WHY HAVE EBAY SALES CRASHED

With  nothing having changed on my end, I don't understand why my ebay sales have crashed ... down to about 15% of what they were before ... profit on my sales now barely cover my monthly ebay anchor store costs ... I'm now earning LESS than $1 per hour !

HELP! HELP! HELP!

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Re: WHY HAVE EBAY SALES CRASHED

small items could go parcel post for $2.45 and there was also ecomy airmail. Buyers factor this into what they wil pay for an item.

 

Shipping costs as well as higher fees have made cheap items unfeasible.

 

i use to buty a whole lot of stock list everything at 99cent srat for 7 days, everything would sell. Some you win,m some you loose, but as long as the overall $ was a win all was good. There would be no capital yied up in stock and you start the next week a fresh.

 

now you need to carry hundreds if not thousands in stock to move quantities. So all the unlsold stuff needs to be poaid for by the sold stuff. You can't operate on small margins when you have to do that.

 

When your profits are less than the total you pay to AP you have to question why you are doing it.

 

As sales slow you have less items paying for same store costs and any unsold listings over and above your listing allowance

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ASSUMPTION IS THE MOTHER OF ALL STUFF UPS!!
Message 61 of 72
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Re: WHY HAVE EBAY SALES CRASHED

I'd forgotten about the under 250g small parcel rate. I used to use that a lot back when I think it cost about $4 and with no FVF. Just one more thing that made selling on ebay in the 'good old days' so much more a pleasant experience, rather than the nail-biting, stressful, non-profitable venture it is today.

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Re: WHY HAVE EBAY SALES CRASHED

I have a theory as to why Ebay and Paypal are becoming seperate entities. Its all to sell Ebay. Paypal alone is worth much more than ebay and has a definite future. Ebay on the other hand is on a downward spiral and when a business is on its way downwards, it takes a goliath amount of effort to keep it from going belly up. Thus, since Ebay is on a downward spiral, I believe they will sell it soon. All this effort getting the big shops in as sellers on ebay, is to boost the income figures before the sale of Ebay. Plus it looks like they have 'vision' for the future.

 

So I feel within 12 months Ebay will be sold.

And within 2-4 years it will be gone to the cleaners.

 

I pity the poor bugger who buys it...be interesting to see what happens.

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Re: WHY HAVE EBAY SALES CRASHED

I have a theory as to why Ebay and Paypal are becoming seperate entities. Its all to sell Ebay. Paypal alone is worth much more than ebay and has a definite future. Ebay on the other hand is on a downward spiral and when a business is on its way downwards, it takes a goliath amount of effort to keep it from going belly up. Thus, since Ebay is on a downward spiral, I believe they will sell it soon. All this effort getting the big shops in as sellers on ebay, is to boost the income figures before the sale of Ebay. Plus it looks like they have 'vision' for the future.

 

So I feel within 12 months Ebay will be sold.

And within 2-4 years it will be gone to the cleaners.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

 

I agree with the the above theory and the major chains want Ebay gone so are happy to sell on here until it goes under, us low life ebay sellers after all were taking money from them and they could not stand by and let this happen the greedy mongrels. If you do not have a plan B to continue selling online I suggest you destock and get the hell out of Dodge so you will not be stranded with all that stock...........................................

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Re: WHY HAVE EBAY SALES CRASHED

 

i agree it is not worth buying new stock i just want to sell what I have now It used to be great I have 100% feedback but even that doesn't help my sales

it is so disappointing 15% of normal sales figures and declining

Message 65 of 72
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Re: WHY HAVE EBAY SALES CRASHED

My Ebay sales just continue to go DOWN, DOWN, DOWN >>>

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Re: WHY HAVE EBAY SALES CRASHED

 


@pinnacle-agencies wrote:

Thank you for joining in ... even without my huge "ON SALE" discounts that I only offer on ebay, my sales outside ebay are going gang-busters ... my ebay sales have been heading downhill for about 3 months now. 


where do you sell outside ebay. i am looking for another place as sales on ebay have dropped so much for me, i really need to look elsewhere but don't what is best. I did try swapmeet a few months back, but have only one sale. Quicksales should be renamed Nosales. No luck with Etsy or Ebid either. I am thinking of starting my own website, but this might be a costly waste of time,  Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

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Re: WHY HAVE EBAY SALES CRASHED


@chameleon54 wrote:

@pinnacle-agencies wrote:

Can anyone explain to me with a degree of certainty if I am correct in my understanding when carefully studying all the posts above that if you can run new listings or a few popular products or somehow get your sales up again, that they will likely stay up because the ebay systems that rank ones listings see you as a popular seller and take your offerings closer to the top in their search engine?

