E bay changes My take

[carrotdrusus2]

It is patently obvious that E bay were forced into making changes this week rather than having 'listened'.

To change the fees at the lower end of the scale does seem to prove that the unwanted private sellers are in fact one of the larger dynamics for E bay.

They have absolutely decimated the collectors market by applying eye watering fees to item under £5.

Now their retreat is all but complete. It was painfully obvious to all that those small buyers and sellers of hobby items were one of the most active groups on this site. My sales activity alone fell over 50%, accelerating alarmingly since June 1st.

So how bad has the sales decline been for E bay? The number cruncher's must have calculated that they would lose some buyers , but the exodus has been like stampede. What did they think they would lose? 20%-30%, who knows but surely a head or two will roll at senior level surely for such an act of self corporate harm.

Business sellers , who E bay thought would be immune from this , have been just as affected as private sellers insofar as they have seen buyers disappear too.

The dream of E bay executives selling high end products was always a fantasy, and seeing the humiliation of back tracking in less than 6 months, just like all those other platforms that made the same mistake must be spectacularly humiliating for the CEO in the UK. One must ask how is she still in post?

No doubt lots of other workers will lose their positions due to her folly as has already been announced I believe, I wonder how she sleeps at night?

So what will the outcome be. Yes E bay will recoup a lot of what they have lost but nowhere near all of it. I would hazard a guess that at least 20% has gone forever.

All companies die, we are witnessing the slow demise of E bay , accelerated up by its managements own poor decisions. 

[fishingfiend1]

My usually consistent sales turnover is down 40% !!!! this week compared to two weeks ago and 2 month ago

Traffic and sales have fallen off a cliff

Traffic, views, sales - all fallen by 40% virtually overnight

I've contacted ebay to see what the problem is and they've told me to review my listings -- pleeeeease is this the best you can do for long term business sellers ?

[gjalp]

It will be a case of review your listings and add promotions 🙄 my sales are down too, approx 15% week on week., not surprising when my page views are down 18% and impressions down 36% (I rarely promote, I refuse to, I pay enough fees as it is)

[vinylscot]

It will be interesting to see what size of drop in revenue eBay UK has experienced through all these changes, if anything at all.

Whether of not you think eBay cares about small private sellers, losing a few thousand of them, would make little or no difference to the bottom line. Look at it as a sort of "spring clean"; so many of these small sellers were just clogging up eBay with unsaleable rubbish. And be honest, these sellers were only minor buyers too, if they bought at all.

They haven't been missed. Some of the slightly larger sellers, who have left the platform, will be missed, but many of their posts here have revealed attitudes which makes me pleased I have never bought from them.

This latest change, while welcome, doesn't really make much difference, and may turn out to be rather temporary, if eBay sees the site yet again over-run with useless, low-value listings (NOT a personal dig at OP - more a wider point.)

During all this time, eBay will have attracted many new users (not because of this, just as they are always enrolling new users), the vast majority of those will just accept the status quo, as they never knew anything different, or they've used other platforms which have similar procedures in place.

Business sellers, myself included, have been affected by recent drops in sales, to varying degrees. However, recent economic figures have been discouraging, and I reckon they play a much bigger part in individuals' reluctance to spend at the moment, than any changes eBay has made. People just don't have money to spend, even on long-standing hobbies. On the plus side for business sellers, the market is freeing up a little, as some bogus business sellers are moving away from the site, still not nearly enough, but enough to make  difference.

eBay has many problems at the moment. Simple Delivery, Chinese tat, fakes, etc., and they do need to address many of these before it will be a truly safe and satisfactory platform.

The OP's post here is sadly deluded. The OP doesn't matter to eBay - he/she can disappear tomorrow (as can I, and pretty much anyone else who posts on these boards), and eBay will never even notice we had been here. 

IF there is a drop in eBay's revenue, attributable to the BDP and its effects, it will be a fraction of the 20% minimum the OP proposes, and it will be attributed (at least partly truthfully) to other economic factors. Remember too, that profits from Simple Delivery will easily wipe out any shortfall caused by a few disgruntled users packing up and leaving. Heads will not roll. Little people can carry on screeching into he void for as long as they want; nobody's listening.

[jonatjonatjonat]

A seller posted the other day a really in-depth post explaining that for every listing eBay has certain fixed costs. Server space, secure payment systems, card transaction fees etc. they would also estimate a certain percentage of sales will need support involvement (disputes).

Some of these would be the same whether eBay is hosting a £2 item or a £2000 item. There will be a line where a sale really isn’t worth it to eBay. What that line is, who knows, but certain sales for £3 or less they probably don’t care about.

it would have helped if the seller who posted that informal post wasn’t a blatant business seller on a private account, but their point was valid. 

[gjalp]

The current economic climate absolutely is playing a part. I have a fairly large number of regular customers (these have been buying from me for years) and whilst those that make larger purchases (say approx £70-100 every week, regular as clockwork) are still around, those that buy the lower priced items (I try to cater for all budgets) regularly are now buying only around once a month - my payday buyers I call them. My husband and I have recently launched our website and already some of those regular customers  have said they will buy purely on our site rather than ebay because we can offer the items cheaper and can afford to do better discounts.

That said, I do still need somewhere to sell our household clutter, so Im still looking for the best place to do that, ideally in one place so I limit my ‘platform hopping’ as its time consuming to sell in too many places at once. All I want are my costs covered and a bit of loose change at minimum. I just don’t want to throw stuff away.

[suelel1968]

Vinyl, I read your posts with trepidation! You are consistent and entitled to your view, but the OP is not deluded!

