Sales down on Ebay, but not other platforms

[jellybirddesigns]

Does anyone feel like there's a new algorithm going around for sellers?

For the last 2 months, my sales have dropped quite dramatically.

Yes, I know there is a pandemic.

Yes, I know that JobKeeper has ended etc.

On the other site I sell on, my sales are up by 11% in comparison, so doesn't seem relative to the pandemic or to JobKeeper.

Anybody else going through an Ebay drought at the moment?

[lupercal]

I'm used to there being unexplained trends up and down; sometimes the first half of a month will be very quiet and the second after unusually busy.

But my sales have virtually stalled in the past two weeks, especially the last week.   February though, was one of the busiest months I've ever had. Which makes it seem all the more curious.

[danieh_6]

No issues with sales for us, only payouts for managed payments !

[umpteenbooks]

Me too! Dismal sales over March since Managed Payments commenced and now I'm lucky to have 1 sale every 5 days or so! I thought with more payment methods there might be an increase, but I was wrong! Yes, feeling a little punished! 😑

[digital*ghost]

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@jellybirddesigns wrote:

On the other site I sell on, my sales are up by 11% in comparison, so doesn't seem relative to the pandemic or to JobKeeper.

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Seem could well be the operative word - data analysis isn't my forte, but there would be quite a few variables involved (eg it's possible different sites attract different types of customers in different demographics, and that these have different levels of disposable income, and / or reliance on Jobkeeper etc. 

My views & visits over yonder are higher than average, but my sales are down a little, and a lot of fellow sellers there are reporting the same thing (i.e. sales drought), it's in the forums over there, and in seller groups, some saying they had daily sales up until recently, and then went weeks without a sale - being a larger sample size, it does imply things are tough all over, at least in general. 

My theory, purely based on observation and what sellers on both sites say, periodically*, is that the algorithms on both sites are pretty much akin to a merry-go-round - up; down; round and round in circles to hit that sweet spot at the front of the crowd. It's fine when there's lots of people at the fair, cos they'll mill all around, but sucks when the crowd is thin on the ground. 

*Read: largely unsubstantiated. 

[chameleon54]

Each of my three selling id's where transitioned to managed payments at different times and each suffered a dramatic drop in sales of around two weeks during the transition.

They are all settled in on managed payments now and sales are currently very strong with a number of big ticket sales over the last week.

Some of these are selling within 24 hours of listing with quite a few going overseas as the mail system seems to have settled a bit and I,m now tentatively returning to international sales.  International sales made up 30% of my business pre COVID and where climbing as a trend, so that could account for some of the strong sales.

My sheep grazing business is also expanding to the point I have started employing extra help a couple days each week and my ebay sales are at the maximum I can comfortably handle so any extra sales would put a lot of pressure on things.

[jellybirddesigns]

@chameleon

I transitioned to Managed Payments in July last year and it was fine. Sales were up the whole of last year and the beginning of this year until about 2 months ago.

I reinstated international shipping about 6 weeks ago, and haven't had one overseas sale (they also made up around 30% of my volume). On the other platform, I'm back to getting regular international sales - several a week.

[chameleon54]

Interesting observations. 

While it will not account for differences in platforms, I suspect one of the reasons my sales are currently very strong is that a large percentage of my clients are business customers in heavy industry. With the re-opening of economies and cheap interest rates due to monetary policy ( money printing ) many business are emerging from COVID very strongly.  They are spending freely, where as private consumers are more circumspect with job insecurity and employment disruptions still fresh in their minds.

[kristy120476]

Our sales have been down SIGNIFICANTLY for about 2 weeks.

We have found when we search on ebay for our type of product, the results would normally have had hundreds or sometimes thousands of results, but now is showing maybe 20 or 30, none of which are our listings. A lot of our regular competitors are also not showing up.

Maybe ebay has updated the search algorithm and broken it?

Has anyone else noticed this when searching?

[chameleon54]

I have noticed this problem for quite awhile. I search an uncommon book title for example and nothing comes up on ebay I then do a general google search and half a dozen ebay listed items can come up along with other selling platforms.

Something is definately broken with the search algorithm.