topic Re: Overall Sales Drop in Selling

Overall Sales Drop

perfect_pixels — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 06:34:35 GMT

Hi everyone, ive had my ebay store for about 6 months so far and i know this is probably a very common complaint/question but this seems to be my worst month so far! i have over 160 listings up at the moment and the selling is far less than i expect with such quantity of items and i just cant figure out why that might be. I mainly sell electronics and games and would like to know if anyone has some solid answers for me, or can check out my store and see if everything seems prime for selling or not. Constructive feedback would be very helpful 🙂

Regards NickyD from NickyDgames

Re: Overall Sales Drop

perfect_pixels — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 06:53:19 GMT

Also wanna say I’ve never done promoted listings or used the marketing tool for price drops etc, I’m currently unsure if they’re effective

Re: Overall Sales Drop

imastawka — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 07:10:06 GMT

Is this a wind-up?

You sold approx 39 items during August for not small change IMO

Some would kill for a month like that.

Re: Overall Sales Drop

davewil1964 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 07:20:35 GMT

I'd be happy with a 25% sell-through.

Re: Overall Sales Drop

perfect_pixels — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 07:26:24 GMT

Oh wow so mine actually isn’t that bad? I guess in part i needed some perspective

Re: Overall Sales Drop

kopenhagen5 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 09:15:52 GMT

eBay is not what it used to be and you seem to be travelling along nicely.

All I can suggest is when sales dip then go in and use the markdowns i.e. 5% seeing as you have a store.

That is a good feature of the store and seems to boost sales from what I have seen and heard.

Re: Overall Sales Drop

perfect_pixels — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 09:33:36 GMT

Mmm I actually just found out about that today and I agree that 5% is a good starter mark, I’ll list a bunch of new stuff and then run the discount...here’s hoping 🤞

Re: Overall Sales Drop

joztamps — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 10:26:37 GMT

I would expect that sales of some types of product may drop off due to the combo of The Ashes and the Footy Finals.

Re: Overall Sales Drop

purplemon18 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 10:41:42 GMT

I often think that ebay artifically boosts sales for new sellers to get them hooked. If our sales growth had stayed the same as our 3rd month, we'd be driving Teslas now.

Re: Overall Sales Drop

davewil1964 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 11:59:08 GMT

Roadster?

Or a boring one?

Re: Overall Sales Drop

rookieyear1984 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 15:32:30 GMT

We have over 1400 listings and have noticed a huge drop in sales and activity the last month. This is with promoted listings at 11%, running 15-20% discounts, listing daily and regularly updating old listings with new photos/details etc. There was even 3 Saturdays in a row where we had zero sales... however my fees seem to total to a suspiciously similar number each month regardless 🤔

Re: Overall Sales Drop

chameleon54 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 22:27:05 GMT

Your sell through rate still looks pretty good. Clothing is always a tuff gig, especially when the economy is touchy but I love your stuff. Something a little bit different.

Re: Overall Sales Drop

heihachi_73 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 23:22:43 GMT

I can see a lot of cheap (<$10) items with $8.55 postage slapped on them when they could go as a large letter for $2 (such as those loose GB/DS games).

As for game sales though, yes, it has been dead for me for ages (as my feedback shows), I've had more luck shifting 5c coins lately!

Re: Overall Sales Drop

perfect_pixels — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 00:11:29 GMT

Do you think I would do better if I swapped it around? $2 for postage and genuine price for the game? Hahaha I’m going to have a look at your store now

Re: Overall Sales Drop

purplemon18 — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 01:27:42 GMT

It depends on the value of the item really. If you have no tracking, you have no seller protection. I suggest you decide at what value you are willing to cover the cost of items not delivered because you will have to refund them.

Re: Overall Sales Drop

waddingtonfirstaid — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 02:30:31 GMT

I agree with Purple_mom's post about eBay possibly boosting new sellers to get them hooked. I have seen patterns of behaviour from their 'ai' or algorithms that simply do not suggest any form of consistency or reliability. How a business can survive on a platform that does this, is going to show very pointedly during times of general retail sales decline and a loss of confidence in the world's economic structures (which is happening now, especially due to US-China trade war). But if they are acting in a predatory way towards anyone, especially new sellers, they they can fact massive fines and actions in the courts.

What I have witnessed personally, this time last year, before the introduction of new software prior to last Christmas, my sales were increasing. The first half of this year showed a marked decline. At the moment I'm down overall by 60.7% compared to same period last year. This past week, I'm up over 160%. How can anyone trying to run a business on eBay cope with this type of volatility and instability? I warned eBay that their new software was wrong and not the right time, economically climate-wise, to fiddle with things but they put their own self-interest first with regards to promotional listings. That factor alone has failed and I believe has been the cause of volatility and instability. You will never have a valid selling platform if you fail the reliability test. Over the last 12 months, eBay has failed the reliability test, to the point that their failures are impacting on shop owner's very business survival.

Re: Overall Sales Drop

rookieyear1984 — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 09:55:47 GMT

Thank you, I appreciate that! Totally agree re: clothing, it's a very fickle category. Constantly working on diversifying categories and platforms so in a way the down time allows me to do that 🙂

Re: Overall Sales Drop

sparky000red — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 00:20:24 GMT

Hi we are in the same situation and can NOT get Ebay contact number that works as Ebay seem to do NOTHING to HELP!

Re: Overall Sales Drop

lyndal1838 — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 00:26:55 GMT

The ebay call centre has been closed since early in the year due to covid19.

Your only contact option at present is Live Chat but I doubt that they can do anything about poor sales.

Most sellers see the drop in sales as being driven by Australian/world economic conditions rather than anything specific to ebay.