Anyone Else Noticed Drop Off In Sales Since New Top Rated Seller Program?

[arlottstreetstation]

Has anyone else noticed a drop in sales since the new program took effect? Only about 1/4 to 1/3 of my listings qualify for the new Premium Seller because I can't offer Free Post due the cost. I've noticed a pretty BIG drop in sales which I put down to my items now being virtually invisable. If this keeps up it won't be worth it anymore.

[extra-keen]

It is most sensible to have more than one selling platform when selling on-line. To rely solely on ebay for an income in recent times is fraught with the ups and downs of their own search (best match) results.

However having said that, ebay still has the most traffic and I suspect even with other selling platforms, most of us still need a presence on ebay.

[ozstockman]

---

@global-coins-collectables wrote:

My sales are down and I haven't made the mods to get my listings higher.

The reason is I refuse to give ebay any more of my profit than I need to.

eBay take a percentage of the sale but that doesn't include the postage fee. If we adjust our pricing to include "free post" they get to charge on that too!

---

That's the reason why ebay has made all that fuss with free postage forcing sellers to offer it in order to get TRS.  Just ignore it, because in fact it is not about TRS it is about ebay trying to get more profit in fees from postage cost.

I am TRS and I have never  offered free postage as there is no such thing in real life.

For 150 products I list only two very cheap ones come wth free postage because that's easier for me that way to sell them.

re sales drop, My sales have dropped too in the last 7 days and I am receiving less questions from potential buyers.  I would say it is more than 50% drop.

[ozstockman]

BTW, I have an online store outside of ebay and traffic to it dropped almost 50% in the last 10 days while I am still at the same positions in google search results.

So it may not be only ebay thing.  

[ambridgebuckskins]

Sales down on this ID big time. Down a little on my book ID but enough to stop me having a complete hissy fit.

Neither ID's have jumped through all these new TRS hoops and don't intend to.

l did have cause to search for some of my listings a few days ago, using a friend's iphone. l couldn't remember what keywords l'd used in my title so just put in a general search.

Was totally surprised to see two of my items on the first page. No way did that search know l was me nor had friend used eBay prior to that. So l had to admit that the search wasn't at fault for no sales.

When listing last night, l checked my Selling page to see if the gallery photos were going to play nice. l see the newly listed had 3 views - l put that down to bots tracking the listings.

But then one of those items sold and another had a buyers question. So they were being viewed.

l'm all out of answers now. l have to conclude that the lack of sales lately might just be that people don't have the money to buy extras.

[extra-keen]

I just looked at my sales for the last 3-4 years and August Sept have always been the worst - maybe everyone is saving up for the big spend over Christmas.

And regardless of what the politicians and media tell us, the economy is not (NOT), chortling along. There are still a lot of folks loosing work at the moment including my husband after 22 years with the one firm, no thank you, no nothing, just "see you later mate".

[*crikey*mate*]

oh colleen, I hope that things work out for you and the OH pretty quickly.

[arlottstreetstation]

I think it's ALL about money. By forcing as many as they can to offer Free Postage it means that their Final Value Fee is applied to the Postage as well because, as we would all agree, the cost HAS to be built into the final price. This nonsense about it all being in the best interests of Buyers is just that....ABSOLUTE NONSENSE!!!

Thanks for your replies everyone. At least I can be fairly confident now that it's not just me & I'm not doing too much wrong. Unfortunately, with these latest changes plus the invasion of Overseas Sellers, it looks fairly certain that it's the end for me. Just not viable anymore, especially with the high Fees.

I might open my own Website & run them side by side for a while to see what happens. I would like to think that Ebay will wake up when a lot of the Sellers are forced away & probably take a lot of their loyal Clients with them. I worked hrd to reach Top Seller & now have a fairly loyal following which is still growing albeit MUCH slower, so they can rest assured that I will probably take at least a few with me - more money in my pocket & theirs with the savings on Fees.

[windmillfinancial]

Yep Im down a fair bit.  I sell sunnies and can send 1 or 10 pairs for under $8.  With free postage the customer is disadvantaged as instead of say $38 for 3 pairs it will be more like $54.  Ebays cut is off $54 instead of $30 near doubling their take.  I wish I could double my profit.

[clarry100]

Yeah hamsy, we are now going to approach someone we know who does professional web sites and go our own way. We were going to do this anyway a bit later on but we are just going to bring this forward now. Like you we will run both in parallel until we can establish the website. We are also experimenting a bit with Google Adwords in an effort to see if that can bring any additional customers directly into our ebay store. But 2-days in not looking too good. Good luck in your ventures.

[arlottstreetstation]

"Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Work Today" - as they say in the Comedies......Probably just coincidence but since posting this question my Sales suddenly returned to normal & my Searches have returned to what they had previuosly been......I won't be so vane as to think my Post changed anything as I believe Ebay to be too arrogant for that, but......yes......strange......

Also I TOTALLY AGREE that the Search Setup should be changed back to Aussy Sellers as the Default first prefernce. As someone pointed out, the O/S Sellers are taking the money out of the Country & often supplying inferior products that give us all a bad name. I';m told that a lot of the Fees are cheaper O/S as well. combine those things with Ebay putting Adverts on our listings for our Opposition Sellers & it's just getting rediculus.

I'm now wondering about an E-mail I rec'd this morning about their latest Brainstorm......The introduction of Postage Regions.......Is this the NEXT STEP in their grab for higher Fees???? i.e. abolish the Aust. Post Calculator & just leave the Regions ??? I don't believe a Flat Rate for Regions will be cheaper all round for Buyers.....