The last two weeks...

[diecastmanhattan]

Has anyone else noticed a sharp decline in sales on the various platforms, but especially with ebay?

[jjambadger27]

I've noticed a big downturn in sales over the last 9 months or so, even more so this year, with selling prices being lower. People simply don't have enough money to buy non-necessary things. 

[lookinpandorasbox]

you could downgrade your shop to a basic one which will save you quite a bit monthly.I don't get many sales daily,as demand is lower with the cost of living,competition and warmer weather.Stay with it if you can and another bus with buyers on it will come along

[diecastmanhattan]

Ok...So the ongoing saga in finding out from ebay Customer Care, why there's been a sudden drop in sales over the last two weeks.  On friday, I spoke to an agent at ebay Ireland.  She appeared to sound interested, and showed some concern that my sales had dropped sharply, even though my account and listings were all good.

She would pass my concern to IT as she felt that there maybe a gliche on the system, and told me that IT would ring me back.  We all know that IT never return calls, if they even exist, so she assured me that she would ring me today at 10.30am.  Obviously I was deluded to think that she would call, and even cancelled an appointment to take her call.  By 11.00am, I phoned ebay Ireland back, and was told that she would phone me asap, to which I replied - fine, i'll be here until midday.  At one minute to midday, the phone rang twice and when I answered, the caller had hung up.  That was ebay.  I have no trust that ebay can actually do anything that they say.   I've also noticed that the three times that I've contacted ebay about my concerns - the following day I have several sales, and then nothing again.  Have we reached the point of only getting sales, when we complain to ebay to do something?

[kyanyama]

Please don't class our Jaffa's in the same category as the orange man baby - Jaffa's are way more sensible!

[kyanyama]

It's the end of the month and it's been a hard 3 months.  You know it's bad when you go to the supermarket and can't even afford the stuff in the Reduced Section!  I also left a charity shop cos their prices were eye-watering!

Folks are also paying off Christmas excess - my sales about 1/3 less than the same time last year.  I was lucky I filled my car when the price was £1.35 / litre - it's a staggering £1.49 now.

Just have to put your eggs in more than one basket I reckon.  I still keep slogging on here but am seriously considering the V-place.  I am just not keen on all the techy hoops one has to go through when opening a new a/c.  But if things don't improve on here I will have consider dipping my toes elsewhere.

Hope it improves in April - but things are unstable thanks to the orange man baby throwing his things out his pram - and the knock on effect of it all.  Just my opinion.

[diecastmanhattan]

Thanks kyanyama - I agree with a lot of things you've mentioned, and sales are slow- but when ebay tell me they, will ring at a certain time, I was foolish enough to believe them.  Customer Care? - I'm the customer, and they don't care

[technthread]

I don’t know why CS put themselves in that position saying there may be a glitch and they’d speak to other departments and get back to you. It just sounds like something they make up on the spot to try to seem empathetic. Even if it were true surely they’d be better off keeping that type of situation as internal information.

[diecastmanhattan]

It just seems all a tad strange at the moment.  I know I'm not the only one experiencing a downfall in sales.  Sure the current climate is bad, with the cost of living, fuel etc, but I'm not selling high priced items, and there will always be people with money out there.  Several are getting good sales on vted, so maybe thats the future for all of us.

[technthread]

I think eBay seems like hard work to people in comparison to V so they aren’t opening the app up as much. Sellers are promoting heavily to get eyes on their listings where it used to be taken for granted.

I re-opened a basic shop a few days ago here, managed 70 odd listings with all good intentions of having 250 by tomorrow and a featured shop in a month’s time and it just takes so long to list items.

In the meantime it picked up for me over there on V and I’m getting rid of stock in a few other places so I had to pause my eBay listing to post items and do other things. I lose steam on here a lot quicker than I do elsewhere and haven’t listed, I have actually deleted items and only have 39. It’s just so much easier to list 10 items in the time that I’m only able to list 2 on here I think a lot of other users feel the same way and have other apps open instead so we are losing their views completely.

[technthread]

Do people think eBay live has had an effect on normal buy it now sales and auctions? I know many streams don’t get huge numbers but if many of those are committed buyers they aren’t paying attention to traditional listings. 

[azathothdreaming]

I think if nothing else the live stuff being pushed as hard as it is means less screen space for people selling  things in the normal way. I've read about a lot of people that have avoided eBay while they were doing that big promotion of it over the weekend.

[diecastmanhattan]

The live sales is certainly harming the usual listed items, but then that was already happening with you tube sellers and thier little band of followers

[diecastmanhattan]

Very true technthread - live listings, and the you tubers seem to be able to sell any rubbish to thier followers.

[diecastmanhattan]

Again - very true.  I've started removing some of my listings in my shop, and will gradually reduce it more.  Ebay only wants us to spend more of our small profits promoting items at a higher rate.  Thier customer Services are pretty much a joke now as well

[msa_outlet_and_gifts]

I have noticed a huge drop in the past month or so. Surprisingly my sales for January were much higher than normal. You’re definitely not alone, it’s incredibly frustrating I really hope things start to pick up soon. 

[diecastmanhattan]

Following on from recent posts re sales going through the floor,  ebay Customer Services finally called me today.   She told me that my account was still in good order, top rated seller, 20+ years with ebay etc etc etc

but had no explanation why my sales of several per day for over 20 years - have now resulted in 1 sale over the last 5 days.  Her solution, bless her, was to increase my promotion rate to get better sales - also known as making more money for ebay.  I put an item on another platform last night,  that has been on ebay for a month, with no sales, and it sold within 24 hours.   Does ebay no longer care about thier business customers, and why are customer services so clueless now.  CS Ireland used to be good if you spoke to an agent there, but the last week's dealing with CS Ireland is a total disgrace.  For Pete's sake ebay- sort out not only my situation, but many other seller's similar problem.

[qualitydeals4u]

Yep here in the uk for me its horrendous. We are now starting to sell on other platforms instead as ebay has virtually nothing for us and offline. Tried everything and if we promote anymore then theres no point us selling on ebay as theres no profit. Terrible from 12 months ago 

[diecastmanhattan]

Hi Thanks for your reply.  Feel very much the same as you - they just want us to increase promotion, to make them more money.  Have been with this site for 25 years - it will be a sad day when ebay is no more.

[qualitydeals4u]

I agree and I think ebay have tougher and more competition now also with what Donald trump has done in the middle east, people are not spending the same. Im personally working on google, shopify, Facebook market place and WhatsApp more, pininterest will be next. But with bills to pay, im constantly stressed out about my daily payouts. I also think ebay has changed the way listings are ranked and shown up and as a high rated seller myself, this will go against what customers want as sellers with much worse feedback scores are ranked higher and under cutting. So this will provide more negative experiences for shoppers on ebay as they do not offer as good a service as I do ( im not trying to be arrogant) but I take it seriously and try my best. So ultimately there will be more in happy shoppers on ebay. Also some sellers are swindling royal mails service by only paying for lower weight postage options than what their items actually are and they get away with it! I know this as ive purchased from competitors! So this may explain why theu can sell cheaper than myself. 

[diecastmanhattan]

Yes, again I agree with your reply.  As a Top Rated seller myself, I have some pride in the condition of the items I sell, an honest description, reasonable or free postage offered, and always try to pack items well, so that the customer is happy with thier purchase.   All of which is shown in my 100% feedback - but even the feedback has stopped now.  I'm fed up with paying £90+/month for a featured shop that no-one goes in, so have already removed 200 items in the last month.  Ebay is dying, and no-one at ebay gives damn about it's customers - us