topic Re: selling limits in Selling

selling limits

dylan11235813 — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 05:12:41 GMT

I have been trying to find the selling limits on my account for ages so I contacted ebay (a call back, which online took like 1 minute) anway they said that because the account was created in 2003 there are no selling limits and I have unlimited selling. The woman I spoke to had to put me on hold to ask a superviser.

Can anyone with an old account confirm that they don't show any selling limits?

I could here the woman reading out to herself what was on the screen in front of her and she specifically read out "selling limits not dispayed". In ebays policy it also states that all accounts have selling limits, nothing about exceptions for accounts created before a particular date. She also seemed very surprised when I said "ok thanks for that", like she was expecting something else.

Re: selling limits

thecatspjs — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 05:17:01 GMT

A few years back now eBay announced that they were putting in place limits on older accounts that had previosly had no limits.

I remember it at the time as the process interefered with live listings and ended some sellers listings at the time, including DGs I think ???

Re: selling limits

artyandchic — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 05:18:02 GMT

I have an older account from 2003 and even though I cannot see any selling limits, the volume of sales do not increase even though I may list a lot more items on this ID. It has been documented that accounts on ebay do have selling limits.

Re: selling limits

clarry100 — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 05:55:57 GMT

Yes...

One of our selling accounts was established in 2004 and it also has no selling limits at all. Not sure when it changed to limited accounts.

One of our other selling IDs was established in 2012. So almost 3-years old now.

We have been caling monthly for some time to request increases in limts.

Then suddenly about 2-months back we get a message out of the blue that says our limits have been increaesd to 550,000 and $750,000.

For us that is essentially unlimited. We don't need to call them any more.

Re: selling limits

dylan11235813 — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 07:19:35 GMT

Thanks for the info everyone, much appreciated.

I list new items regularly and my overall turnover remains fairly constant (for at least a year). Sales just seem to be good one day and poor the next, I will get a really nice big order (what I class as a big order) and then very few the next day, and then there are the few days of the year that mysteriously have no sales at all.

Re: selling limits

digital*ghost — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 08:02:28 GMT

@thecatspjs wrote:
A few years back now eBay announced that they were putting in place limits on older accounts that had previosly had no limits.

I remember it at the time as the process interefered with live listings and ended some sellers listings at the time, including DGs I think ???

Yup - they wiped out my entire store late March, 2013 (I still have active listings from back then, so I can see when they were relisted right after that) - all that sales history, etc, gone in the blink of an eye. Not a nice thing to wake up to, particularly as a stern email from eBay about exceeding my limits was waiting for me in the morning. Took a few days to get all the listings back up, too.

I always wondered if I had a cap on my monthly sales, as well. In the first couple of years, I would consistently sell the same amount, both in number of sales and $ value. I'd almost always have a good couple of weeks, and a bad couple of weeks.

I did manage to increase that from my initial limit, or maybe I just stuck around long enough for it to slowly edge up? It took me two years to reach my first sales goal of at least 100 sales in a month, and once I did, things have been not so bad most of the time. Christmas 2013 I tripled my usual sales (which was when I first topped that golden 100 😄 ), and throughout the following year, I didn't have much of a drop-off from month to month. Can say almost exactly the same thing about Christmas last year (except for the tripling of sales - they did noticably increase, maybe doubled at the peak, and again didn't drop back too much at all afterwards, and I was expecting them to halve. Last week I was actually busier during the week than I was during Christmas o_O ).

One thing to point out though, I have more than 10 x the stock, and stock value than I did when I was averaging around $750 worth of sales a month, but I certainly don't get 10 x the sales. Other contributing factors are lower value items making up a significant portion of sales, as well as selling in a more competitive market, albeit I try to stick to niche items and have many (many) more multi-quantity listings that help me in best match - I even sometimes spot my items in the "popular on eBay right now" side-bar when looking for things o_o .

Re: selling limits

mbselections00 — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 09:27:22 GMT

@digital*ghost wrote:
@thecatspjs wrote:
A few years back now eBay announced that they were putting in place limits on older accounts that had previosly had no limits.

