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!

[2065yvonne]

At least with fb marketplace I wouldn't be parting with my hard earned money (and yes I work) for tat that falls apart 

I have been with ebay for 18 years with 2 purchases recently, first item being defective and a product recall - ebay took away my right to leave the seller negative feedback and their communication was non existant, and second item claimed to be new watermarked and damaged obviously a returned item not checked and sent out to me as new. Ebay have been unsupportive and I once my final items are received (I ordered over £1k of goods recently what a waste) I will be leaving this god awful company behind and looking forward to buying things face to face again and not getting tat

I can see some don't like my comment and frankly I'm not fussed as you are sellers or work for ebay so bias on the other side

I'm a good buyer, always paying immediately always leaving positive feedback and I'm coming across more and more ebay corrupt online sellers 

Back to the good old days of seeing before paying and buying  - Ebay can fall apart as far as I'm concerned and good riddance 

[superchallenge]

Fair enough. I mean, there's only a ton of genuine sellers who earn their living on here, as well as all the people who work for the company itself and have mortgage payments and mouths to feed and the like.

But hey...you bought two items that weren't what you expected and decided that every seller is a scam artist and everybody who disagrees with you is biased, so I guess they can all go to hell, huh?

[theelench]

I've only had two return requests in ten years of selling on ebay.  One years ago, the other for an item bought on 8th of October.  A Uranium glass (glows bright green under UV light) vintage powder bowl.  Lots of photos, diameter and height in the description.  Return requested on or about the 27th for the reason "bigger than I thought".

I hope it looked good at their Halloween party.

Amazingly they had kept the box and all the packaging for over a fortnight, re-packaged it carefully and paid the return postage so I can now re-list and sell it again, so I shouldn't really complain too much, should I?  I got off lightly compared to many who receive random items, deliberately broken items or the worn out part the 'buyer' replaced with the new item they 'bought' instead of the original item back.

[santlache_sales]

I was at a Fair yesterday and I sold over ten times more there in one day than in the last week on here.

One of my regular buyers mentioned they went on eBay the other day and occasionally used to buy here, so I was interested to hear what her recent experience was.

She wasn't impressed to say the least, she said she simply could not find what she wanted in searches, it either kept bringing her up stuff she has purchased in the past, or it had nothing to do with the search she'd entered.

So what did she do  ?

She gave up and went elsewhere after about 15-20 mins trying.

Basically a major part for many of us not selling is that the search engine isn't a search engine anymore. It simply does not work and has been tampered with by eBay so much they have a damned cheek to actually calling it a search engine anymore.

It's appalling how they have 'fixed' it to bring up what they want you to buy, not what you want, and as my customer said that was very much her experience.

[goingfishinguk]

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@santlache_sales wrote:

Basically a major part for many of us not selling is that the search engine isn't a search engine anymore. It simply does not work and has been tampered with by eBay so much they have a damned cheek to actually calling it a search engine anymore.

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Can someone else bring the 'search functionality' up in this weeks Q&A as I have for the last three weeks and keep getting brushed off, last week was bordering on rude if I'm being honest?  Thank you.

[theelench]

Would they get any answer different to those that you got?

The stock answer to questions about the search and FDDs is now "It's working perfectly or its working as designed".  Or silence.

We know they are not, but ebay isn't going to change them.  Protect yourself as best you can is the best available answer.

[olichris]

I find too many sellers using Evri, or "other courier" which in essence often means Evri.

There may even be a link between them and this Packlink

I use Amazon Prime a lot more now.

As long as they use their own drivers, the deliveries are usually excellent and arrive the next day as advertised

You can pay more on Amazon for the original item yes, but its worth it for the lack of crazy Evri behaviour

What behaviour ??

https://themanc.com/trending/evri-voted-uks-worst-parcel-delivery-company-again-in-annual-survey/

Beware sellers, people are finally taking notice of this

https://mailonline.pressreader.com/article/282145001058210

[bits_n_bobs_heaven]

I used to use Evri but they became uncompetitive with Royal Mail in terms of price, so I went back to using RM.

