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.

[oceanartsnorthdevon]

June my worst month on record in 12 years

[wilcoxtl]

Random question, but does anyone think sales are being deliberately throttled to push small businesses into applying for eBay's funding?

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Sounds very conspiracy theory that one.

Never mind the fact, that it would be illegal to do that.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Is it legal to allow so many businesses to trade on private accounts ?

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Actually, it probably is.  After all, it is not Ebay's responsibility (though they do share some), but the traders responsibility to ensure that they are complying with the law.

But that is a completely different argument to what was asked.

[superchallenge]

No.

Would people apply for funding that gets paid back from their sales, if they weren't making any sales in the first place?

[bravergrace]

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@wilcoxtl wrote:

Random question, but does anyone think sales are being deliberately throttled to push small businesses into applying for eBay's funding?

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I think it's more likely that eBay deliberately chooses the recipients of its funding ads - by targeting sellers who have recently suffered a drop in sales.

[bravergrace]

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@superchallenge wrote:

Would people apply for funding that gets paid back from their sales, if they weren't making any sales in the first place?

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Yes, some people would, if it is called an "investment" rather than "borrowing money", and if they hadn't read the terms and conditions, some people would actually believe that "no sales means no repayments, so I can't lose".

[ile136yz]

I've had a look at my listings on Google & found the Pictures are months old.

If I type in my type of items on Search - what comes back are very old descriptions of what I'm selling, so it cannot go back to eBay site for people to purchase or read.  I know they are very old that are being shown as I change my Titles on a regular basis & keep a date of the change.

My take on this is if someone is looking for an item & they can see only old listing via Promoted listings that cannot be viewed in full the Buyers will give up.

Maybe this is the cause for eBay Sellers getting low views / sales.

[banknotes_1]

 Has someone tried to compare what traffic and sales they receive on their own store vs. on their e—bay store or on their e>>bay's listings? I get way more traffic, views and sales on my own store than on my e___bay's listings. My SEO must be superior to ebay's. Although I do not have much experience selling on e—bay if any at all, especially in the past XX years. Nothing sells on e---———---bay even at low(est) prices. This summer is slow everywhere because people are in the savings mode and will come back with strong purchases several weeks or months down the road.

[bravergrace]

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@ile136yz wrote:

I've had a look at my listings on Google & found the Pictures are months old.

If I type in my type of items on Search - what comes back are very old descriptions of what I'm selling, so it cannot go back to eBay site for people to purchase or read.  I know they are very old that are being shown as I change my Titles on a regular basis & keep a date of the change.

My take on this is if someone is looking for an item & they can see only old listing via Promoted listings that cannot be viewed in full the Buyers will give up.

Maybe this is the cause for eBay Sellers getting low views / sales.

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You may have hit on the answer here.  I've noticed, when doing Google searches recently, that a high proportion of the results are outdated links - they show an item title and picture, but if you try to click through, it goes nowhere.  Checking with my own items, these broken links are items that ended up to a  month ago.  This doesn't just apply to eBay, but other sites as well.  

This creates a conflict on eBay for those of us selling single items.

eBay's view is that if an item hasn't sold within 90 days, it's dead, and eBay's advice is to end it, revise it and relist it with a new item number.  This gives the item more visibility to people searching on eBay.  But if Google is not using up-to-date eBay information, this will give the item a period of nil visibility to people searching on Google.

If Google is using daily information from eBay, this is a minor irritation.  If it's using weekly information, then each relist gets a few days of nil Google visibility.  If it's using monthly infomation, then each relist gets an average of 15 days of nil Google visibility.

Putting this together with what Simply-Accessories says about cross-referencing, then an outdated link on eBay will also suppress the LIVE link to the same item listed on other platforms.

[ile136yz]

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@bravergrace wrote:

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@ile136yz wrote:

I've had a look at my listings on Google & found the Pictures are months old.

If I type in my type of items on Search - what comes back are very old descriptions of what I'm selling, so it cannot go back to eBay site for people to purchase or read.  I know they are very old that are being shown as I change my Titles on a regular basis & keep a date of the change.

My take on this is if someone is looking for an item & they can see only old listing via Promoted listings that cannot be viewed in full the Buyers will give up.

Maybe this is the cause for eBay Sellers getting low views / sales.

