24-02-2022 2:34 PM - edited 24-02-2022 2:39 PM
So I managed to find some info on yesterday's eBay 2021 Q4 Results.
It came as no suprise to me - after seeing my own declining site sales last year - that again for the third consecutive quarter that the "Number of Active Ebay Buyers" has fallen down to 147million, an overal yearly decline of nearly 10% .
2021 Q2 = 156million
2021 Q3 = 152million
2021 Q4 = 147million
2021 Q1 = 163million.......................2021 Q4 = 147million (-9.8%)
While I am no fan of eBay and the manner it treats it's sellers - I would not like to see the site fail.
Why do buyers appear to be deserting eBay?
We need the answer fast and eBay need to find a solution even faster to help save our businesses.
Is the current "eBay search" (The Sales Prevention Tool) to blame?...........................or is it something else?
Answers on a postcard please!
26-02-2022 11:04 AM
Understood, but with eBay the figures show that this started at least 12 months ago?
Which is roughly when eBay's Managed Payments was properly rolled out.
Yes I understand it came before for a number of people, but all those in my trade who resisted being hiked onto Managed Payments, most of us were all dragged-in last January.
Have you also done many searches lately ?
The amount of rubbish which gets brought up in the results often bares no resemblance to what you are looking for. What with that and pages and pages of utter rubbish from private sellers, taking advantage of eBay's free listings offers that business sellers never get.
Pages daily that don't work.
A system that over the years gets more and more complicated.
A site that constantly changes, in that if you go away for three months and come back, it all looks different and nothing is the same as it was the last time you were here.
That really turns people off as we all like familiarity in life, not constant changes like we get ALL the time from eBay. The Shops is a prime example, they worked well with our own designs until eBay screwed them up completly with their own new design, that was FORCED on us.
This is half the problem, eBay think they know better all the time.
But if we are being honest, ebay is a really sh*t company now that has been under a slow decline for years, primarily for all the above reasons, them not listening to their sellers and primarily it becoming too expensive, as eBay suck every last penny from you.
26-02-2022 11:20 AM
"Ebay used to be fun. It isn't anymore."
I honestly couldn't agree more, I used to really enjoy trading on here and yet now it is nothing short of a pain in the backside, with constant harassment from ebay nothing in my life causes me anywhere near the stress I get from ebay. At times it feels like a constant battle banging your head against a brick wall.
You can report faults 100 times and nothing ever gets done.
That and how ebay have slowly but surely added price increases and stealth charges, to the point it really is very expensive to trade on here now.
26-02-2022 11:24 AM
"Chief Financial Officer Steve Priest attributed the loss of active buyers to a natural shedding of “low-value” buyers as eBay focuses more on “high-value” buyers, or those making at least six purchases per year at over $800. The latter represents 20% of eBay buyers, but delivers 75% of the company’s gross merchandise value (GMV)"
"Compared to the third quarter of 2019, CEO Jamie Iannone said that high-value buyers are up 6%, while low-value buyers are down 7%."
"In an effort to weed out the low-value buyers and attract more high-value shoppers, Iannone noted that eBay is focusing on certain key categories in order to build trust with consumers and create a better experience that will retain them."
Buyers, buyers, buyers....
Not a single mention of sellers, or how we've all had to put our prices up due to eBay constantly hiking their fees, making us pay for their management screw-ups and failures.
26-02-2022 11:29 AM
@santlache_sales wrote:"Chief Financial Officer Steve Priest attributed the loss of active buyers to a natural shedding of “low-value” buyers as eBay focuses more on “high-value” buyers, or those making at least six purchases per year at over $800. The latter represents 20% of eBay buyers, but delivers 75% of the company’s gross merchandise value (GMV)"
"Compared to the third quarter of 2019, CEO Jamie Iannone said that high-value buyers are up 6%, while low-value buyers are down 7%."
"In an effort to weed out the low-value buyers and attract more high-value shoppers, Iannone noted that eBay is focusing on certain key categories in order to build trust with consumers and create a better experience that will retain them."
Buyers, buyers, buyers....
Not a single mention of sellers, or how we've all had to put our prices up due to eBay constantly hiking their fees, making us pay for their management screw-ups and failures.
Really?
When was the last time ebay put your fees up?
A couple of years back? More?
26-02-2022 12:06 PM
Yes, I too have knowingly purchased from Chinese sellers and never had any problem until recently with 3 purchases I really needed, being substitued for completely different type items. Once again, it was because the actual item was't in stock! 😡😡. Once again, those experiences finished off my buying from Chinese sellers.
With 6 very bad buying experiences on eBay, one after the other since mid January, is it no wonder I have stopped browsing and buying?!
26-02-2022 12:30 PM
Judging by other posts, it seems that old(ish) buyers are leaving and new buyers are arriving.
There seems to be an increase in the number of new eBay registrations...........🤔🤔.
However, I have seen this a number of times over the years of using eBay and frequenting the Community Boards, so it's really nothing new!
27-02-2022 5:26 PM
In addition, the eBay search at the present time is useless.............
I just searched for an item I need: Scholl Toe Nail Scissors. Apparently, no one is selling them on eBay.
So, I went to Amazon and all done and dusted in under 2 minutes - arriving Wednesday 😎.
Came back to eBay, did another search, and ohhhh, now we understand what you were looking for.
Only because we have your Amazon tracking cookies for your order to go by.............🙄.
This is not the first time this has happened to me........🙄🤔
27-02-2022 5:47 PM
Can I ask what search term you actually used as I tried Scholl Toe Nail Scissors on my other computer on a different id and could only find exactly that with 12 results, amazon results losing it after the first 8 items.