I remember it at the time as the processinterefered with live listings and ended some sellers listings at the time, includingDGs I think ???
Yup - they wiped out my entire store late March, 2013 (I still have active listings from back then, so I can see when they were relisted right after that) - all that sales history, etc, gone in the blink of an eye. Not a nice thing to wake up to, particularly as a stern email from eBay about exceeding my limits was waiting for me in the morning. Took a few days to get all the listings back up, too.

I always wondered if I had a cap on my monthly sales, as well. In the first couple of years, I would consistently sell the same amount, both in number of sales and $ value. I'd almost always have a good couple of weeks, and a bad couple of weeks.

I did manage to increase that from my initial limit, or maybe I just stuck around long enough for it to slowly edge up? It took me two years to reach my first sales goal of at least 100 sales in a month, and once I did, things have been not so bad most of the time. Christmas 2013 I tripled my usual sales (which was when I first topped that golden 100 😄 ), and throughout the following year, I didn't have much of a drop-off from month to month. Can say almost exactly the same thing about Christmas last year (except for the tripling of sales - they did noticably increase, maybe doubled at the peak, and again didn't drop back too much at all afterwards, and I was expecting them to halve. Last week I was actually busier during the week than I was during Christmas o_O ).

One thing to point out though, I have more than 10 x the stock, and stock value than I did when I was averaging around $750 worth of sales a month, but I certainly don't get 10 x the sales. Other contributing factors are lower value items making up a significant portion of sales, as well as selling in a more competitive market, albeit I try to stick to niche items and have many (many) more multi-quantity listings that help me in best match - I even sometimes spot my items in the "popular on eBay right now" side-bar when looking for things o_o .

Excuse my naivety, I don't get it, how would you even know you have exceeded your limits ? You would at least need to be advised by eBay that you are approaching your limits - surely ? And how would you control your limits ? Shut up shop ?

Sorry to sound so dumb . . . . . .

Re: selling limits

digital*ghost — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 09:33:20 GMT

@mbselections00 wrote:
Excuse my naivety, I don't get it, how would you even know you have exceeded your limits ? You would at least need to be advised by eBay that you are approaching your limits - surely ? And how would you control your limits ? Shut up shop ?

Sorry to sound so dumb . . . . . .

No, not dumb - eBay explained it afterwards as a supposed system glitch. They had never imposed selling limits on that account, so I was just as confused (plus shocked, then angry ) about what had happened and why.

Eventually, they came out with an explanation about old accounts never having selling limits when they should have (I think they might have updated something on the site so that old accounts that hadn't been in use or not used much, would have them if the member registered as a seller, and my store was caught in that update), but after that little fiasco, I still have never had any (visible) selling limits on that account (opened in 2008, so not really all that old in 2013, either).

Re: selling limits

saarzi — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 09:43:10 GMT

My account is from 1999 -

I notice a selling limit in my data - I sell the same regardless of how many items I have listed - I started with 50 items, now have just over 200 and still sell the same amount per month as when I had 50.

I could not see any seller limits on my account.

So I called CS and they confirmed I do not have any seller limits.

I said what about hidden seller limits, or is my account being throttled, because my data is showing that it is -

She said I dont have any selling limits in my dashboard *that she can see* (completely ignoring me asking about hidden limits and throttling).

Theres a few threads about hidden sales limits / throttling / sales caps if you have a bit of a search - two employees have stated there is, and the CEO inadvertantly confirmed it to media. As you said, Ebays policy also.

Re: selling limits

dylan11235813 — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 09:44:49 GMT

I doubt you can exceed the limit, which is what i wanted to know, and as a starting point to further investigate. It seems I have one but ebay will not tell me. I can sell $100,000 but ebay only let me sell $1000

I think it has been well established that ebay apply it through their search engine. Someone posting before called it throttling which is a better term.

Re: selling limits

dylan11235813 — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 10:04:58 GMT

My post befor was at the same time as yours gtx and wasn't a reply

So now I have a bit of legal ground because they didn't disclose these facts?

Re: selling limits

i-love-my-sheep — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 13:43:21 GMT

@mbselections00 wrote:
Excuse my naivety, I don't get it, how would you even know you have exceeded your limits ? You would at least need to be advised by eBay that you are approaching your limits - surely ? And how would you control your limits ? Shut up shop ?