---

You may have hit on the answer here.  I've noticed, when doing Google searches recently, that a high proportion of the results are outdated links - they show an item title and picture, but if you try to click through, it goes nowhere.  Checking with my own items, these broken links are items that ended up to a  month ago.  This doesn't just apply to eBay, but other sites as well.  

This creates a conflict on eBay for those of us selling single items.

eBay's view is that if an item hasn't sold within 90 days, it's dead, and eBay's advice is to end it, revise it and relist it with a new item number.  This gives the item more visibility to people searching on eBay.  But if Google is not using up-to-date eBay information, this will give the item a period of nil visibility to people searching on Google.

If Google is using daily information from eBay, this is a minor irritation.  If it's using weekly information, then each relist gets a few days of nil Google visibility.  If it's using monthly infomation, then each relist gets an average of 15 days of nil Google visibility.

Putting this together with what Simply-Accessories says about cross-referencing, then an outdated link on eBay will also suppress the LIVE link to the same item listed on other platforms.

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[banknotes_1]

Why would no reserve price items with $0.01 starting bid do not receive any bids on ebay? While setting up shipping I have noticed how buggy and incorrect ebay's shipping system is. I found India and Japan among countries which I excluded from shipping to for certain items, yet I did not exclude Japan or India. Also, in one listing it says POSTAGE: while another says SHIPPING: . The one that says SHIPPING: does not have excluded countries set up. E—bay allows US accounts ship from overseas, which is useful, but probabaly creates complications when setting up shipping.

[ile136yz]

I would be guided by the Postage charge for an Auction item coming from outside the UK.

The bids could be low or go high.  So if the auction ended with a low £5.00, the postage charge may or may not put a bidder off & then import charges needs to be paid.  It is a shame as the item's Auction price itself is good, but the Seller will not make much profit.

BIN does not give the Buyer much to think about as they can see straight away item cost, postage & custom charges for buying an imported goods.

[captcider]

Has eBay communicated with sellers at all in relation to this issue?

I have experienced my worst period of sales ever since July 8th. All sales have just stopped in their tracks.

Paying for a shop wtith eBay, and no traffic at all to teh shop. I have been with eBay for almost 20 years, and had a paid shop subscription for a few years now, and I have to say I am considering closing it down. 

I have attmepted to call eBay to ask for help, but customer service is worse than ever, I keep getting passed around different departments to then get cut off and no return call. 

Its all rather fustrating. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

To be fair, Ebay are not going to communcate to you telling you that sales are bad.  Why would they?

Yes, if there is an issue on the site, then they should do.

However, aside from the fact that it is generally a quite time of year for most traders anyway and companies are struggling with sales countrywide, it really isn't that surprising that people aren't spending so much.

But what do you really think that your going to accomplish by calling support?  All your going to get, is "the site is working fine, try advertising!"

[superrugstore]

What I have noticed is if you aren't promoting your listings either via pay for clicks or giving a % of your sale on top of your fees cost, then your listings do not get seen.   They also want as much or if not MORE of a % of your sales via that way than the selling fees that they normally charge on sales.   It is crazy.

How can sellers be giving away over 25-30% of their sale to eBay?   How can they turn a profit on any items this way.

Some days you can sell 10-20 items and then other days 1-4 sales.   I fear they've become promotional advert hungry and if you aren't giving them it, then you aren't selling nothing.

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

Ebay do put limits on some accounts.

[skymoon-72]

After packing up my 15+ years business in November 2023, due to eBay sales falling off a cliff, removing all listings and leaving my account to a default state of zero..

Email received 20th July fretting about orders/seller level for "not dispatched on time" from last October - yes they were. every one of them. Unfortunately eBay gave next day delivery ETAs on 2nd class post to the buyers.  

Email received 22nd July - we are increasing your selling limits to 50 million items and £50m total value.  Lol, couldn't shift £20 per day towards the end, with 3000 listings.

Pretty much sums eBay up.  Glad I got out as things seem to have continued to spiral downhill.

[potters_uk]

I was selling nothing after a usually regular flow so I took all mine off.   I posted one item on a site called Vinterior and one listing sold the same day.  I think they are a flrdgeling platform but they do seem to be taking off so im going to put more on there.