POOR SALES = MORE BUYERS NO LONGER USING EBAY?

[candytan67]

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!

[nicermodels]

The 1 Main Reason is they "No Longer Accept Paypal as a Payment and the crazy New eBay payment system, Due to this reason 2 out of 3 members of my family have cancelled there accounts & are no longer

using eBay, When we were selling items on eBay the cash would be paid by paypal by the buyers and we

would use this cash to buy items from Other Sellers, so for us it was a win win situation, since the payment system has changed in to payment into your Bank account we no longer sell anything and only buy items  if we need something Urgent which can't be purchased by Amazon (ie car parts etc), these bare essentials were buying is about 10-15 max items purchased from eBay in 18 months.

To show you how many people have left eBay over the pass 18 months just look at your old feedback from from sellers and you will see (no longer a registered user)by the side off there name, eBay reps have ask via email and even called us by phone to come back to the platform, unfortunately there is no way we will return with the exception Paypal is re-instated.

Sadly they dont listen to there sellers and the only way eBay is going is Down.

[candytan67]

I agree. The loss of all those pools of PayPay funds formally recycled back into the eBay site by purchases on the site has indeed had SOME detrimental inpact on sales.

[revethelabel]

Worrying to read this. As a new seller on the platform, I am contemplating how much I invest into eBay as a sales channel. I think a lot of it has to do with the number of additional marketplaces available with less stringent buy/sell criteria with a more modern shopping experience suited to the new ways of using mobile. Secondly, I don't think eBay is a platform massively used by GenZ. I am a millenial and haven't personally bought something from ebay since c2004...

[elitegiftsltd]

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@nicermodels wrote:

eBay reps have ask via email and even called us by phone to come back to the platform, unfortunately there is no way we will return with the exception Paypal is re-instated.

Sadly they dont listen to there sellers and the only way eBay is going is Down.

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Be waiting some years then.

Ebay cannot afford to drop its current payment processor and there's no guarantee that paypal would agree to take ebay on as a customer once the current contract with Adyen ends.

[the_book_seekers]

I read on the US Spring update that a wallet facility is coming to managed payment for .com

It will eventually arrive here, but for my mind it should have been pushed through much sooner.

With the economy as it is we need all the assistance we can get.

[nebs9999]

With regard to the declining sales, I am a seller on here, but also a buyer.

My buying has declined as they have totally messed up the Saved Searches, to the extent that I have cancelled most of mine. eBay seem to think that their computer knows better than me what i want. It used to be simple, enter keywords and other restrictions(e,g, distance) and wait for the emails. But now the distance is ignored in many cases and similar keywordsseem to be applied. For example, I was looking for an old rough coffee table to stick in the garden for the summer (then burn in the winter, and get another one next year), I put in max £5 and distance 5 miles. I always managed to get one every year, with half a dozen every week to pick from. But not this year, I turned off the emails as I was getting them from all over the UK, hundreds of hits a dayand I don't want to drive 100 miles for a £5 table. 

Ditto many other searches.

And if you search it doesn't show everything, just eBays idea of the best matches which ofter don't contain your key words. I searched for aTennessee license plate, it showed me one for £9.99. It did not show the identical one that I had for sale for £4.99. When they say "best" they mean best for eBay.

[candytan67]

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@the_book_seekers wrote:

I read on the US Spring update that a wallet facility is coming to managed payment for .com

It will eventually arrive here, but for my mind it should have been pushed through much sooner.

With the economy as it is we need all the assistance we can get.

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When it does eventually arrive it will be too little too late and customers will not trust it as they did/do PayPal.

[sam_in_barbate]

My entire family & countless friends used to buy from eBay, many were also part time sellers.

I am now the only one of my family & friends who still use eBay, I do not exaggerate, I am now the only person I know  & they laugh at me for remaining here.

