Sales way down for the last 2 months Aug-Sep 2016

[gameofbricks]

As the Subjects states.....Anyone else feeling the pinch?

If anything i have increased my listings yet not much is moving.

Did ebay change something i missed?

[dazzledayz]

I've written about this too and yes, I see the same in my numbers.

[transport-posters]

There's lots of watchers on my items and the hits and watchers increment over time.  If eBay are limiting accounts to having an average total sales amount each month, then this suggests potential buyers would run into a problem should they wish to make a purchase.  I haven't heard anyone talk about this, or had anyone contact me saying they can't buy something.

It would also mean that eBay would be faking the incrementing hits and watchers just to make it seem like everything's normal in our admin areas.

[davewil1964]

I have no idea how many watchers I have, nor do I care. My interest is in sales not vicarious observers.

Nevertheless my sales are about average. As they always are.

[chameleon54]

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@transport-posters wrote:

There's lots of watchers on my items and the hits and watchers increment over time.  If eBay are limiting accounts to having an average total sales amount each month, then this suggests potential buyers would run into a problem should they wish to make a purchase.  I haven't heard anyone talk about this, or had anyone contact me saying they can't buy something.

It would also mean that eBay would be faking the incrementing hits and watchers just to make it seem like everything's normal in our admin areas.

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I also have lots of watchers on items. That does not mean they will instantly turn in to lots of buyers. I know I put things in my watch list and they can sit there for years if I dont have a clean out now and again.

It seems that only some stores have thier sales regulated. I dont know how ebay decides who gets this " special treatment "  or why it is done. All I know is that there are a few other sellers who report similar experiences.

Ebay include conditions in thier terms of listing which state that not all listings will be shown in searches, even if an exact match is found. With the rise in mobile phone purchases, ebay have reitterated that not all items will appear in searches, because mobile phone users dont want to scroll through hundreds or thousands of items. It is through best match ( ebays default search system ) that ebay can control listing visibility and individual sellers sales.

Yes I realise many of the die hards that use the forums, dont use best match, but for most casual ebayers, the default is all they know.

It would be a simple matter for ebay to reduce visibility for a period of all of a sellers listings if a " watcher " buys an item, thus regulating sales over a month to a pre determined average figure.

[thecatspjs]

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@transport-posters wrote:

There's lots of watchers on my items and the hits and watchers increment over time.  If eBay are limiting accounts to having an average total sales amount each month, then this suggests potential buyers would run into a problem should they wish to make a purchase.  I haven't heard anyone talk about this, or had anyone contact me saying they can't buy something.

It would also mean that eBay would be faking the incrementing hits and watchers just to make it seem like everything's normal in our admin areas.

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I think others have missed the point of your point

I agree, whilst watchers and hits may not translate into scale, they indicate that your item is being viewed by buyers and the view rates over time. .  

[thecatspjs]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

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@transport-posters wrote:

There's lots of watchers on my items and the hits and watchers increment over time.  If eBay are limiting accounts to having an average total sales amount each month, then this suggests potential buyers would run into a problem should they wish to make a purchase.  I haven't heard anyone talk about this, or had anyone contact me saying they can't buy something.

It would also mean that eBay would be faking the incrementing hits and watchers just to make it seem like everything's normal in our admin areas.

---

I also have lots of watchers on items. That does not mean they will instantly turn in to lots of buyers. I know I put things in my watch list and they can sit there for years if I dont have a clean out now and again.

It seems that only some stores have thier sales regulated. I dont know how ebay decides who gets this " special treatment "  or why it is done. All I know is that there are a few other sellers who report similar experiences.

Ebay include conditions in thier terms of listing which state that not all listings will be shown in searches, even if an exact match is found. With the rise in mobile phone purchases, ebay have reitterated that not all items will appear in searches, because mobile phone users dont want to scroll through hundreds or thousands of items. It is through best match ( ebays default search system ) that ebay can control listing visibility and individual sellers sales.

Yes I realise many of the die hards that use the forums, dont use best match, but for most casual ebayers, the default is all they know.

It would be a simple matter for ebay to reduce visibility for a period of all of a sellers listings if a " watcher " buys an item, thus regulating sales over a month to a pre determined average figure.

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I don't think you give "buyers" enough credit to be able to search the things they would like to buy. 

Refining searches by use of key words is not that hard.   

If you are selling goods where there is an abundance of choice in the market place, then I think you have to count yourself lucky for having achieved a level of consistency.   

[digital*ghost]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

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It would be a simple matter for ebay to reduce visibility for a period of all of a sellers listings if a " watcher " buys an item, thus regulating sales over a month to a pre determined average figure.

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In order for that to be genuinely effective in terms of limiting a seller's turnover, their only source of traffic has to be on-site searches, which would be pretty rare these days. This also kind of presumes a seller would always be turning over more than eBay's limit if it wasn't in place, and never under. 

Aside from Google searches, there's a range of options available to drive traffic to someone's eBay items, so even if we presume eBay places limits on a seller's visibility and modifies traffic/sales to a particular $ limit, how can they control all sales / traffic? 

I'm not saying eBay doesn't interfere and/or micro-manage, BTW, just saying it's ultimately very limited control and a seller would not have to resign themselves to it if they didn't want to. 

[rocket2retro]

Yes. September was my worst month to date and that is in 12 years of selling! I challenge anyone to tell me that everything is going well with eBay. Their share prices may be marginally up but I'd say that has more to do with with increased fees etc than the site being in a healtthy state.

[lyndal1838]

Why would increased ebay fees have an effect on their share price?

[*tippy*toes*]

I had a reasonable September, but not as good as other months. This weekend though, POW! I thought a lot of people would go away for the long weekend, but instead they're buying stuff from me. I listed some 1 day auctions on my small less than 10 feedback account for the weekend and quite a few had bids within minutes of being listed.