Survivable Sales Drought Or Terminal Decline?

[blueskystore777]

Even ebay admit these are 'exceptional times for sellers'. It's clear that sales for the majority are down by large and unprecedented percentages, whether measures M.O.M or Y.O.Y, the trajectory is vastly down.

I'd be interested in opinions, so, a simple question:

A. Have you convinced yourself that ,whatever the cause, this is an exceptional 'Sales Drought' and if it can be survived, ebay will again return the sales ranges it held for years and maybe ever better? Or,

B. Do you believe this is a 'planned or unplanned', Terminal Decline that will, for whatever basket of reasons, mean the end of ebay as a viable sales option?

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Actually no, I'm not missing your point at all.

I simply do not agree with you!

But I'm not going to argue it any further.

[555njp]

And of course that is absolutely fine, we can certainly agree to disagree and that's the benefit of a discussion board :0).

[the_book_seekers]

2/ Be more transparent regarding how they are linking user's activity and what exactly they will send to HMRC so sellers can make an informed decision.

ebay has stated that sellers will see the information sent to HMRC but not the timing of it. Will it be before, after or at the point of transmission.  As you've said ebay need to clarfiy the process. It's a fine line between scaring sellers off with what will happen and them leaving anyway because they have no clear picture of what is going to happen.

[555njp]

Agreed, and I appreciate it isn't just eBay, HMRC could be a bit more transparent too but I fully understand why they're not saying too much.

The legal requirement for online platforms is to pass info to HMRC in January of all sellers (Private and Business) if they trigger either threshold for this calendar year. Both my accounts went through the items threshold in Jan/Feb but I haven't been asked for my NI or UTR yet. My guess is eBay are not rushing to do this as could lose a fair few accounts. Also, what happens if at the end of the year you refuse to provide a NINO? Will the platform close your account? I assume eBay by law will still have to send selling details to HMRC, just less the NI number which I doubt HMRC need anyway.

HMRC are going to have a whole heap of data to rationalise come January.

[555njp]

And that fear can't be helped by how difficult it is to speak to someone in HMRC now.
I've had tax and accounting questions in the past and resolved them without problem over the phone, but they seem to me at least to be 95% automated now.
If your question isn't on the bots FAQ standard answer list, you've had it!

[technthread]

I can be naturally pessimistic so I think B. However eBay employ some smart people and with the right decisions it could be A. 

A couple of experiences I have had recently which I believe are quite commonly felt by other users who aren't using the site as much as they used to:

I listed a Nike hoodie on my personal account as a 7 day auction. At £6 with free postage start, I got 1 bid. The buyer didn't pay, didn't reply so around 12 days after I had gone to the hassle of listing it I cancelled the eBay sale and put it on Vinted for £3. It sold in an hour on there, the buyer will have paid about £6 all in and I had lots of people favouriting the listing so it wasn't a price issue at all. The eBay listing felt dead (and it wasn't the only one I had to watch go through 7 days like that), the Vinted listing was clearly going to sell after about 10 minutes with all the interest it got. With clothing at least, eBay have got major issues to resolve to get eyes back over here.

I was looking for a Hismile colour corrector toothpaste (I smoke, I know it's a filthy habit). I googled it to see what the Superdrug price was vs Amazon and saw the price it was on eBay which was far lower than everywhere else. I check the eBay listing and people are leaving feedback that the product is fake. I don't know if it is or isn't but I know the price is ridiculously low and I decide it's not worth risking it so I bought it elsewhere. In future if I'm looking for anything similar I probably won't even bother checking the price here as I'm not confident they are taking down fakes as much as they should be. 

I could give loads of examples as we all can. In summary I'm not sure it's worth my time to list items as a seller because of collapsing view numbers and I feel there are better options out there for me as a buyer in most categories I buy in. 

[1956glyn]

This is what i think...

Yes Ebay will shut down your selling account if you refuse to give them your National Insurance Number.    They may still allow you to purchase.