Two Aunts left, one after filling her house up with too much cheap nonsense which she could not be bothered to resell due to her distrust of eBay keeping safe her details AKA Managed Payments, the other, a hobby collector of vintage jewellery, sick & tired of UK sellers passing off modern repros as antique, & the sellers stock, "oh, I had no idea, that must have slipped through our quality control assessment" or similar, these 2 women spent a fortune on eBay. The ex hubby stopped buying because he was sick & tired of looking for goods, being drawn to listings for terrifically priced items, only to find that price was for a cheap piece of tat to pull the buyer into the listing, a part time seller of fabulous rare items, he was also treated appallingly by eBay over an unjust negative which was the cherry on the cake, so he has also stopped listing.

I know of no friends who now buy here, one, a fiercely private hobby collector/seller, stopped all activity with eBay when they tried to force her into Managed Payments, another fabulous seller I bought off repeatedly stopped selling & buying here for the same reason, again due to privacy. I have lost track of the buyer/seller's I have spoken to who all quote that they have stopped buying now they no longer have a PayPal slush fund from which to dip & almost all mention that they have no faith in eBay being secure.

I was in Hospital in February, I had my shop closed for a month, unbelievably I sold nothing when it was closed, this is the first time I have ever experienced a no sales shop closure. It is simply unheard of & it no longer matters what I do to try to kick start this eBay account, it is dead in the water, stone cold dead. 15 years, flawless feedback, & over 15,000 transactions means diddly, so I too have as good as stopped buying.

I received some excellent help via CS the other day, then I asked her why, when a potential buyer finds one of my items on Google, why when they click on it they are sent AWAY from my item & into "similar" items in .com or even to a rivals item in .uk, she told me this would probably stop if I began to list more items !!!! So buyers are literally UNABLE to buy from me, never even realising that I have the item for sale, whereas 0 & low feedback buyers used to be the backbone of my eBay.

I have lost all desire to list, & only a few weeks back, bought a fabulous rare item from a site other than eBay, excluding a few cosmetics, the first time I have ever done so. I paid via PayPal, & the relief I felt paying via a payment provider which would protect me if it went pear shaped was the reason I bought it, then on Friday this fabulous rare immaculate item arrived. I will now be spreading my wings further a field ")

I think eBay has lost the plot, who in their right mind wants a page full of promoted items when casually browsing eBay, who wants to be constantly misdirected to "similar" nonsense, & the last night I discovered a new & utterly ludicrous "improvement". I was browsing for a particular make of item, there were over 300 items listed at buy-it-now, so as always I then clicked on "cheapest first", & a lovely banner appeared, "we have streamlined your search for you", & showed a mere 60 items, NOT even showing the cheapest, I thought I was going mad, tried again, then tried today in my other eBay & the same madness prevailed, I have no idea who dreams up this lunacy, but it has got to stop.

[theelench]

Couldn't agree more, on a current thread only a day or two ago I related my almost identical story.  Family, friends, work colleagues, self-employed customers and a lot of my fellow drinkers at our local, all active on ebay in 2012.

Ten years later if I mention ebay they will mostly say "Haven't been on ebay for ages" or look at me blankly.

I do keep listing one or two items, although these days I have little confidence that anything will sell and am slightly surprised when something does.  Ebay selling now has a Time Slot in my life as ebay increasingly seems to think that my time on here is a piece of string that it can stretch as long as it wants.

I hardly bother "browsing" as IMO the search is so screwed-up and the results so manipulated that I'm not really browsing at all.  I'm just seeing what ebay thinks I might buy rather than any of the items that I KNOW I would buy if only I could find them.

Your problem with the search and the sudden drop of results from 300 results down to 60.   I've had the same problems when trying to Refine a Saved Search (which since the category changes has increased in number ten-fold) down to the roughly 100 results it has had for years.  I'm not joking when I say that having got down to 600 results, applying one more filter and I'm told that there are only 16 on ebay.

I tried again, applying the filters in a different order and got a different number of results.

