Sales have dropped last 10 days - I cant figure out why and am I alone?

[eyeofrafinds]

Hi everyone,

I’m a relatively new seller with a general store on eBay. Since last Friday, my daily and weekly sales have dropped quite drastically. Traffic and impressions are down a little, but not by much. People are still viewing my listings—just not converting into sales. I run a general 2-3%, and do sales events from time to time. After fees and postage I do run on tight margins, even tho I have good relations with my supliers and some of the stock is aquired extremley cheap, but not all.  My listings are as optimized as I can make them, Im no expert but i read and learn where i can, and my prices are competitive.

I’m just wondering if other sellers are seeing the same trend, where sales suddenly go dead for no apparent reason? I own all my stock and have invested quite a lot, so it’s definitely making me a bit uneasy if this is just how things go sometimes.

[heroes-assemble-comics]

I have been on ebay for over 25 years and seasonality around Sept and Oct is usually poor for a number of reasons - customers paying off credit cards from summer hols, saving for Xmas etc. Everything is more pronounced now due to inflation, tariffs, budget expectation, you name it. Ebay have also responded very poorly to the US tariff changes from August and have failed to offer PDDP pre-paid shipping to handle the tariffs and put up banners on every UK listing to the US saying that "buyers will have to pay customs fees on this listing". This is NOT the case, as many sectors are tariff free, or selling goods that originated from the US and are free from tariffs. It also says they have to pay them to the carrier which is also NOT the case if you use Royal Mail to ship to the US.  This misleading banner is killing my business and does not apply to me but I can't even speak to anyone at ebay regarding this. Ebay need to wake up and get this resolved as it's now 2 months on and they still DON'T have a solution and have NOT openly communicated this to UK sellers. It's a disgrace! I'm looking to use other specialist platforms to get away from this mess...  

[vintage-emporium-jedburgh]

Over 25 years ago we had a vat exemption status we sold so much to the USA

With an app that had  pins showing all the locations we had sold to on a worldwide

map

today were lucky to ship to the next city

[notchrissblood]

Ebays AI wrongly flagged one of my lustings as a policy violation for "enabling infringement". Its a video game that has the word Jailbreak in the title but obviously nothing to do with enabling infringement. Still, its been flagged anyway and my sales have dropped to zero. Well done Ebay.

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

Its the pre xmas lull.

Things will improve into Nov and Dec.

I sometimes get good sales into the new year too.

[vintage-emporium-jedburgh]

There are To many lulls these days 

Were strggling thru the pre lull to the next pre lull

[game-boyy]

I've just today cancelled my shop subscription on here, paying £95 a month to ebay before I've even sold a thing was getting really tough to justify in the past few months, and it's not just about poor sales, it's also the poor service from Ebay, buyers getting away with opening returns with the reason: "just didn't like it" or just lying about the item being faulty or something similar when it is not and then me having to pay £4 for a return postage label. It's also dealing with people leaving total lies in negative feedback and then ebay telling me it can't be removed because it's just the buyers opinion. I'm just absolutely done with it all at this point

[blackcatbooksuk]

This week has been a horror story so far. Not one sale all week. Dire.

[honeymonster007]

Noticed when looking at your listings there's a small icon on the bottom left hand side of each listing that when clicked on it takes you to a whole list of similar items for sale. 

Is that a new thing? as I hadn't noticed it before.

[blackcatbooksuk]

I don't see that? Maybe something new they are introducing.

[the_book_seekers]

I know what you mean. I can see the icon on my mobile, but not my laptop and when clicked it does take the viewer to similar items.  It's appeared and disappeared, but back at the moment. Yet another way for ebay to divert sellers away from our listings. 

[honeymonster007]

It appears on every listing  I click on now. At first glance it does seem a little intrusive but after looking more into it, it makes checking on your competition pretty easy, incl solds and where your listing is appearing. 

[custom-giftsuk]

Doing some data analysis through the research tool. In our "section", sales (not ours) in total have dropped 21% in the last month, and 31% in the last year, from the last Saturday in September/October before payday.

[c_of_e84]

People are still viewing my listings, are you sure they are people?

[typo_lee]

Just researched one of our biggest selling categories and the overall drop is 50% since 6 months ago. So people just arent buying on here or simply just not spending because they are saving for christmas and basically skint. Also its half term at present which people will be spending on. Lots may have gone abroad for some final winter sun. I just hope november picks up. We shall see. I fell they just arent spending as our amazon store is dead.

[typo_lee]

Here is just one example product of ours.

[the_book_seekers]

So people just arent buying on here or simply just not spending because they are saving for christmas and basically skint. Also its half term at present which people will be spending on. Lots may have gone abroad for some final winter sun.

These will be factors but don't forget to add in the effect of simple delivery (April) and buyer's fees (February). I know buyer fees aren't add to business sales, but buyers may not make that difference or just boycott ebay altogether because of the fee . Private sellers are also buyers and ebay has put a dent in that circular economy with simple delivery. 

[securepack]

Hi, Same here, despite using promotions and paying 38.5% in fees (including all promo fees), not a single sale in the last two days, never had a day without a sale, so something is badly wrong with ebay at the moment...

[typo_lee]

On this platform we normally take £200 per day. Today as of 3.15pm we have taken £4.99. Truly frightening whats going on. If its the economy then god help the uk is all I will say.

[vintage-emporium-jedburgh]

Its ebay their stale and out of date

we still make a reasonable living on other 

outlets

pizza huts down the pan but people still eat pizzas

[typo_lee]

My local wood fired pizza restaurant is booming!! I was in there the other evening and couldnt believe the money they took! hahaha