We have absolutely nothing to hide but will not be handing over our NIN.     The reasoning behind this is......what if Ebay were to (again) be hacked.    Also from past experience we know that the site does hold info far longer than they are supposed to.  Info that should have been deleted years ago.   We do not trust them 100% and feel that also handing over our NIN is a step too far for us.    

Basically my husband used to have an account with his ex wife.   When they separated he closed down his Ebay account as it was linked to their joint bank account etc.      He then subsequently open this account with a different address, Bank account ....basically everything was different.

Several  years later he had a queery relating to this account and spoke to CS.    They were asking him loads of questions about his old account with his ex wife !!    We are talking about an account that was closed many years previously.    He asked them what has this old account got to do with anything???    They backtracked and said oops sorry you are correct that old account was closed and all data has been  deleted.    He said if its deleted then how come you are asking me so many personal questions in relation to it so its obv not been deleted.   They had no answer and hung up on him.      He was concerned that if ever his ex wife made her own new account and rang CS they would start discussing this account with her 😞

[1956glyn]

Where we live there seems to be an increasing trend for people to hold table top sales on their drives or in their back gardens.

We thought we would give it a go today as we have loads of decent items that i cannot be bothered to list on Ebay or the postage cost will kill a sale .   So we put out a few tables etc  for 4 hours........and took over £400

It was really hot here but worth doing.....no fees and no hassle 

[vintagechinashop]

With me it's also the cost of packing materials as everything has to be carefully wrapped. I do manage to recycle with the help of family who save all their boxes and packing from internet purchases but the rising costs of bubble wrap and boxes means that I have to add this onto my postage costs. There are still buyers who expect their fragile item to be sent for the cost of a small parcel and nothing extra.  We are also getting fees charged on these postage costs in addition to our other fees. It's becoming harder to make a profit on here nowadays.  
personally I have to constantly look at promotions and decide if they are worthwhile. It's a tough market and I'm sure many sellers have already decided to shut up shop 

I love what I do but it does worry me that sales are nowhere near where they used to be 5 years ago 

[1956glyn]

Taking everything into consideration i am wondering if this is why these home table top sales are on the increase.    For us this was just a one off.  

5 years ago absolutely everything we listed sold.......nowadays its so hard  but thankfully we do not rely on any income from Ebay.   

Gone are the days when business sellers could just rely on one site to sell on.  My heart does go out to them if Ebay is their only stream of income.

My son has 2 or 3 deliveries a week  (dont think he even knows what a bricks and mortar shop is lol) ...every week and i am often amazed at how much packaging the likes of Amaz use for a small item 😞

[yorkshire*flower]

Yes, funny how we're all reporting a decline in sales but Ebays profits are up...well we all know why and it isnt through FVFs, which isnt sustainable for sellers. I sell over on Amz and sales are in double figures daily (typically 20-25) while Ebay often 2-10 ( and 10 is a good day) so ppl are buying, just not here.... Maybe Ebay cant see the wood for the trees and just think squeezing more from sellers is easy money, not sure how many sellers will put up with it. I no longer have promos on and would rather pay more % to Amz than pay money over here for no more return.

[ictioo.mens.clothing]

My sales are down and I've lost 2 million impressions. I'm only just above 1 million now.  I'm just waiting for Vinted Pro then I'll be gone. Ebay just isn't worth it now. It's like they hate business sellers. I'm very small time and barely make a profit with the fees. I'm basically working to pay the tax man. 

[theelench]

"There are still buyers who expect their fragile item to be sent for the cost of a small parcel and nothing extra"

I still do a low paid office cleaning job, one reason is that I get most of my packaging by re-using some of the massive amounts they throw out after deliveries to them. 

I've found that some of the worst buyers are those that buy more than one small fragile item and still expect them to be sent in one small parcel and seem annoyed that two items, adequately packed, often equals a Medium  parcel and they've only saved about £2 rather than £3.69 they were expecting.

I patiently explain to them that more items get broken by inadequate packaging and the items knocking together within the parcel, rather than from impacts from outside.

