Ebay is it declining?

[stevesoller]

Hello

I am beginning  to  wonder  if  eBay  is  on  a  rapid  decline!  Speaking  to  some  other  users  I know personally  we  are  all saying  that,  with  all the  recent 'revisions' that  have ocurred  recently  the  sales  have  declined. I have  seen  this myself  and  I feel  that  buyers  are  going  elsewhere  these  days.

I am very disappointed  with  this  situation  having been a user  for  20Years  using  my  current  eBay name  and  around 15  years previously  using  a different user name (  we moved  house  and  my user name  had a reference to the old house  name,something  I would never  do these days!)

Just  wondering  what others  think

Steve

[wgwillia]

Its absolutely dead Ebay have killed with simple delivery and buyers protection if its not broken no need to fix it RIP Ebay.

[theretrodetective]

Its called en*bleep*tification, and it isnt just ebay its happening to. Google and Youtube searches have also become completely useless now, where you can type the exact title of the thing youre looking for and they will still show you what THEY want you to see. 

Its all done for the board members and shareholders. So they can say "look how many eyes on advertising we can get", "we can direct traffic to you" etc etc. Theyve abandoned the entire premise of the features they offer in favor of greed greed greed. And by the time the well has dried up the people who sold it down the river will be long gone laughing their way to the bank. Sad!

[theelench]

Yes, sadly they're all going the same way.  I sell my glass on ebid and from the perspective of a private seller just getting rid of many years of accumulated / collected glass, was quite happy selling 1 or 2 items a month.  That site uploads qualifying ads. to google shopping and it was from there that (I think) most of my sales came.

They've recently re-formatted GS and my sales have stopped.  Why?  Because since the re-vamp ebid ads. have virtually disappeared, even getting the site name on the "Shops" filter needs constant work.  Yet the "About Us" blurb still waffles on about being dedicated to disseminating accurate information to as wide an audience as possible.  It's just not true any more.

These days the ads. shown are wall to wall ebay or etsy with a few others thrown in to make the bias slightly less obvious.  Just as with ebay, those that pay the most get exposure  --  no payments  =  no visibility.

It is sad because I'm not going to give ebay 25% of my sales proceeds, nor am I going to pay google.  IMO it's little people like me who help keep these sites alive, but their greed is making them irrelevant to me.  I hardly look at ebay, haven't bought or sold anything this year.  Google will go the same way and once the interest has gone back to local outlets how much will I need either of them?

[spence0175]

I guess we will never know if EBay are just happy with any price… it wouldnt really make much business sense and yes it wouldnt be fair to that seller if they are being misguided. But I see a lot of privates using BIN and not cheap prices either... But we could talk about auction v BIN….i remember back in the day, auction was King…it was part and parcel of what eBay was about. In fact when I saw my first BIN on a piece of dollshouse furniture I thought it was something dodgy.. Probably because the price was so high compared to other auction pieces..

But like anything, things change and  possibly people have gotten fed up with waiting 7 or 9 days for that auction to finish when a similar piece on a BIN with a reasonable price might make someone think to just buy it now. I know I do…

So the people who are only doing auctions, mostly private sellers are likely to dip out if only a few people are after that item…

[maarsy]

i do have to say rather strangely since august i saw a sudden jump in impressions  from about 660 - 680 k to their usual 840 - 860 k , sales have also picked up by 25 % in that period . while it is still at about 3/5 th of what it was at the end of last year before it went downhill . i can't really say my stock has changed that much so i'm just wondering what made the algorithm change .

[1087wolf]

Personally I’m not selling hardly at all anymore because of the restrictive postal choices, ie’Simple delivery’ which does not suit me whatsoever is is not even consistent.

[edgeclothinguk]

I was a seller of over 10,000 electrical items a month. Ebay screwed us over so many times and let us down. They favour the buyer and don't care ahout the seller. They allowed fake reviews to be left and favoured the buyer, kept flagging our listing's as counterfit products. On top of this, the fees kept increasing. The thing that really did it was when they made sellers pay for return postage!! They don't deserve our business. Go elsewhere. Screw eBay 

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

I remember the busy days on ebay.

I could send out up to 6 parcels a day.

Now I am lucky if at best its 2.

The trick with ebay is to try to sell something unique as possible so your not competing on sales.

[furnicochimp]

I definitely agree.

I’ve been using eBay for 23 years and I’ve noticed a big difference in the past year or so.

