Turn off the life support, eBay is clinically dead

[trackmaster4]

With the exception of a handful of small private Sellers, this place is deader than Julius Caeser.

I'm looking to buy a good quality second hand professional series Stihl chainsaw. Sounds easy enough, well it was at one time.

These days there is was only 1 chainsaw listed out of the different 4 models Stihl chainsaws I searched for, whereas 12 months ago there would have been 2 dozen or more to select from.

The most annoying part being when you search for "Stihl Chainsaw", what comes back is more than 200 listing for cheap no-name Chinese junk...How does that happen, considering none of these junk adds mention the word "Stihl" ?????

Honestly, eBay's parent company should turn off the life support system, as eBay is clinically dead.

Damn shame actually, as it was once a good place to buy and sell, now however it's just a million adds for cheap Chinese garbage, counterfits, and knock-offs.

Am I wrong, or am I the only one who feels this was about eBay these days ?

[trackmaster4]

not much in the way of choice anymore

[phorum_junkie*]

Probably because of high delivery costs, having to offer Paypal for pick up items, dip in the economy so people are hanging on to goods longer rather than replacing with new, could be many, many more reasons but have you looked on Gumtree? A lot of sellers now prefer to list pick up items there as it gives better exposure for local items and there is less chance of getting a scam buyer or a tyre kicker.

[zanadoo_56]

On some items I am interested in there's still plenty of choice.....but sellers are raising the prices by 100% or much worse.....and they have now been listing these items for well over 12 months with no takers.  They all say the item is 'rare' but when there are six of them in a row BIN it seems absurd.  Plus, if an item hadn't sold at $150 a year ago, it is even more unlikely to sell for $450 now.  Classic.

Then there's the Global Scam Program.  Because of the GSP, from reading the US boards it seems that sales to overseas buyers have decreased markedly for sellers of small items.  In fact I've noticed a couple of sellers I used to buy from (and who six months ago wouldn't post using USPS 1st Class Int under any circumstances) are gradually ditching the GSP....thank goodness.  But it all may be too late.

[peri-landlubber]

I have an example or more than one of something has definitely gone wrong.

On my selling ID I had a buyer who wanted to buy 'cow' things - I listed 2 different things (cow related) one after the other.  

He purchased one & he didn't see the other until I told him it was there & he purchased that one as well.

Last night I had a buyer buy an item & didn't see a quite similar item in my list, so they are definitely not showing up in searches.

When I write & tell them there's a similar item available I worry whether they think I'm being 'pushy'.

The same thing is happening again today - one item has bids, very similar item has none.  I just tried to search for the 2nd item & it didn't come up under a short-cut of what it is titled.

There's a very similar item listed by another seller at a higher price, but mine is not in that search list under Best Match.

It is the 'Best Match' that is the problem - it doesn't bring up all the items available.  When U search under 'Time: ending soonest', the disappearing items are there.

By the way, I've been told people won't look at my items as they are too cheap - very strange.