eBay Is Dead

[pinball-fantasies]

I am thinking eBay as a selling platform is dead since the seller protection was added ? I wonder if eBay have notice the decline in sellers since new rules started . In my 20 years of selling on eBay Ive never seen it like this

I have 20 watchers on my account , most of them are still selling but their sales have fallen to almost to nothing over the last 2 months and a few sellers have gone from the platform , its like all the buyers have gone

I wonder if eBay have notice the fall in sales or do they really care anymore

Is eBay a sicking ship and now doomed ?

[wgwillia]

R.I.P What a mess up by Ebay they have killed the golden goose.

[6kitkat]

From the perspective of a part time private seller.

I used to sell my kid's Playmobil, and the odd train set, nothing special - perhaps £1000 a year of our own family 'tat'. I bought around £1500 a year worth of stuff from Ebay.

Ebay introduced Seller Protection, and the 48hr hold on payment in February.  I thought 'that's my lot, I'm not going to bother selling anymore'. More importantly, on 4th Feb 2025 I immediately stopped visiting the site and stopped buying items . (Bought 3 items in 5 months).

Ebay culled private sellers, but didn't think that those sellers are also buyers. Ebay is dead - to me at least.

[cluckington-palace]

Exactly like me, I have a perm job and pay my taxes, have done since 16,
worked from 14, never had a thing from the state

[honeymonster007]

Is ebay dead, it will be with the money people are asking for old tree saws, don't they realise they need cleaning, sharpening and setting again, plus the handles need repairing and staining.

Just because something is old doesn't mean its worth top dollar.

[jacemodernist3]

I wonder how many millions of items disappeared overnight from eBay categories. They must've shrunk between them and HMRC restrictions. 30 items and £1000 in sales for before they submit your sales to the taxman, including personal possessions HMRC are currently brown-lettering people they believe owe them money. During lockdown the government didn't like the economy's growing online and wanted to clamp down to kill it. Flatlining the gig economy's online growth, killing any chance to make money in a cost of living crisis. So once cash is no more, they'll be happy. Own nothing, be happy, and eat the bugs. See you down the boot, online selling is  dead, fees and taxes are run by economy-growth-killing greedy clown's.

Oh let's call eBay China town because they're top of everything with fake items that take a month to arrive with import and VAT added to the buyers. Greed just greed.

[five-in_five-out]

Hello all,

I buy very little on ebay now, it's a complete joke. Who do they employ at the top, Oliver Cromwell?

Also fed up with Amazon drop shippers charging 20% more on ebay than Amazon.

Why is Amazon doing so well? About 400 billion pound ahead of ebay in Q1

The 0.75 p and the BPF are the killers. Oh nearly forgot the managed delivery system, which by all accounts is illegal in the UK, but not in the EU or America, that's why they are allowed to "kill" the UK private seller.

So I think it's goodbye private sellers. Will miss them and so will ebay.

You never know you may, just maybe get a bright kid into ebay top management and revert back to 2010 ebay format.

Shoppers and buyers would flock back in there billions and ebay would be, yes great once more.

Not looking forward going to ebay's funeral and millions of job's lost.

Bless all have a lovely day.

[five-in_five-out]

How can you sell on a closed account? Very odd you have listings or are you ebay management?

Strange.

[five-in_five-out]

Too right pal, sellers masquerading as private when it's all to obvious they are business's. Get rid of them, either be a pro seller"business" or a private seller capped at selling 30 items only per year only, after that ebay should not allow you to list anymore items unless you become a business seller, simple.

Private business sellers go away, or shut up and do as you are told by ebay like little children.

Put up, or shut up. Period.

[virgo666uk]

Well I guess we all thought that zero seller fees were a great bonus instead of having to wait for their infrequent 2.8% seller fees deal.  However, now that ebay have introduced a buyers tax, things are starting to look grim again. 

Bet the zero seller fees was because they knew that they were about to introduce a buyers tax.

Ah the greed of american companies huh.  I'm just grateful that I don't use apple!

[overbow]

Yes i agree, ebay always sides with the buyer too regardless 

[storage.boutique]

Eh no! The black economy is costing the average UK taxpayer rather a lot. Time everyone, and I mean everyone including the companies, were honest or were caught for their dishonesty. I do hope you are right, that HMRC are brown lettering everyone who has been trading whilst claiming benefits or forgotten to submit tax returns for the last number of years.  If the Government is able to level the playing field the average taxpayer will benefit dramatically and the cost of living crisis will diminish in a fair way.

[five-in_five-out]

ebay is totalled, today tried to buy a hedge trimmer. They want a valid CREDIT  CARD to verify my age, fine, but I do not have a credit card. Debit cards don't cut it. I'm 58 years young and have a bank account and a debit card!!!!! This is madness. Wow I am in utter dismay at how this NOW pathetic company work.

[five-in_five-out]

It's not just the decline in sellers, ebay buyers are going elsewhere to buy. Amazon and Vinted are loving the decline of ebay, which is a real shame. I always thought ebay had a big business backbone but now it's been paralysed from the neck down, who broke it?  Themselves with greed.

[storage.boutique]

Is there any evidence for a "decline in sellers"? 

I sell as a business across many platforms and I find that different types of buyers are loyal to different platforms. On Amazon, price is not the issue but more how fast you can get the goods to the customer - and people search on Amazon rather than browse. Vinted is a very singular market on clothing and I am sure that will have had an effect on some sections of eBay. But I find in general that it is business as usual on eBay. eBay is a platform where it is largely price competition - a race to the bottom - and there is a constant flow of sellers collapsing when they can no longer compete at the bottom end.

I have no evidence, but I would guess that many private sellers who have been trying to run businesses without registering as a business have now discovered that they need to convert or face the coming storm. Margins built on the lower eBay fees for a private seller are by definition not sustainable when you register as a business. So some will drop off the bottom, no doubt, but as they do so eBay cleans its act up and becomes a better place for businesses to sell. The process will take time but I think this is the correct strategy for everyone.

[gjalp]

Vinted sells more than clothes now and is opening up other categories 

[dotboutique]

Okay, I dont sell on Vinted, but I still think it is known for old clothes. I think it has a better reputation than eBay because eBay never cleaned up its act with all the disreputable private sellers. Now eBay has a huge legacy issue to deal with and I am not at all sure it will succeed.

[gjalp]

I know that one of my buyers is selling the stamps they bought from me on vinted (I have a vinted account but never sold on there). I feel there may be a bit of jostling incoming between ebay and vinted

[five-in_five-out]

Yeah, it's all over Google

[hampstead_oldie]

Yes, I agree that the platform is almost dead, they killed the goose that laid the golden egg with their greed and lack of foresight.

[storage.boutique]

Where do you get that from? The stock has almost doubled in price this year. Clearly something is going well.