I stopped offering 'combined postage' on most of my glass unless the buyer requests it.  I can then explain to them why they're saving so 'little' on the invoice before they click the Pay Now button, or I refuse to combine at all.  I also point out that as my packaging is mostly re-used they are also not being charged for the box, bubble wrap or packing pea-nuts.  But some do still seem to think that I'm over charging and making money on my P&P price.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

I think one big thing that is impacting views and sales is the lack of customers that now come from Google.

You now get very little bang for your 12.9% final value fee plus general promoted listing fee, all it really gives you is an ever diminishing number of people already on the Ebay platform, it gives you very little if anything beyond that. As a result you are reliant on many of the same buyers / browsers.

Ebay now expect sellers to pay for off site ads to bring customers onto the site, the vast majority of sellers won't pay for this, this has resulted in what we see today.

I think this is one of the main reasons Ebay is becoming a weaker and weaker platform to sell on.

It's a pretty simple fix, Ebay need to start spending on worthwhile advertising again (like they used to) or things will just continue to weaken.

[wholesalepaper]

Sadly it's B - terminal decline, ebay is lost since they went crazy about promotions and promotion fees. Talking to all my friends almost nobody is shopping on ebay anymore, whoever want a fast delivery and decent custome service goes to Amazon, and the others which want cheap stuff shop on Temu/AliExpress/Wish/Shein. Ebay EDD's are not matching the reality and ebay sadly is not cheap anymore as sellers had to absorb excessive promotional fees, chence hiking the prices up in order to accomodate 30-40% fees (final selling fees + shop fees + all different promo fees combined), not to mention broken search engine and contstant pointless changes and fiddling on the live website, only because some mad developers decided to add another item specifics, or change the look of something which was working fine, so every week you have to learn again where the correct buttons are, or where the correct links are...

Sad really, in the past I was really enjoying selling on ebay, but I don't think that is ever coming back.

[typo_lee]

After selling on here for over 21 years I think I am slightly qualified enough to comment 😉

I would say its B) Terminal.

We are down 20% on ebay sales so far this year however on our other selling platforms (mentioning no names) we are way up.

Speaking with friends, family and joe public everyone comments that they hate buying on ebay. Think that says it all really. I believe people are shopping online elsewhere and to some degree back on the high street.

[abjoner]

There are problems with the platform.

A recent experience i had.

Purchased an item, and informed it had been despatched.  Next day messaged by seller to let me know it was actually out of stock, no problem it happens. Refunded a few days later after i was asked to cancel as a buyer asked to cancel. 

Purchased said item again from another seller, despatched and again informed item out of stock, same senario.  Items in question was still listed as several items available on both listings.

Purchased a third time from again a different seller, item was not available yet again but a smaller different one was.

Second item purchased i get a message from ebay 'We couldn’t cancel your order because there was an issue with the refund'

How is this a good buying experience?  I understand we all have problems with stock levels from time to time, but it appears to me that the ebay accounts were all from the same seller under different names

[padanpcparts]

And today we have: 

A new advertising experience is here 🔥

Wooooooooooooooooo, new and easier ways to give E-bay more money for doing what E-bay should be doing anyway. Why do I need to be an online marketing expert with E-bay now? 

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Ebay is hardly spending any more on advertising than it was 10 years ago. Advertising costs have gone up considerably in that time yet they are spending a similar amount. No wonder the platform is a shadow of what it was.

[555njp]

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@typo_lee wrote:

Speaking with friends, family and joe public everyone comments that they hate buying on ebay. Think that says it all really. I believe people are shopping online elsewhere and to some degree back on the high street.

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I find the younger generation (my kids in their late twenties) especially hate eBay but I don't really understand why. EBay for all its faults gives the buyer so much protection and is nearly always cheaper than Amazon.

I know eBay bombards you with promoted stuff which really turns buyers off, but I find Amazon far worse, so much so I very rarely shop there.

I think it's the free guaranteed next day delivery (with prime) that appeals?