Is ebay just a big scam?

[lectrickery321]

I'm a new ebay seller, I joined ebay a little over a month ago (Feb 2025) I listed a dozen or so items and I made a few very quick sales, all was going great.

...but then the sales seemed to have dried up.

At around the same time as sales dying off I noticed that ebay was pushing me to boost my listings using their paid listing promotion service. I received email advertising for it and I was also prompted when listing new items (I don't remember seeing that on my first listings!)

Now, call me a sceptic but didn't ebay "promote" my listings for free when I was new to the site - just to get me hooked for example. Then, after a month or so did they throttle down my listings visibility? Hoping I'd pay them more money for "promoted listings"

...or am I just being a sceptical old fool? 

[tressygirl]

You're  being sceptical.

Long time sellers will tell you that sales have a ' mind of their own'.  You can sell  XX amount one week and zero the next.  

Of course there are all sorts of conspiracies ,  blame is laid here there and everywhere, just take a peek at the discussions board here,  but there is no one answer, if only there was !

@lectrickery321 

[john1297576]

Of course FREE TO SELL is very much a con, as nothing much changes even if you use the promotions.

I have only been using promotions as I have  an offer of £15 off selling fees, but as soon as that expires all my items will have the promotion removed.

Looking through completed listings, views and watcher numbers are pathetic even with ebay’s “promotions increase sales by 40%” .  40% of nil is still nil.

[lectrickery321]

Thanks to everyone who replied.

Here's a quick update: 

Well, another week has passed with no sales, that's 2 whole weeks without a sale.

I'm considering conducting a little experiment. I'm thinking of creating a new ebay account (and a new email address) to list the exact same items and see if I get any sales on the brand new account. 

I know it's a bit of a faff but might interesting to confirm if my cynicism is justified... or not.

I'll keep you posted....