These filters can only subtract?  If the 600 is filtered by "(date) 1930 - 1939" = 300. Then filter by "Brand"  = 200.  Do that in reverse and the final number is different because some of the "dated" items have been removed by the "Brand" filter??  I want to experiment further but think changing the filtering order might show items previously hidden by a previously applied filter? 

[candytan67]

"I hardly bother "browsing" as IMO the search is so screwed-up and the results so manipulated that I'm not really browsing at all........"

CORRECT!!!!!!

[elitegiftsltd]

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@the_book_seekers wrote:

I read on the US Spring update that a wallet facility is coming to managed payment for .com

It will eventually arrive here, but for my mind it should have been pushed through much sooner.

With the economy as it is we need all the assistance we can get.

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Its taken at least 2 years to get this far - will likely get it this year, just don't expect it to perform miracles. 

[elitegiftsltd]

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@candytan67 wrote:

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@the_book_seekers wrote:

I read on the US Spring update that a wallet facility is coming to managed payment for .com

It will eventually arrive here, but for my mind it should have been pushed through much sooner.

With the economy as it is we need all the assistance we can get.

---

When it does eventually arrive it will be too little too late and customers will not trust it as they did/do PayPal.

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Then we are doomed (said in a Scottish accent as per Dad's Army).

[candytan67]

".....don't tell him your name ELITE!"   🤐

[bennotbill]

That's it, your name is going on the list.

[candytan67]

and rightly so!  😁

[the_book_seekers]

I stopped expecting miracles from ebay about 15 years ago and I'm afraid I can't see it getting any better any time soon. We'll find out soon what the government is going to do about online selling tax and I've just seen an article suggesting Royal Mail may put prices up again. 

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

Ebay peaked many years ago then has been in decline since.

As ebay has declined Amazon has grown.

I can only guess Amazon is now trusted more.

Too many horror stories of bad buys on ebay from cheap Chinese tat.

[mayor-of-simpleton*]

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@nigel_paul_wright7557 wrote:

Ebay peaked many years ago then has been in decline since.

As ebay has declined Amazon has grown.

I can only guess Amazon is now trusted more.

Too many horror stories of bad buys on ebay from cheap Chinese tat.

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More than enough horror stories about amazon and cheap Chinese tat. Why do you think eBay find it so lucrative? Where amazon lead eBay will often attempt to follow.

Afterall amazon are the masters of one of your favourite gripes as in the race to the bottom, they even change prices by the minute there.

So if you really want cheap Chinese tat then amazon are a great source, personally It's not something I look for but is hard to avoid over there.

The reason for amazon's success goes far beyond eBay's attempts to grow. Apart from 3rd party sellers for which amazon make eBay seem like angels with their treatment and many of them would love to be on MP for a start so they got paid quicker. They are 2 entirely different companies anyway.

[racingpunk]

We have started to list items on Facebook with postage, not as a business as its not setup for that yet in the UK unlike the USA, with some good results. 

 I wonder if this has/will effect eBay.

[exposure_direct]

Most people seem to be missing the point.  We are heading for stagflation or a recession.  The actual inflation figures will be far worse than those published.

The typical eBay buyer is likely one with a lower income and they are being hit hardest, but with everyone being hit with this economic disaster, everyone is rethinking their spending.

Most sellers on this board are selling 'non-essential' items.  Those are the first to be culled from spending at times like these (I'm doing the same).  Anyone selling 'essential' items who had a boom period in lockdown has probably lost that market to supermarkets and big box (Home Bargains, B&M) type stores, so there's an extra thing against your sales.

It also doesn't help that eBay got a very bad name for itself with the influx in direct-from-China junk that swamped it in the last 6 years.  Many people I know quit using it after being ripped off one time too many.

Look at your equivalent shop on the high street (if there is one).  They are probably struggling too.

Maybe it's time for a complete rethink.  Maybe that's a positive change!