Having regard for the posts above I have done some experimantation and early indications seem to point that way ... a bit like getting a boat to plane ... needs heaps of grunt to get up and less grant to stay there!


I don't even think most ebay staff claim to now the intricacies of how ebay search results work, so all we have to go on is anecdotal evidence.

 

From my sales patterns over the last three months this would appear to be correct. I mainly sell one off items in my stores. I have done very little listing for three months, but the items I have listed have been excellent sellers. My sales across the board have been slightly above average INCLUDING many very old listings.

 

I concluded listing the "red hot" sellers four weeks ago as I had exhausted my suppliers stocks and cant source any more. My sales have drifted lower to be 40% of long term averages last week. All of my items are unique with each item only suited to a very small field of specific buyers, so the "hot sellers" where not attracting buyers who then purchased other items.

 

The only conclusion I can draw is that the hot sellers where lifting my rankings and visibility overall in searches. I will try to get some listings up this week and expect a lift in sales, but without the "red hot sellers" I would not expect to return to average sales without listing high numbers of new listings of average selling items.

 

On a slightly different path, we started a second store two years ago from scratch, zero feedback etc. We listed our best items on this store and within three months it was going like a rocket and had outsold our existing large store with high feedback scores and six times as many listings. From other forum discussions this would seem to be the exception rather than the rule, but reinforces the "popular sellers get higher rankings overall " theory. We had to go back and list some great sellers on the older existing store to kick start sales again.

 

The biggest problem is to find sufficient stocks of the really hot selling items. They are usually rare and highly sought after. THATS WHY they sell so well.


I  have spent quite a bit of time on ebay in the last couple of weeks trying listing strategies to lift sales. I have been listing a few items at a time, a couple of times throughout the day ( morning and late afternoon or evening ). The items I have listed are only steady sellers.

 

I have managed to drag my sales back from 40% of long term avarage to now be trending at 70% of long term average.  I must admit, some of this boost is coming from sales of the newly listed items, but I think the extra account activity is stimulating visibility, lifting sales of existing listings too.

 

I have noted an alarming fall in page views on the main account..... Figures as follows. June 2014 - 4037 page views.  May 2015 - 3022 page views. June 2015 - 2774 page views.  This indicates a 30% drop in page views over a twelve month period, which equates to where my sales are currently sitting. My second store account shows a similar fall in page views of around 25% year on year.

 

One interesting thing I have noted is one of my best sellers has started selling in large numbers to the U.S.A. It started with a couple of isolated sales and has turned into a run on the product, all to the U.S.A. The sell through rate has obviously been picked up by cassini and the item must be sitting near the top of listings visibility wise in that market. This has been going on for a few weeks and is enough to have a material impact on my figures.

 

I,m not sure what all of this means, but if we see a further fall of 30% in page views and sales over the coming twelve months, life could get a bit difficult. Strap your seatbelts and parachutes on.......... we could be in for a rough ride.       

Message 68 of 72
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Re: WHY HAVE EBAY SALES CRASHED

My gang-busters sales are comming from selling to stationery retailers and new agents at the same prices that I have on ebay ... those businesses cant buy anywhere near my price so I am apparently and accidentally heading towards becoming a stationery wholesaler (without ebay fees) .

 

ebayers dont appreciate what a fantastic deal they have been getting for orders of $2 and a bit more, when my retailer customers buy hundreds of dollars a day from me at the same prices.

Message 69 of 72
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Re: WHY HAVE EBAY SALES CRASHED

CORRECTION TO MY LAST POST ... I AM SELLING TO STATIONERY RETAILERS AND "NEWS AGENTS" NOT "NEW AGENTS"

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