I suppose it's hard for me to appreciate the gravity of some people's situation because selling on eBay is far from being a full time job for me. I have a normal outside job that mostly pays well, so eBay is very part time for me. I started selling on eBay to get rid of a mountain of stuff I bought a few years back to sell at the local markets. Local markets were dead by that stage and they closed down for good not long after. I am still selling off that stuff, but I am also buying things for my collections. I buy a few of the same thing, keep what I consider to be the best ones for myself and am selling off the rest. Basically the ones I sell are paying for the ones I keep.
I don't have a store, so again, it's different for me, but I noticed that sales increased quite a bit when I added the BIN option to my auctions. I'd say 25% of my items sell at BIN price. I am competing with Asian sellers, yet people will still buy my stuff. I put that down to buyers not wanting to wait 2-6 weeks for something to arrive from Asia (or not arrive at all). Even though the last few months it has been taking 3 weeks to get from rural NSW to Vic and it's not unknown for things to take 4 weeks to get to WA.
Most of my auctions start far higher than the Asian sellers, but often my BIN price is far less, so that might be why some are happy to BIN from me. I always start my auctions at the minimum amount I am prepared to accept because most of the time, they only sell with 1 bid. The BIN price I just make up a number, sometimes a number that I consider to be far too high, but some people are still willing to pay that price. I started adding the BIN price because I know when some people search, they refine their search to auction only. Others refine their search for BIN only. I thought it made sense to be visible in both.
I don't know what the answers are, why some people are doing really well and others aren't even getting page views, let alone sales. I don't think it would hurt for store sellers who sell collectables to run auctions with a BIN option, which I understand they can get for free with a store. That way their items show up if the buyer has refined their search to just actions (most people I know who buy tend to refine to auction only). As for the others, I have no idea. Some categories might be saturated, like the clothing category, and you're competing with people who start auctions at 99c.
All I can suggest is, hang in there!! Good luck everyone!
