Are any sellers looking elsewhere for income ?

[chameleon54]

With all of the recent changes and "stuff ups" ebay has dumped on us as sellers, ( affecting sales )  I have to admit my confidence in the company is shaken. I am a full time ebayer, who is usually very optimistic about ebay, but are finding the optimism hard to sustain at the moment. I read of many sellers starting thier own websites and shifting efforts to other sales sites or starting other non ebay businesses. etc. I am spending large amounts of time at the moment developing another small, non ebay business in case things dont improve on this site soon. Anyone else doing a similar thing ???

MODS MIGHT LIKE TO PASS THESE COMMENTS UP THE LINE !!!!!

[phorum_junkie*]

No I am not looking anywhere else, my ebay income is actually higher then last year although my average number of sales and my average selling price are about the same.

If you make as much use as you can of included and free listings I can't see hoow you can't make more money.

Due to a sudden trip to hospital meaning I had to get a friend to cancel all my auctions and put my store in holiday mode I still ended February with a profit slightly higher than Feb last year.

[clarry100]

Our confidence in ebay was shaken last Sept when ebay tinkered with the Best Match Search algoritm.

Our sales plummetted by around 60% for the entire month. As it has done again so far this month.

We currently operate 2 ebay stores selling baby headbands & accessories.

So... we decided we needed to develop our own web site. We should be ready to go live in the next month or so with that.

The plan is to keep trading on here while still something can be made of it. But at the same time ramping up the new web site as well. Once it gets to a point where we can see it can sustain us we will cease trading on ebay altogether. We are kinda planning that will be over the coming 12-months.

It is our belief that ebay's longer term business model is to exclude the small time sellers such as ourselves so we want to be ready to hit that wall when it comes. To us, by the way, it is not small time. It is our bread & butter. My wife & I are in this together after I was made redundant about 1-year ago now.

We also believe that as more & more sellers pull the pin on ebay that buyers will increasingly look elsewhere and again we want to be ready to offer that off-ebay marketplace experience to them.

Just our thoughts on this!

[chameleon54]

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@phorum_junkie* wrote:

No I am not looking anywhere else, my ebay income is actually higher then last year although my average number of sales and my average selling price are about the same.

If you make as much use as you can of included and free listings I can't see hoow you can't make more money.

Due to a sudden trip to hospital meaning I had to get a friend to cancel all my auctions and put my store in holiday mode I still ended February with a profit slightly higher than Feb last year.

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Thanks for your thoughts PJ, I,m normally as optimistic as you but are finding it harder to sustain the optimism. My sales have also increased around 20% year on year, but I am looking at the longer term. I agree with Clarry that ebays model for the future clearly indicates it is moving away from small businesses such as yours and mine to become a large, international, online shopping centre, based around huge international junk sellers. It may get to the stage where the used auction type items business is carved off from the main business and dumped off to another player or under-resourced and left to fade away without the market support of the big sellers. The recent ramping up of new and restrictive rules and practices such as same day shipping, thirty day returns policy etc. give a clear picture of who ebay wants on the site ( and it aint you or me PJ ). The constant "upgrades" and changes, along with continual site issues such as "Australian search" failures of the last couple of weeks do not support a sustainable, reliable long term business model. I will continue with my ebay businesses for now, but intend to have something else that I can move into if ebay becomes too unreliable. 

[digital*ghost]

I'm looking and listing elsewhere pretty much because my sales and profit is increasing (although, like many others, I seem to be experiencing the Feb./March slump), but while eBay do provide the facility for me to expand into some of the areas I want to, I think it's a better option to establish myself in more than one place while I have the resources to do so. 

I've been able to hang in there and grow on ebay while keeping up with most of the shifts - it was a pretty slow development, but I've gone from listing very casually every second Sunday to a relatively healthy store, and if eBay wants to focus on big business, I'll just have to become one.  (My goal is actually to make an anchored store viable and sustainable, but I hold no illusions about that being 100% in my control).

[yeoldecoinco]

Get your own website, then promote it.

Spend some of your eBay fees in promoting yourself, rather than them.

Has worked for me for 15 years.

Virtually no fees and no-one making you change this and that and telling you what to do all the time.

Paypal is optional rather than almost compulsory.

No being held to ransom by feedback.

No having to put up with constant rule changes.

Do not have to watch my website money go to pay for the 29 MILLION dollar salary of eBay's CEO or all the other hangers on.

eBay has been good, now it is rubbish for sellers.

Yesterday was typical. No-one could even list anything on eBay because they made a meal of it.

Yet they did not even post that fact on their announcements board.

Shows how much they care for sellers. 

I have found over the past 15 years that when eBay sales are slack, my website usually does all right and vice versa, so the two compliment each other.

At present I am selling a lot on eBay, trying to get rid of junk or duplicates, looking forward to just my website, which should be soon.

[Anonymous]

Ebay or change some policies or all sellers going slow end selling in Ebay. I have to many problems with buyers and Ebay don't help sellers.