Sorry to sound so dumb . . . . . .

I don't think you can exceed your limit (if you have one). Well, not the listing limit anyway. If you have a selling limit of say 100 items a month, when you have around 10 left, each time you create a new listing, when you get to the last page that tells you you have successfully listed your item, there is a message that says something like "you can list 7 (or however many) more items this month. Contact eBay to request a higher selling limit". Once you reach 0, it won't let you list it.

Not sure what happens when you get close to the monetary limit, I haven't even got near that!!

Re: selling limits

mbselections00 — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 16:59:07 GMT

@i-love-my-sheep wrote:
@mbselections00 wrote:
I don't think you can exceed your limit (if you have one). Well, not the listing limit anyway. If you have a selling limit of say 100 items a month, when you have around 10 left, each time you create a new listing, when you get to the last page that tells you you have successfully listed your item, there is a message that says something like "you can list 7 (or however many) more items this month. Contact eBay to request a higher selling limit". Once you reach 0, it won't let you list it.

Not sure what happens when you get close to the monetary limit, I haven't even got near that!!
AAh, ok, so that's the listing limit covered - I've never seen that message, and I think the most I have ever had listed at one time was around 700.

So then presumably it is only the monetary value that is limited and is hidden and controlled by throttling ?

Re: selling limits

chameleon54 — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 23:26:41 GMT

I,m extremely sceptical that ebay would apply hidden selling limits to our accounts. It just seems to defy logic.

Having said that it really seems the evidence is too overwhelming to ignore. It does not matter what I do I cant seem to break through a set figure that ebay seem to asigned to my accounts. One accout has no visible limits. The second account which is 18 months old, was linked to the first when started to avoid limits. It was immediatly givin a silly limit, similar to Clarrys in the first week. Maybe this is how ebay "encourage" us to tell them when we set up a second account so that they can be linked ( in more ways than one ) .

As the new account has grown sales, the older accounts sales have fallen in a mirror image. The new account has around 350 listings and has settled at sales of almost exactly the same dollar value as the old account which has 1700 listings. Added together the value of both accounts in any given month, 3 months or year, all add up to a very nice round figure. I wont disclose it here, but it is such a nice round number that it is uncanny that my combined yearly sales could just happen to match this number year in year out.

I have a third private account in a different name and not linked to the two others. This account only uses the 40 freeby auctions or any other freebies that are going around. I can sell as much or as little as I want on this account without affecting my stores. So it would seem that non stores are not included in the non visible selling limits.

It has got to the point where I have resigned myself to the fact I wont sell any more here than my hidden ebay limit, so just do enough to reach this target in sales and go off somewhere else to make additional income. I can see that this makes it all self fullfilling phrophercy, but the fact that sales still magically hit the certain figure almost exactly regardless of what I do is just uncanny.

Re: selling limits

clarry100 — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 01:02:22 GMT

What you are saying almost exactly matches what we are seeing on our selling accounts.

Our monthly average so far this tax year is almost identical to the very dollar for what it was last year.

But this year we have three more selling accounts.

It's just too coincidental that this appears to be happening to other sellers as well.

There must be other unseen forces at work here and from what I've read ebay deliberately do it to make sure that their big box retailers get the lions share of the market as they have agreements in place with them. So the rest of us mere small time sellers are throttled back so they can achieve their contracted sales targets.

In our category there are no big box retailers. Just the Chinese bulk sellers who noramlly flood our category.

If we turn on the Australia ONLY search filter that eliminates these Chinese sellers (mostly) and our stuff is then usually right up near the top of the search results.

Re: selling limits

clarry100 — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 08:58:10 GMT

We listed 8 of our most popular line items from EBay onto Quicksales 7-months ago now. We get traffic reports but we have never had a single sale or enquiry.
So not too sure what the quick part means

Re: selling limits

i-love-my-sheep — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 14:32:19 GMT

@clarry100 wrote:
We listed 8 of our most popular line items from EBay onto Quicksales 7-months ago now. We get traffic reports but we have never had a single sale or enquiry.
So not too sure what the quick part means

Quick to see your sales die.