Sales............stop start, stop start................Down again May 2024

[theglo-68]

Has anyone noticed a sudden downfall in sales from May 2024 onwards.

Sales dropped from being reasonable to flat ZERO however in the past few months noticed sales go up down start stop and then dies.

Please can you share your experiences.

[ascotscalemodels]

This month is my worst so far this year-not that the previous months were much better.Get one sale then zero for five days then another sale then dead for days then another sale and so on and on it goes,gone are the days when I would get a few sales every day and I don't know what ebay are playing at but if things don't improve soon I may have to find another platform to offload my stock or even bootfairs!

[typo_lee]

Same for us. Nothing consistent. Good day then terrible day etc etc.

[bravergrace]

Very difficult, the last few months on eBay.

It's not so much the total amount of the sales, as the sheer inconsistency.

Total sales value is down - but the number of high value sales (by my standards) is up.

So the lack of bread-and-butter £15 sales is appalling.  But the number of £150+ sales is up, so it's not as bad as it might be.

As far as clothes are concerned, the reason's pretty obvious.  I went to a boot sale yesterday, and the clothing traders are all celebrating being able to trade on eBay "for free, with no fees as all, and no returns" - as long as they remember to open a private account not a business one, of course.  How can a legal business compete when eBay is courting the illegal businesses with no fees, no returns, no questions asked?

Clearly eBay is an honourable business, and cannot possibly be doing this with its eyes open - but to a hard-pressed clothing trader, it really can seem that way sometimes.

[iloveshoppingtrading]

We are going through a very difficult patch here, sales are so random, sometime have a few orders come in but come on, overall reduced so much compare to the same period last year. This weekend we had total 6 orders, less than 100 pounds sales, wow....

eBay got to do something to stop the fancy promotional adv charge, just offer sellers the basic charge for listings and reasonable Final Value Fees, this will be a positive way of all. Please all of our hard earnings are gone to eBay with minimal sales now, ebay team, please you are concentrating on the wrong area, not to grabbing money from sellers by offering all fancy methods, please just be honest and think about the sellers, your market will be more positive! 

[pureshoresswimwear]

We have had poor sales for over a year now, like others have mentioned, get a couple of sales one day the nothing for a few days.

Im not dependant on the shop as a living but i do wonder if all the effort in keeping it going worth it.

its like they switch you on to a certain geological area as all the sales you get seem to be in a general area of the uk.

then its like, you had your chance now switching you off for a few days.

im not sure if their servers can not handle all the traffic so limit areas and put shops back online in batches?

[the_book_seekers]

At the moment its more like stop, stop, stop, start, stop, stop, stop and stop....

After 20 years plus on ebay I've found myself researching other sites. I'm just

fortunate that I do not depend on ebay. 

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

No or few sales can mean someone else is now beating your prices.

While ebay has millions of customers it also has millions of sellers.

And new sellers joining all the time.

[tribalgiftsuk]

Start stop, start stop for me too. I get about 2 - 3 days with some sales then nothing for 2 - 3 days. It has been awful since Mid March and wasn't much better last year but at least November and early December were ok. But you cant live on proper trading for 1 month a year! 

Something really odd is going these days on this platform and even when you throw money into promo's it isnt making much of a difference.  I know the good weather won't help us much with online selling but even when it was raining consistently for days and days it was stop start stop start.......

[the_book_seekers]

I get what you mean, but I've been here for over 20 years and in that time I've seen many come and go.

The arrival of the mega sellers was a blow but they didn't stop sales, the financial crash of 2008 slowed but didn't stop sales, the same with this latest financial squeeze - until mid March when something changed and

things came to an abrupt halt. 

[pillarboxred]

Is eBay finished?

[pillarboxred]

 There is a strategy in business called "beggar thy neighbour": you get a sale because  you charge less than your competitors but the strategy results in rock bottom prices and profits that won't support your business and you and your competitors end up as beggars while your customers are delighted with all their "great deals".  EBay makes money one way or another as long as enough are willing to try selling: whether the sales are profitable for sellers  is not important.

[vintagechinashop]

For me it's the level of the drop in sales. Not only that no questions or offers and no opportunity to send offers.  This has happened to me in March and May but April was a different story. Normal sales normal views questions and offers so that makes me very suspicious. I would accept small changes from month to month but going from one extreme to another just does not sit well and other sellers are reporting similar patterns 

something is very wrong. I only wish I had an explanation. I go days without sales then I get 2 or 3 in a matter of minutes 

[rvbtrading]

Same boat. This time of year is usually the busiest, with people buying stuff for their cars, trucks, campers etc for shows and holidays. Website and the river, consistent sales may even be up a tad over last year. eBay however...yeah not as good as it usually is for this period, quite bad recently.

The Chinese sellers using loopholes to appear in the UK are probably part of it. The relentless increase of selling costs and promoted listing variants is another.

12 years here. Not happy any more.

Does anyone know of some good 3rd party tools or software integrations to copy and list inventory to other platforms? The money eBay get for this poor performance is probably better off spent on Google Ads or a pmax campaign.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

There are plenty of tools out there, but a lot depends on exactly what it is that you want out of them.

For instance, do you need inventory management, location management, or literally just to crosslist?

But where from and to has a bearing on it as well.

[simplyc-accessories]

I have been doing some research with how google shows our listings the one main thing that surprised me is cross listing an identical listing to other platforms. EG if you list the same item lets say on 4 differant sites with out any changes to the listing google will surpress 3 and only show one listing as it duplicate 3 other times. Its pot luck which site they show in the search results. 

This made sense to me, so every listing has to be differant even if its the same product. 

Maybe ebay listings are being surpressed by google as they are listed elswhere.

[ile136yz]

I use Promoted Standard at the lowest percentage & have noticed this month my views etc are now 90% Organic.

[banknotes_1]

There is probably no conspiracy by ebay or by google or by anyone else trying to hide your listings from sight. It's the economy and a cost of living crisis. I sell from my own store and not from ebay and it is the same situation: got worse after 2008, then got worse every year and from March 2024 a huge slow down, but June 2024 is much worse than ever with sales almost non-existent and an occasional tiny sale does not allow to make a living. 

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

I found the month of June sales were awful

[the_book_seekers]

I've checked my records and June was the worst month for me in nearly 21 years on ebay. 2008 had its bad moments, but 2024 has now topped it.