As a seller, it’s annoying that anybody can return anything if they change their mind just by claiming INAD and eBay do nothing to investigate. Having a no returns policy on your listing means nothing it’s basically a no quibble return guarantee. Sellers fees are very deceiving and viewings on listings have also dropped massively for some reason.

As a buyer you get spammed with offers on anything you’ve viewed and even though you are supposed to be able to turn that feature off in settings, eBay make it very difficult to find the actual option.

Too many drop shippers with unrealistic delivery dates and junk from China.

EBay is pretty much dead now.

[pac_1167]

I post the items off to my buyers months later they get a refund stating no arrived, even though I use the seller protection my items are not getting up dated on Royal Mail, losing more money than selling for profit, then taxed on it by tax man, not getting that back...

[chopper_nz]

I agree entirely. We were long-standing eBay customers and historically purchased a significant volume of items through the platform. In many cases, we deliberately arranged third-party, signature-confirmed delivery because items were being shipped to a standard 9–5 commercial premises, with no staff on site after approximately 5:30pm.

Since eBay UK mandated Simple Delivery only, we have had no practical way to manage delivery risk. As a result, we experienced multiple parcel losses due to evening deliveries (often after 8pm), weekend drop-offs, and unattended handovers. Under these conditions, it is difficult to argue that buyer protection is functioning in any meaningful way.

What is most frustrating is the apparent absence of a feedback loop into eBay UK management. There is no effective channel to escalate these issues, and from the customer perspective, the organisation appears unwilling to listen. In a recent discussion with a former member of eBay UK management, it was suggested that senior leadership had become overly focused on revenue retention and loss prevention—particularly concerns about transactions completing outside the platform—at the expense of delivery practicality and customer experience.

Regardless of whether that assessment is entirely fair, the outcome is clear. We have now stopped using eBay.co.uk altogether and have had to invest considerable time and effort identifying alternative suppliers and purchasing channels, even for relatively small, low-value items. That is not a decision taken lightly after many years of platform use.

If a marketplace makes it harder to receive goods securely than its competitors, customers will adapt—and they will do so permanently. Unfortunately, that appears to be exactly what is happening here.

[dream-cloudz]

 hope they go bankrupted. All these unclear and unnecessary things they have implemented just to annoy sellers and confusing policies. Random bans for doing absolutely nothing wrong and also Lifetime bans for selling but of course you can still buy. Greedy company who doesn't care about sellers. And when you ask why did you get banned they don't want to tell you why or how you can fix it just a sorry you are banned forever. Anyone whose serious about doing a business on ebay is just playing Russian roulette and they can change the rules of the game to always make sellers at a disadvantage. 

[3rdtimelucky64]

One of the things I dislike, and think has a detrimental effect on eBay is the increasing use of AI, by both Sellers and eBay. 

Sellers are becoming very lazy and reliant on AI descriptions, most of which are very generic, and often inaccurate. Yes, the Seller can add important details such the items condition, if it’s from a smoke-free home etc but often they don’t- they just rely on AI. On more than one occasion I’ve had to return purchases because AI has got it wrong (the Region of a DVD for example), or the Seller hasn’t mentioned some damage.

Sometimes AI discrepancies are obvious by  referring to the photos but many Sellers provide only one or two photos, misleading ‘Stock Photos’ or worse, photos from another listing!

As a Seller another thing which is really annoying is that AI tells me many of my items are 30% or more expensive than ‘similar items’ and invites me to reduce my prices. When I check, for most of the items I am actually the CHEAPEST, whilst many of the ‘similar items’ are not comparable (ACCEPTABLE or GOOD condition compared to my LIKE NEW or even NEW, standard editions compared to my 2 disc Special Editions etc).

In general, like the world at large, AI is taken as gospel, when in fact it is very biased, generic, and often wrong! 

[insidethe93]

@3rdtimelucky64wrote: "...AI is taken as gospel, when in fact it is very biased, generic, and often wrong!"

AI does have its uses sometimes, but as you say it's not gospel and can also double-down on its incorrect data/lies. It strongly needs to be reduced/tamed.

I give just 4 examples: 3 are re very trivial matters; the last is serious re AI's flawed cancer diagnoses. I call the AI search engine(s) Skynet, a la 'Terminator'. Please judge the AI's response rather than my taste in movies/TV 🙂

Having been recently been stung badly by an incorrect AI where I (initially) failed to check

it (I deeply apologise/apologised in these discussion boards), there are still

occasions when the information I want is what I can't gain through non-AI search

engines. But I now use it less, and when I do I check it much much more, and now tend to start by doubting it.