"eBay has many problems at the moment. Simple Delivery, Chinese tat, fakes, etc., and they do need to address many of these before it will be a truly safe and satisfactory platform."

- not many will disagree with that.  Maybe the Chinese would, though! 

"Look at it as a sort of "spring clean"; so many of these small sellers were just clogging up eBay with unsaleable rubbish". 

- everything has a price! Who knew you could sell an old, used, dog earred, postcard from the 1970s?  It makes me happy that you can! But it's niche, not going to sell immediately. But someone will love it rather than bin it. Ebay is actually clogged up with new stuff, which I buy, but when i search for something i have to scroll through pages of the same stuff to get to something slighly different, more suitable etc. 

"IF there is a drop in eBay's revenue, attributable to the BDP and its effects, it will be a fraction of the 20% minimum the OP proposes, and it will be attributed (at least partly truthfully) to other economic factors."

- It must be assumed that a drop in revenue has happened and action had to be taken before the next accounts are published. The bottom line is obviously important, but it is declining market share that will frighten the shareholder holders most. 

" profits from Simple Delivery will easily wipe out any shortfall" - but directly related to each sale, no sales, no kickbacks. 

Ebay staff probably read the forums for fun, ebay management will look at the daily, weekly & monthly stats and will not be seeing much positive. You can bet eBay.Com is cracking a whip. 

I worked for a US multi national for many years. The Uk was a loss making subsidiary, but it mattered massively to the US because they cared about the word "Global". The loss could be carried for the badge of honor that is trading in the UK and how influential that was in getting other countries to to do business with them. 

---

@vinylscot wrote:

It will be interesting to see what size of drop in revenue eBay UK has experienced through all these changes, if anything at all.

Whether of not you think eBay cares about small private sellers, losing a few thousand of them, would make little or no difference to the bottom line. Look at it as a sort of "spring clean"; so many of these small sellers were just clogging up eBay with unsaleable rubbish. And be honest, these sellers were only minor buyers too, if they bought at all.

They haven't been missed. Some of the slightly larger sellers, who have left the platform, will be missed, but many of their posts here have revealed attitudes which makes me pleased I have never bought from them.

This latest change, while welcome, doesn't really make much difference, and may turn out to be rather temporary, if eBay sees the site yet again over-run with useless, low-value listings (NOT a personal dig at OP - more a wider point.)

During all this time, eBay will have attracted many new users (not because of this, just as they are always enrolling new users), the vast majority of those will just accept the status quo, as they never knew anything different, or they've used other platforms which have similar procedures in place.

Business sellers, myself included, have been affected by recent drops in sales, to varying degrees. However, recent economic figures have been discouraging, and I reckon they play a much bigger part in individuals' reluctance to spend at the moment, than any changes eBay has made. People just don't have money to spend, even on long-standing hobbies. On the plus side for business sellers, the market is freeing up a little, as some bogus business sellers are moving away from the site, still not nearly enough, but enough to make  difference.

eBay has many problems at the moment. Simple Delivery, Chinese tat, fakes, etc., and they do need to address many of these before it will be a truly safe and satisfactory platform.

The OP's post here is sadly deluded. The OP doesn't matter to eBay - he/she can disappear tomorrow (as can I, and pretty much anyone else who posts on these boards), and eBay will never even notice we had been here. 

IF there is a drop in eBay's revenue, attributable to the BDP and its effects, it will be a fraction of the 20% minimum the OP proposes, and it will be attributed (at least partly truthfully) to other economic factors. Remember too, that profits from Simple Delivery will easily wipe out any shortfall caused by a few disgruntled users packing up and leaving. Heads will not roll. Little people can carry on screeching into he void for as long as they want; nobody's listening. 

[vinylscot]

Your thinking is really not far away from my own, despite a couple of rather shaky assumptions, apart from this bit -

"Look at it as a sort of "spring clean"; so many of these small sellers were just clogging up eBay with unsaleable rubbish". 

- everything has a price! Who knew you could sell an old, used, dog earred, postcard from the 1970s?  It makes me happy that you can! But it's niche, not going to sell immediately. But someone will love it rather than bin it. Ebay is actually clogged up with new stuff, which I buy, but when i search for something i have to scroll through pages of the same stuff to get to something slighly different, more suitable etc. 

Who cares whether you like these small ticket items? Who cares if sellers want to sell them, and some (very few) buyers want to buy them? eBay certainly don't - they're not in it for sentimental reasons, nor should they be. These sales don't make money for eBay. They clog up the site with mainly unsaleable tat, month after month, and they cost eBay a small fortune in server space and costs etc. eBay will have done their sums, and are quite happy to get rid of these pointless (to 99% of people) listings.

They may have decided they've cleared out enough dead wood, or even that their approach to doing so was a little heavy-handed. Whatever their reasoning is, I do welcome the recent changes to BPF, but would again caution that these could easily be reversed whenever eBay feels it needs another "spring clean".

[goodibags]

Ebay's retreat thus far has only been halfway and half-hearted. It feels positive that buyer fees are down from the 50% or 75% mark-up we had on low value items. A buy it now item with a minimum price of £1.75 has dropped to just £1.16 (i.e. 99p price + 10p fixed + 7p variable buyer fees). Indeed, the fees are now 10% or less on any item over £3.10.

But the postage costs with SD still start at £2.72 minimum, which means an item may be attractive to buy but is still not quite as attractive to send.

First and foremost Ebay needs to make up its own mind. Does it want low value items and the buyers/sellers thereof on the site or not? Is the strategy now to attract or to deter? 

Regardless of whether thousands of Ebay users have left or are just watching from the side lines the present U-turns and ambiguity around just about everything isn't inspiring much confidence.