eBay sales dropped off a cliff

[ts-trade-uk]

Have any other eBay seller sales dropped recently mine was not bad but now I'm lucky to get 1 sale a day and it's not the economy i sell more on Facebook than on here and without running prom ads on fb eBay dev needs to stop playing with the search algorithms it clearly playing with people sales

[smarts-gaming]

The point I was originally making is that even though yes the fees are presented to the buyer who then pays it, sellers have to deduct this fee from their asking price, meaning that the seller EFFECTIVELY pays it. 

I know that on paper, the buyer pays it. But the seller has to take the fee into account when pricing. If an item has a known value of £50, you have to sell it at £47 so that with the fee it equals £50. Therefore the seller effectively pays the fee. It is deducted from the money they would otherwise be paid. If you priced your item at £50, the items total would now be £53.50, which wouldnt sell because its higher than the items value. So you must deduct the fee yourself first, which is more or less the same as paying it. Its money that the seller would have gained otherwise. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Or to put that a better way, when pricing, you account for all of your costs.

It's not semantics at all at the end of the day, as though you may hand over the money directly to Ebay for the fees, you are getting those fees from the customer.

In just the same way, your customer is paying you to purchase the product, or to pay your wages or any of the hundred costs for selling an item.

If your not, then you are costing yourself money.

Or to look at it another way.

You list an item for £5.  You charge the customer another £3 for postage.

So when you post that item, who is paying the postage cost, as you are having to go and buy that label at the post office?

If the seller effectively pays the fees, then they are an additional cost that is not being charged to the customer.

[the-nutwood-collection]

Same here.  Also lots of emails from entities that will port my listings onto various other sites.

[raitistiprai-0]

 When I was a private seller my weekly turnover was around £700-£1000 per week. I've had a business account for almost two months now and my turnover is under £300 per week and it's dropping every week.

[the_book_seekers]

I've those too. Competitors obviously see ebay as ripe for picking off.

[typo_lee]

If you were 1k per week as a private seller presumably you were declaring all that income to hmrc?

[susapric-68]

If you sold then what you sell now and also had a CRN number then you should never have been a private seller in the first place. You're finding out now why businesses hate businesses on private accounts, they can undercut and take money away from you

[vintagechinashop]

I’m finding vinted better at the moment  the benefit  of listing an item for £10 and getting £10 in your pocket just simples. No fees no postage to pay you decide what profit you want for the item and that’s just what you get  Also I love in post lockers. On a bank holiday I’ve just taken my parcels to the locker and that’s my job done. My eBay sales are waiting for the post office to open tomorrow 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Ah, but are you not finding that you actually get less on there?

I find that even accounting for fees etc, it still ends up being a fair bit cheaper, as it very much seems that the default for users on there when making offers, is to take 40% off the price and expect to buy at that price!

When I first started using it, I got a lot of sales quite quickly, but as time has gone on, though I'm still getting sales on there, it has reduced.  Then I get days where there is nothing, then several things all at once.  Just like Ebay!  🙂

The same can be said of D*p*p as well.  Which really does bring me back full circle, to thinking that depressed sales on Ebay, is far more to do with the general state of the nation currently, than any changes that they have made.

BTW, watch out for getting labels that you have excluded.  I have no idea why, but I keep getting the odd RM and Yodel, even though they are crossed off the list.  Contact support about it and they are about as useful as a chocolate teapot!  Enable/disable and it stops for a while.  

[greencrest-intl]

Interesting, sellers spend so much time spotting private sellers, as if this will solve ebays search engine algorithm inconsistencies. 

Surely it's either the economy or ebay policies or their incompetence, choosing who sells or in this instance who not.

From my experience sales have dropped over 60%+ y.o.y. for items that have no competition at all.

Let's help each other rather than bicker, which is one thing that definitely doesn't help sales.

Good luck all.

Enjoy your days off.

P.s. Jan was dead until the around the 25th at which point it picked up for around 30 days of better sales, since around 25th Feb back dead besides a couple days here and there. Its the unpredictability that has made us decide to call it quits.

[parsley2003]

I am still wondering why you sent me the £23,000 offer when i'm a pensioner living on pennies