topic Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016 in Selling

Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

gameofbricks — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:24:08 GMT

As the Subjects states.....Anyone else feeling the pinch?

If anything i have increased my listings yet not much is moving.

Did ebay change something i missed?

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

lyndal1838 — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:43:07 GMT

I see you are new to the boards.

Have a look round and you will see that there are a lot of sellers with the same problem as you have.....and for a lot longer.

Ebay has been changing things for a long time and most of it is not for the better.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

transport-posters — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:09:06 GMT

There's been heaps of concern from fellow sellers about this over the past 6 months. Just use the page numbers at the top and bottom to jump back and see the subjects of the posts to read about it.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

chameleon54 — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 22:46:06 GMT

I suspect some people think I,ve got a few too many Kangaroos in the top paddock, but I have mentioned before that my stores sales seem to be pre set at a fixed figure each month + or - 2 %. This months sales came in 1.4% below what I believe my sales limit to be. ( within the 2% deviation )

There are other sellers on International forums reporting this phenomena, but is anyone else on the Australian forums experiencing this ???

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

jellybirddesigns — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 00:13:41 GMT

My July and August were double what they were in 2015, however, my Septermber was half of 2015.

There's no real reason for it - even B&M shops have quiet periods.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

davewil1964 — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 01:13:55 GMT

Yes.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

collect247 — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 01:18:39 GMT

Please explain?

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

chameleon54 — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 04:31:06 GMT

@didawaywith wrote:
Please explain?

I have two stores that are linked in ebays systems. I linked them originally to get an increase on selling limits when the second store was established.

Every month my total combined sales for the two stores are within 2 % of a specific figure. ( several thousand dollars ) . This figure does not change regardless of wether I list a lot of new items or none at all. ( relying on the 2000 listings I have to maintain sales. ) It makes no difference if its summer, winter, christmas or a federal election. My sales each month come in at the same figure. If retail is slow in Australia, my O/S sales increase to compensate.

My limit appears to have been lowered around 12 months ago. Before that my sales where still consistent to within 2 % of a set figure, but that figure was much higher.

I also sell on a non store account, just using the 40 monthly freebies, plus any extras I find courtesy of links in the forums. This account is completely unregulated. If the items I am selling one month are junk, I dont sell much. If I list quality items I can sell several thousand dollars a month on this account. This is how a free market should operate. Sales should be up and down depending on circumstances..

The benefit of knowing before hand how much I will sell means I can budget on funds being available to pay bills etc. The disadvantage is, I know it doesnt matter what I do, I cant grow my business on ebay. It takes away a lot of the incentive to put in extra effort to run a dynamic, growing business. It encourages sellers to just coast along in a sea of mediocrity.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

digital*ghost — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 05:22:47 GMT

@chameleon54 wrote:

There are other sellers on International forums reporting this phenomena, but is anyone else on the Australian forums experiencing this ???

Yes and no, but I think my categories have something to do with that - as in, over the years I've built up a number of regular customers who consistently purchase the same items in various volumes, so no matter what eBay does (or tries to do), those buyers can always come to my store a put a spanner in eBay's works (so to speak) by buying whatever they want.

I do experience very similar averages over longer periods of time (I'm talking more like 3-4 months, rather than 1 month). For example, since I received a single order early in September, the value of which was more than I can sometimes turnover in a week, my eBay sales have been quieter than they've been for a while, but long-term average is still creeping up (ever so slowly).

In years gone past, when I was still establishing my store and transitioning from clothing to my current categories, I doubled, tripled or quandrupled sales volume / value every year from August to December, expecting a sharp drop right after Christmas, but the drop never came.... Things would slow a bit, but I ultimately maintained the pre-Christmas sales volume during the next year, with some fluctuations (up to 20% on a week to week basis, but long term it was quite consistent)

Until last year, anyway, when I experienced maybe a 25% increase in that period and went back to normal after Christmas, and so far haven't seen much (if any) increase this year, either, which could be due to a variety of things. If my average turnover is limited (or controlled) by eBay in some ways, then this pattern would suggest eBay let the market decide it up to a point, and if I can handle the increased volume, allows it to continue to a degree, but that perhaps I've reached the limit of their current graces. 😄

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

englishrosegardens — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 09:52:57 GMT

September was good, most of August was good. July was a lot slower than usual but this was thanks to ebay making changes to the category. They did the same late last year and it seemed to take buyers a while to figure out to how to find anything. I'm not sure how they find anything now because I usually give up whenever I try to browse my main category! July has always been my best month by far but this year it was way below what other months usually are.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

dazzledayz — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 10:55:20 GMT

I've written about this too and yes, I see the same in my numbers.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

transport-posters — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 12:42:30 GMT

There's lots of watchers on my items and the hits and watchers increment over time. If eBay are limiting accounts to having an average total sales amount each month, then this suggests potential buyers would run into a problem should they wish to make a purchase. I haven't heard anyone talk about this, or had anyone contact me saying they can't buy something.

It would also mean that eBay would be faking the incrementing hits and watchers just to make it seem like everything's normal in our admin areas.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

davewil1964 — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 13:19:42 GMT

I have no idea how many watchers I have, nor do I care. My interest is in sales not vicarious observers.