Take away the word Scholl and much harder to see that brand among the 1400+ results on eBay but still there on the first page.
Best price eBay £5.49 free postage amazon £7.79 free postage as is often the case on things I search for when identical product is found.
27-02-2022 5:50 PM
Yes, I searched: sholl toe nail scissors - no exact results, just 1 page of alternatives with no sholl in sight
27-02-2022 5:55 PM
That'll be our crazy language and the pesky letter 'C' Scholl produces 12 results for me
27-02-2022 5:55 PM
@mayor-of-simpleton* wrote:
Best price eBay £5.49 free postage amazon £7.79 free postage as is often the case on things I search for when identical product is found.
Well, that means a lost sale for an eBay seller. I wasn't in the mood to trawl through pages of listings by jiggling my search - I wanted scholl not an alterative!
27-02-2022 5:57 PM
I meant sholl (spelling) and not an alternative! 😂
27-02-2022 5:58 PM
The cheapest ebay seller is also a business seller (selling multiple new items) masquerading as a private seller so not the same right to return etc.
On amazon it makes no difference if you type scholl or sholl
27-02-2022 7:37 PM
Does it actually matter what the seller is registered as or whether amazon looses some of the listings.
The point surely MUST be that a potential buyer COULD NOT FIND WHAT THEY WERE LOOKING FOR ON EBAY.
A so called selling site with a Search that is a pile of manure is not worth looking at!
27-02-2022 8:06 PM
So I recently won 3 auctions for electronic items at good prices. (£200-400) All 3 sellers then cancelled the items as 'Damaged or unavailalbe'. My guess is that they did not get the price they wanted. That is one of the reasons I buy much less here. I went striaght to Facebook as they are now a viable alternative. Other competitiors will continue to erode E-bays current market lead.
27-02-2022 9:09 PM
Admittedly amazon search made the assumption of needing a c in the word putting scholl results first but using the same sholl spelling still bought up 2 scholl nail scissors on the eBay page for me so I would have seen what I wanted with a few swipes on the scroll.
I tend to think part of it depends on your overall opinion of the company concerned and perhaps whether you can be bothered to correct a spelling to see more clearer options.
I favour amazon for some things but avoid like the plague for others as prices are frequently superior elsewhere and that applies to eBay as well.
27-02-2022 9:27 PM
@ojewellery wrote:The cheapest ebay seller is also a business seller (selling multiple new items) masquerading as a private seller so not the same right to return etc.
On amazon it makes no difference if you type scholl or sholl
Not sure being business or otherwise matters to most buyers because of the MBG.
Myself I favour sellers who show a good track record regardless of status and many business sellers should be barred from the site for the quality of service they give anyway. Often illuminating to look at responses to poor feedback as well as percentage or quantity of course.
28-02-2022 9:36 AM
So when @bits_n_bobs_heaven searched "Sholl etc." they were shown no exact matches and also no "Scholl" clippers as an alternative.
When you searched "Sholl" the search found two results with the correct "Scholl" spelling and showed them as alternatives.
Doesn't that difference show that there is something wrong with the search -- both searches should show the same results, including items where the spelling is so similar that it might be a viable alternative.
That later (with a nudge from amazon?) the ebay search finds twelve results only makes it worse.
Thinking as an un-biased, would-be-buyer who has no particular opinion of the site, if I typed "Sholl clippers" in the search box, I'd expect to see any exact matches followed by alternatives including "Scholl clippers" and I'd expect them all to be at or near the top of the results because they are so similar.
I'm sure that the majority of buyers, if shown zero results and no alternatives that might prompt them to correct their spelling, will accept that there are no Scholl clippers on ebay. They are not going to wonder why or spend much time fiddling about trying to coax better results out of ebay. They'll head for a site where the search produces what they're looking for first time and is "intelligent" enough to allow a bit of leeway with spelling.
Incidentally, I thought the ebay search did take account of spelling mistakes. Some of my searches include German or Czech words easliy mis-spelled and in the past the search would tell me that the results included those for the correct spelling and even allowed me to exclude them if they were not wanted. Perhaps it doesn't do that any more??
28-02-2022 11:27 AM
The inclusion at times of alternative spellings is another erratic thing about the search but I stand by the fact that the opinion of the company doesn't help when things are not as they should be.
Some things I often buy from amazon, I use an outside search engine to find because it is so useless and infact frequently hides the best priced option or even the correct search until the 3rd or 4th page when using amazon search, only found easily when using non amazon search.
Search on eBay for the same things because they don't always show on the outside engine I use and eBay produce them immediately admittedly normally using the correct spelling.
Both can be as bad as each other depending on the product and both are certainly not perfect or consistant. I prefer eBay and dislike amazon, only using because of a regular supply of free vouchers.
But each to their own and nothing will convince either of us to change the opinion held.
By the way I found 12 Scholl results first time on my other computer before looking at amazon but only 2 when spelling it sholl, no nudge or hint from amazon, if that is possible.
I will agree that we should all see the same results and can get different results even when duplicating the search. Though maybe that has at least something to do with auctions and even GTC listings having a monthly end date, unlike amazon.
By far the bigger problem for me than bad spelling is those blasted .99p items and not seeing a price of your item without viewing the listing. That is not broken just totally useless.
28-02-2022 12:09 PM
I only added "with a nudge from amazon" because the post I referred to seemed to think that it was ebay picking-up on amazon's cookies, an idea I don't know enough about to agree/ disagree with, so included it to accurately repeat what was said, but with a "?" to register a personal doubt.
Personally I'm more inclined to think that the amazon purchase doesn't explain why ebay's search found twelve more listings. I'd just put it down to the search again being erratic and producing different numbers on different searches.