I nor my buyers never once had an issue with Hermes or Evri in all the time I used them, so like ALL couriers, there are both good and bad experiences! The same is also true with Amazon logistics, who by the way, have failed me with personal delivers of items I needed quickly on more than 6 occasions in the past 6 weeks! ☹️

For those who are so anti Evri who may or may not have taken advantage of the ongoing online 50% off sales from some of the great fashion companies i.e Adidas, Boohoo etc, they now use Evri for deliveries, so those buyers, according to the online reports you have shared, should be preparing themselves for the worst.

From experience, the only reason why a courier service becomes unreliable at times, is because they are over stretched! My usual Evri delivery man is presently doing 3 rounds 7 days a week with no less than 160 parcels per round. So all in all, Evri are far busier than any other courier at the moment followed closely by Amazon logistics who are now having to use Royal Mail for some deliveries due to high consumer demand!

Next it will be Royal Mail who will have issues with their own deliveries which is exactly why I have already sent Christmas gifts through the post a few weeks back! My present experience of popping into my local RM sorting office to drop off a parcel at 8am last Saturday, was met with a sight of total chaos, so ans expected, it’s already began for RM!

Foresight is a wonderful skill, hindesight is but just an experience of the past! 😉

[olichris]

Good for you 🙂

Perhaps you might like to explain why Evri have been voted as the worst delivery service for the last two years in a row then ?

Evri has once again been voted the worst parcel delivery firm in the UK, according to those who voted in an annual survey.

Less than two months after the company unfortunately found itself at the bottom of the 2022 parcel league table for the second year running, meaning it was the worst-performing parcel delivery firm in the country, Evri – which famously rebranded from Hermes in March 2022 after reports of parcel mishandling – has now been handed yet another blow by customers in an annual user survey.

None of them are perfect, for sure, but if you want to use them, go ahead, but I will not buy from you

The third poll coming up very soon, care to guess who will come bottom.....again ??

[superchallenge]

I nor my buyers never once had an issue with Hermes or Evri in all the time I used them, so like ALL couriers, there are both good and bad experiences! The same is also true with Amazon logistics, who by the way, have failed me with personal delivers of items I needed quickly on more than 6 occasions in the past 6 weeks! ☹️

For those who are so anti Evri who may or may not have taken advantage of the ongoing online 50% off sales from some of the great fashion companies i.e Adidas, Boohoo etc, they now use Evri for deliveries, so those buyers, according to the online reports you have shared, should be preparing themselves for the worst.

Some should be, yes. I think the problem with Evri (and most of the courier services) is the lack of consistency across the board.

You say that you and your buyers have never once had an issue with Hermes or Evri. That's great! Yet I sent 6 items via Evri to different parts of the country in August and only 3 were delivered. The other 3 got to the customer's delivery depot and then never went out for delivery. They just vanished. Contacting anybody at Evri to investigate was like pulling teeth, too. I don't believe I ever ended up speaking to an actual person before I gave up. The worst part is that I was giving them a second chance with that batch, given that in 2022, I sent a total of 10 items with them and 4 went missing the same way.

Yet as a buyer, I've not had any items go missing from Evri. They've all turned up sooner or later. Sometimes they're a week late. Sometimes they claim I'm not home when I've been here all day. Sometimes they arrive on time. Usually smooth enough though, so I can't really complain.

Then on the other hand, people bad-mouth Royal Mail all day long, yet I've sent 1,902 items out via RM 2nd Class and have a 0.26% late delivery rate (5 items) this year. Large letters, small parcels, and medium parcels. Of those 1,902 items, they've lost...ONE. That includes sending through the postal strikes as well. None of my items got lost over Christmas last year, either.

I guess what I'm saying is that we can all sit here and argue back and forth all day about who is right and who is wrong, but people's experiences of the various companies differ so wildly for some reason that it just doesn't make sense to get at each other's throats about it.

[olichris]

But they do not vary in an equal manner. Of course Evri have some decent drivers, and all the rest have no doubt some questionable ones.

The pont is that Evri have been voted the worst courier for 2 straight years now, there is no revolt against any of the other couriers as there is with Evri, and they get the lowest ratings of all of them on sites like trustpilot and site jabber. Still its an individuals choice, if you want to use them, or buy from someone who does..best of luck to you 🙂

[ampmaster.uk]

It is no surprise. Ebay are going downhill rapidly. 

