knew the OP wouldn’t, but couldn’t offer anything else.  It was still a jaw-droppingly patronising response though.

I don’t know whether ebay USA allows accounts to break the rules in this way.  If not, it might be worth interested parties emailing the CEO to ask why it’s allowed in the UK.  Somebody on another thread has recently had success by contacting the CEO, albeit on a different matter, and nothing ventured, nothing gained.

[gbtoydealer]

I have used E bay for many years but I have experienced  very little or no sales I the last three weeks  ,what's going on ?.there has got to be an alternative. Perhaps it's the decline of US dominance !! Let's hope so.

[claresdesigns]

Same here, the last 3 weeks in my ebay shop have been tumbleweed (apart repeat buyers).

Feels like something is very wrong. Time to focus on other platforms I think.

[the_book_seekers]

2025 is going to live long in the memory as probably the most difficult year in nearly 22 years on ebay. There have been a lot of unwanted firsts this year and September was shaping up to be another for the lowest number of sales in a month. A couple of sales has dragged it past that record set back in 2008 during that particular financial crisis. Things haven't been helped with a problem with visibility glitch. My phone tells me I have 1 item in my shop not the 300 there should be. My seller hub on my laptop shows me all my listings, but click on my shop door tells me there's just the 1 listing. Search for my listings through an InPrivate window and there's nothing. The same happened about 5 weeks ago and it cleared in about 48 hours, its been 24 hours so far this time. I know I have some visibility from the number of views, but it doesn't help sales.

[dwhairandbeautystore]

Yeah I've just had one of the quietest weekends I've ever had. I'm looking forward to getting rid of my ebay shop now, it's more hassle than it's worth.

To top it off I've had 3 people claim their items haven't arrived in the last 3 days and all opened cases, which I'm sure has also hit my sales massively.

And there are so many rude, entitled customers about at the moment!!

Just put a load more stuff on Vinted that I've been struggling to get any interest in on here and it's selling already.

[claresdesigns]

I spoke to customer services yesterday to see if there were any issues causing the sales drop. 

He told me

"as you know there is no fixed formula for this it’s all hard work and research."

OK,  I am now paying ridiculous fees to ebay (36% of my turnover last month)  but I'm the one who isn't doing enough hard work and research!!

I expressed I was thinking of closing my shop and his reply was

"I am sorry that you feel this way. I am helping you with link and you can cancel shop using below link"

Wow - he might as well have said - make sure the door doesn't hit you on the way out!

After more than a decade and selling over 33 thousand items with ebay, I'm quite frankly disgusted. 

[nutrafituk]

Now think how we feel when over 11-year period we have spent pretty much £1 million in fees here and get the same attitude!

[the-vac-shop]

Same here    its a disaster 

[cobwebcottage]

There may be a good reason that your sales are low. You are trading as a private seller so your buyers are paying an additional BPF and do not have the option of returns or know the details of the business they are buying from.

Buyers are more aware of their rights now when they buy online.

'We specialise in sales and repairs of vacuum cleaners but also in the sales of good quality new and used parts.'

[dwhairandbeautystore]

I've been doing a bit of research and noticed that a large number of my regular popular items that are no longer selling are being sold now for ridiculously low prices!

No wonder my stock isn't shifting!!

One example is an Elemis cleansing balm 100g jar that is £52 in the shops and several sellers have it listed at around £18 and are selling multiples of them. It is not possible for the sellers to buy these at this price point so these are either counterfeit or stolen. I've reported some to ebay, clearly explaining this but all I get back is 'we didn't find the seller is doing anything wrong'!!! This is despite their long list of negatives from buyers who have discovered it's not genuine.

Thankfully I'm not currently holding any of this particular item at the moment or I'd have to lose a lot of money to actually get rid of it but it is just one example of why my business is now struggling so much.

I also have one competitor who has over 800 feedback and has hundreds of brand new products in my category for sale but is still registered as a private seller.

[dwhairandbeautystore]

That should have read 'over 8000 feedback'

[cobwebcottage]

It is so demoralising when you are doing everything correctly and pay Ebay a huge percentage of your profits to trade professionally and legally and these 'private' sellers are taking away your livelihood.

Ebay need to take positive action although they don't seem to care that their site is flooded with sellers paying no fees and undercutting business sellers.

One seller on the thread even has a picture of their shop on their profile and is a private seller??

Another posts regularly, even giving advice to business sellers, and is probably one of your competitors selling beauty products.

Yesterday, I had a message from Ebay about a  seller who has 300 bottles of perfume. All listed as brand new but Vintage (??).  Most of them are not boxed. The policy is very clear about perfumes but the customer service operative who looked at the listings and decided there was no violation of policy!

A part from the legal implications, what really winds me up is that it makes the site look so unprofessional when they don't enforce their own policies and allow these traders to undercut the businesses sellers who are their main income.

[1graham12010]

Hi, I Agree very demoralising,I am aware of people selling the same as me with 5x 10x 15x The amount of listed

items I have,they cannot possibly be private sellers.Hopefully HMRC will be chasing up on them ?

[cobwebcottage]

A lot of them claim that they submit returns to HMRC so they believe that it's ok to trade on private accounts. And of course, Ebay are forwarding their income to them if they go over the threshold.

It's Ebay ( who should take a pro active approach and tidy up their platform) and Trading Standards which need to take action.

I don't think there should be an option to sell new items if you are a private seller. If they are your own unwanted possessions, at best, they are new other. Or have a shop!

There is no hope though when a poster in the weekly chat this week (PS) was complaining that they had to cancel all of their pre sale items and no one batted an eyelid!

[the_book_seekers]

Over the last couple of weeks I've reviewing and revising my listings. I clicked on one and was surprised to find that the sponsored ad that is normally a thin strip across the top of my listings all but filled the screen of my laptop. The start of my listing could just be seen at the bottom of the screen. Talk about distraction. I clicked on the ad and found it was a business bookseller using a private account. Since ebay made selling free on private listings I've seen so many more of these accounts. 

[spence0175]

I’m with you. I believe they simply don’t care. Again I reported Ivory. The previous time I had to report the same item 3 times before it was removed. This time it even had ivory in the title and the description and it came back as nothing to see here
As for trading on a private account. I saw one last night that had 4900 items for sale. It’s bonkers.. it just goes to show that introducing BPF has not encouraged people to trade legally.

It also makes me wonder if people are really walking away because of this. I recently had someone make an offer on one of my items. I said I could do it for x amount and she said but I still have to pay the BPF on top which will make it x amount. I said there is no BPF on my items.

But how many people think that….

[jonatjonatjonat]

After that post I couldn’t believe the insane amount of private sellers selling presale of popular vinyl albums due to come out.

all of them have listings that state a delivery within the week. Wicked for good doesn’t come out until late November but you’ve got dozens of sellers with listings saying delivery by end of October!

if I was a business selling vinyl on eBay, I’d be rightly annoyed 

[cobwebcottage]

It is just so obviously wrong and blatantly breaks their own policy, which isn't worth the paper it's written on.

And they (Ebay) are complicit by adding on a buyer protection fee! And charging fees for business sellers who are selling the same products, who, like you say, are banging their heads against a brick wall.

It needs to change if they want their platform to be legally compliant with happy customers and sellers.