Nevertheless my sales are about average. As they always are.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

chameleon54 — Sat, 01 Oct 2016 23:33:25 GMT

@transport-posters wrote:
There's lots of watchers on my items and the hits and watchers increment over time. If eBay are limiting accounts to having an average total sales amount each month, then this suggests potential buyers would run into a problem should they wish to make a purchase. I haven't heard anyone talk about this, or had anyone contact me saying they can't buy something.

It would also mean that eBay would be faking the incrementing hits and watchers just to make it seem like everything's normal in our admin areas.

I also have lots of watchers on items. That does not mean they will instantly turn in to lots of buyers. I know I put things in my watch list and they can sit there for years if I dont have a clean out now and again.

It seems that only some stores have thier sales regulated. I dont know how ebay decides who gets this " special treatment " or why it is done. All I know is that there are a few other sellers who report similar experiences.

Ebay include conditions in thier terms of listing which state that not all listings will be shown in searches, even if an exact match is found. With the rise in mobile phone purchases, ebay have reitterated that not all items will appear in searches, because mobile phone users dont want to scroll through hundreds or thousands of items. It is through best match ( ebays default search system ) that ebay can control listing visibility and individual sellers sales.

Yes I realise many of the die hards that use the forums, dont use best match, but for most casual ebayers, the default is all they know.

It would be a simple matter for ebay to reduce visibility for a period of all of a sellers listings if a " watcher " buys an item, thus regulating sales over a month to a pre determined average figure.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

thecatspjs — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 00:01:28 GMT

@transport-posters wrote:
There's lots of watchers on my items and the hits and watchers increment over time. If eBay are limiting accounts to having an average total sales amount each month, then this suggests potential buyers would run into a problem should they wish to make a purchase. I haven't heard anyone talk about this, or had anyone contact me saying they can't buy something.

It would also mean that eBay would be faking the incrementing hits and watchers just to make it seem like everything's normal in our admin areas.

I think others have missed the point of your point

I agree, whilst watchers and hits may not translate into scale, they indicate that your item is being viewed by buyers and the view rates over time. .

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

thecatspjs — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 00:09:02 GMT

@chameleon54 wrote:
@transport-posters wrote:
There's lots of watchers on my items and the hits and watchers increment over time. If eBay are limiting accounts to having an average total sales amount each month, then this suggests potential buyers would run into a problem should they wish to make a purchase. I haven't heard anyone talk about this, or had anyone contact me saying they can't buy something.

It would also mean that eBay would be faking the incrementing hits and watchers just to make it seem like everything's normal in our admin areas.

I also have lots of watchers on items. That does not mean they will instantly turn in to lots of buyers. I know I put things in my watch list and they can sit there for years if I dont have a clean out now and again.

It seems that only some stores have thier sales regulated. I dont know how ebay decides who gets this " special treatment " or why it is done. All I know is that there are a few other sellers who report similar experiences.

Ebay include conditions in thier terms of listing which state that not all listings will be shown in searches, even if an exact match is found. With the rise in mobile phone purchases, ebay have reitterated that not all items will appear in searches, because mobile phone users dont want to scroll through hundreds or thousands of items. It is through best match ( ebays default search system ) that ebay can control listing visibility and individual sellers sales.

Yes I realise many of the die hards that use the forums, dont use best match, but for most casual ebayers, the default is all they know.

It would be a simple matter for ebay to reduce visibility for a period of all of a sellers listings if a " watcher " buys an item, thus regulating sales over a month to a pre determined average figure.

I don't think you give "buyers" enough credit to be able to search the things they would like to buy.

Refining searches by use of key words is not that hard.

If you are selling goods where there is an abundance of choice in the market place, then I think you have to count yourself lucky for having achieved a level of consistency.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

digital*ghost — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 01:34:15 GMT

@chameleon54 wrote:

It would be a simple matter for ebay to reduce visibility for a period of all of a sellers listings if a " watcher " buys an item, thus regulating sales over a month to a pre determined average figure.

In order for that to be genuinely effective in terms of limiting a seller's turnover, their only source of traffic has to be on-site searches, which would be pretty rare these days. This also kind of presumes a seller would always be turning over more than eBay's limit if it wasn't in place, and never under.

Aside from Google searches, there's a range of options available to drive traffic to someone's eBay items, so even if we presume eBay places limits on a seller's visibility and modifies traffic/sales to a particular $ limit, how can they control all sales / traffic?

I'm not saying eBay doesn't interfere and/or micro-manage, BTW, just saying it's ultimately very limited control and a seller would not have to resign themselves to it if they didn't want to.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

rocket2retro — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 01:56:31 GMT

Yes. September was my worst month to date and that is in 12 years of selling! I challenge anyone to tell me that everything is going well with eBay. Their share prices may be marginally up but I'd say that has more to do with with increased fees etc than the site being in a healtthy state.

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

lyndal1838 — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 02:41:29 GMT

Why would increased ebay fees have an effect on their share price?

Re: Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

*tippy*toes* — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 03:40:17 GMT

I had a reasonable September, but not as good as other months. This weekend though, POW! I thought a lot of people would go away for the long weekend, but instead they're buying stuff from me. I listed some 1 day auctions on my small less than 10 feedback account for the weekend and quite a few had bids within minutes of being listed.