I wonder if ebay is losing money?

[onekiwi0]

over 650 items listed of  many types (on two diff ids) and not one peep yesterday or today.

I know theres threads throughout the forum on who turned the lights out, I see the promos ebay is offering re discounts... (not so much the dick smith as they're going under) and I wonder how they are making a profit.

yes they give pref to the big guys but even so, is ebay a thing of the past?  not sure what else I can do to boost my sales, except offer for less money / free but I'd like to make a wee bit of profit...

i also sell items occasionally on FB groups but its been quiet there too, likely olmpics and people having no money to spend...

[davidc4430]

ebay australia is a small part of the ebay empire

and now ebay has many big boys of the traditional bricks and mortar stores operating via ebay.

i think us little guys are becoming less important to the big picture of the ebay world.

[screamingdemon_2007]

Ebay loosing money? hahaha.... not likely, like a bank that makes $5billion profit when they forecast $7billion claims they lost money ,headlines read "$%# Bank looses $2billion " when in fact they just feel bad for only making $5billion...

Ebay turns $billions if fees... and any seller who has tried to get help in a hurry knows they run on a skeleton of staff.... copy and paste responses to claim disputes proves this....

Still our seller fees go up and the contact Ebay options are automated even more....

I guess the next thing will be BankEbay... paypall is already onto that with their financing thing.... its what these superprofit company's do when they get tired of only making superprofit..

That's my rant anyway....

[heihachi_73]

Not a chance, given that they charge us $1.50 or $3.50 per listing yet only a few cents/pence everywhere else. Their profit margin would make Australia Post's look like pocket change.

[lyndal1838]

Most people ue the free listings.

[*tippy*toes*]

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@heihachi_73 wrote:
Not a chance, given that they charge us $1.50 or $3.50 per listing yet only a few cents/pence everywhere else. Their profit margin would make Australia Post's look like pocket change.

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If you're paying listing fees, more fool you. I've never paid a single cent in listing fees and I never will unless they remove the free listing allocation. I have a lot of stuff to sell, but I'm not paying dead money on listing fees.

[bettyboopsadaisy]

You would think that ebay getting less of the market share would mean less profits (which clearly is the case).

Another effect of the downturn in sales for individual smaller sellers (like me) is that for the first time in years, I find my Top Rated Seller status threatened because I am getting close to the cut off point of 100 sales a year.

Not that I'm very concerned about that. It doesn't seem to make much difference to sales anyway.  With the drop in sales, I guess proportionally, my interest in selling on ebay is also slowly waning. It becomes an exercise in futility to relist over and over again in the hope that THIS time the item will sell.

I've been a seller on ebay for 8 years and have enjoyed the experience (mostly) despite all the irritations caused by ebay themselves but the joy (and profits) is / are slowly draining away !!

I can see my post ebay days looming ahead !

[springyzone]

Ebay must still be making some profit (I guess) as it is still up & running.

As for the label of top rated seller, it has never influenced me to actually buy or not.

I must admit I prefer to buy from someone who is not a newbie & who has a steady record but they don't have to have a label.

I'm finding I buy more online these days than ever before and I have spent a few hundred dollars this last week.

But not on ebay.

Strangely enough, ebay inspired some of my purchases though.

I saw some brand new items on ebay, then goggled them, shopping app.

In two cases the exact same items were available much cheaper (even after paying delivery costs) from Australian stores-namely Ikea & Harris Scarfe, so I ordered direct.

I think this is the thing. Ebay says over 80% of items listed are brand new and they may be. But consumers can google the prices in seconds & there are so many alternative sales sites now.

I would think good quality second hand items might sell well on ebay, things that are not so easy to get hold of, or things not found everywhere.

[rpc_hardware]

No Need to wonder... released 20 Jul 2016

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), a global commerce leader, delivered gross merchandise volume (GMV) for the quarter ended June 30, 2016 of $20.9 billion, increasing 6% on a foreign exchange (FX) neutral basis and 4% on an as-reported basis. Revenue for the quarter was $2.2 billion, up 7% on an FX-Neutral basis and 6% on an as-reported basis, driving GAAP net income from continuing operations of $437 million.

This is for the last Quarter, so no Ebay is not losing money.

[mystical4573]

I think another problem is a large percentage of low quality items on Ebay now.We have been bombarded with these items from China and Hong Kong.I sell baby pram liners and when you first open the page all these low priced items come up in your face 10 times lower in price than us Aussies can even buy the fabric and pay Ebay fees for.Last night I thought I would browse through the womens shorts category to get preped for summer.Well there was 1 in every 10 listings selling from Australia and the others were all skanky shorts, ready for the street corner from China and Hong Kong. I don't know about anyone else but it opened my eyes maybe ebay is strting to turn into a $2.00 shop and thats why our Australian made more expensive items are not selling and buyers are not coming to the site.I am a seller on Ebay for over 10 years so I have seen it transition from being a great site for us Aussies to sell on to a junky site.Such a shame Ebay would have been making more money our of me with my final value fees than the lower priced items..

[heihachi_73]

I don't list anything if I have to pay, if I max out the 40, I wait until next month unless some freebies appear. 🙂