1. Wanting to know hows and whys about the musical nature of Rocky the alien's

portrayal in the recently released film 'Project Hail Mary' starring Ryan Gosling I

started on my question, but Skynet said RG hadn't been in such a film but 'PHM' was a 2024 film (I don't remember who it said starred in it). I said look again, it was released in 2026, it basically repeated and insisted. I copied the opening paragraph from Wikipedia, stated my source, then it apologised and said it had been mistaken.

2. I asked why and why+ in 'Stargate SG-1' our heroes hadn't thought to block the Antarctica stargate so as to prevent Earth invasion on two fronts rather than one. Skynet: "In the Season 1 finale ("Within the Serpent's Grasp") and the Season 2 premiere ("The Serpent's Lair"/beginning of S2 arc) there’s no further mention or use of the Antarctic Stargate because the writers moved the Goa'uld invasion plot to the Antarctic ship and its Stargate had already been disabled/destroyed in the Season 1 events."

None of what it said is true.
Me: "re-check all as I'm sure none of that happened. The Antarctic stargate isn't

mentioned at all nor shown in the season 1 last episode nor season 2 start"
Skynet: "[basic repeat then] Narrative focus then shifts to the Goa'uld ship and to

preventing the fleet from reaching Earth, so writers stopped treating Antarctica as

an active arrival point. In short: the Antarctic gate was effectively rendered

unusable/destroyed during the Season 1 finale’s conflict, and the season-two story

continues without it for dramatic reasons."
Me: "i do not remember anything about the Antarctic stargate or locale in the last

episode season 1 - are you sure?! Give more detail. I have just watched that episode

and the initial one in season 2"
Skynet, totally taking back what it had said: "You're right — there isn't an Antarctic Stargate in the S1 finale ("Within the Serpent's Grasp") or the S2 opener ("The Serpent's Lair"). Both episodes center on SG-1 accidentally gating onto a Goa'uld Ha'tak (mothership) that is already en route to Earth; the action takes place aboard that ship and then with Apophis' larger fleet over Earth. No Antarctic installation or Antarctic Stargate is shown or

mentioned in those episodes."

Below is where I called it out.
Me: "so why did you mention it - are you trying to mislead me or do you not know you

are wrong until someone calls you out on it?"
Skynet: "Sorry — that was my mistake. I was incorrect to say there was an Antarctic

Stargate involved; thank you for calling it out."
Me: "so how come you mentioned it- you must've made it up, that part about the

Antarctic Stargate."
Skynet: "You're right — I made an incorrect assumption and stated it as fact. I mixed

up memories/details from other episodes and franchise lore and should have checked.

Sorry for the error."

3. A new label-maker's instructions are non-intuitive with the problems caused by a large number of features and too few buttons = many button combinations including time-delay-button-holding. I stated the machine's name, maker and model number but Skynet initially gave instructions to use buttons that don't exist. It corrected itself when I uploaded a picture of the model.

4. Google "VentureBeat AI ruler bias cancer", maybe add "2021". In the thread

"Listings being incorrectly removed by AI for being 'counterfeits'", I posted: I

heard recently about the instance where AI was brought in to analyse photos taken of

potentially cancerous lumps, to speed up the process of analysis by humans. Because

photos of lumps tended to have more photos taken that thus required a ruler to

measure lump progression which often but not always turned out to be cancerous, the

AI didn't look at whether the lump itself was actually cancerous or not, but started

identifying every photo with a ruler in it as having a cancerous lump...simply

because it had a ruler in it. Humans need to keep a strong watch on AI!

BTW, arguing with AI isn't my hobby, though this does make it look like it 🙂

[department28]

'Sellers are becoming very lazy and reliant on AI descriptions, most of which are very generic, and often inaccurate.' 

Yes - and any errors or spelling mistakes the seller makes in the item title, are being repeated in the AI description... 🤖

I recently spotted a listing for a 'scrappy' dress, which was obviously supposed to be 'strappy'. So the AI description was even more ridiculous than usual... 'this scrappy floral dress is a stylish choice for a summer party', or something along those lines.

It is understandable that sellers will occasionally make spelling errors etc - but when they are repeated by eBay, so that things like brand names are glaringly misspelt, it compounds the inaccuracy of the listing, as well as making eBay look rather stupid.

[pinklangthorne]

yes it has definitly declined over the last 2 years you may sell if you pay for promotions  or reduce they price until you are just about giving the stuff away  small sellers have no chance to get further up the listings as we are all graded by the Algo rythme