They have just taken an ad of mine down for search manipulation?

Its a spare wheel that will fit a Ford, Vauxhall and Peugeot but I'm not allowed to say that?

I can only put the wheel maker in the title.

So, anyone searching for a Ford spare wheel will never see my ad so what is the point in listing it?

Ebay has destroyed themselves. I loved it years ago but can barely tolerate it now.

[ampmaster.uk]

I listed the same item on ebay and Marketplace last week. In that one week I had 17 views on Ebay.

I had and 148 views on Marketplace. It sold on Marketplace and cost me nothing.

[modern_first_printings]

Since the unfair feedback rules came in a while back it became unpleasant being a seller on eBay.

[torra_5915]

THERE IS QUITE A GROUP FORMING VOWING TO PAY BACK FOR POOR SERVICE FOR SELLERS AND BUYERS WE HAVE ALL VOWED TO TRY AND GET 500 PEOPLE A YEAR TO BIN SELLING AND BUYING ON

THIS PLATFORM,GOOD LUCK EBAY(NOT)

NEXT TWO YEARS WE WILL SNOW BALL IN OUR QUEST

IN A FEW YEARS EBAY WILL BE GONE!

[1956glyn]

Not quite sure what you mean by vowing to pay back for poor service????

How does that work then?

[nebs9999]

Quite a group? Where? You have no chance. eBay may have its faults, but they are still one of the major High Streets online.

[superchallenge]

500 people who are actually going to quit eBay altogether, or 500 people who are so APPALLED AND OUTRAGED by the service that they're "quitting in the new year" or "going on holiday mode until it improves" or "giving up in the summer" or some other sentence that amounts to "I'm not actually really going to do anything about it other than moan"?

Or is it just 500 buyers who will be back as soon as they find that the right-angled blue widget that they want costs 10p more on Amazon than it does on eBay?

Either way, I'm sure it'll put a real dent in the numbers.

[ovleisure]

I think its more like small ebay sellers, were also ebay buyers, using funds they had in paypal to also buy things on ebay.  As soon as ebay decided to be even more greedy and force everyone to use managed payments they literally removed the one thing, the only advantage they had over Amazon - paypal payments. 

Honestly, how dumb can the execs at ebay get! Or maybe its just pure arrogance.... but for me Amazon has become a much easier way to buy and since the money I get (well used to get since now I sell nothing on ebay these days) goes into my bank, why not use a less hassle free way to buy.  Its easier to find things on Amazon, not filled with pages of junk listings - and it arrives the next day. 

Frankly ebay fleeces ridiculous fees from its sellers anyway now and I know that a large proportion of a sale now goes into ebay coffers and I'm not contributing any more to that.

I have listings left on here, but only until I can get around to moving them, I've cancelled my shop though and all my promoted listings, still selling nothing, but on the offchance I do, I will be paying ebay the least I can for it! 

I am sorry for the sellers who rely on ebay for a living.. I used to but have now moved on.. its more just a curiosity now.. like oh I've sold something for £10 this week month!

Oh, and I've also found those quarterly reports, their definition of an Active Buyer, is someone who made ONE purchase in the last 12 months.  Since now many many pages are filled with Chinese Tat, just wait till the likes of TEMU take a real hold on ebays remaining buyers..

[victortardis]

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@torra_5915 wrote:

THERE IS QUITE A GROUP FORMING VOWING TO PAY BACK FOR POOR SERVICE FOR SELLERS AND BUYERS WE HAVE ALL VOWED TO TRY AND GET 500 PEOPLE A YEAR TO BIN SELLING AND BUYING ON

THIS PLATFORM,GOOD LUCK EBAY(NOT)

NEXT TWO YEARS WE WILL SNOW BALL IN OUR QUEST

IN A FEW YEARS EBAY WILL BE GONE!

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I doubt ebay will notice 500 people a year leaving, probably more than 500 ebay members a year pass away and cease buying or selling.

Small sellers have been replaced by bigger businesses and those seem to be the ones they are concentrating on.

Big overseas sellers are the ones most likely to come up in searches. Yesterday I was looking for an item which is widely available in the UK and not economically viable to buy abroad; the top searches were all from Israel.