What was changed on ebay recently? My sales dropped 50%

[love_station_au]

Not sure what happed but guess ebay has made some changes on search results. My sales dropped about 50% recently. Anyone has noticed that?

[tonalidesigns]

Last month (April) was one of my better months - however it just fluctuates so wildly. 

Last week was a ripper week (our best for the year outside of the three weeks prior to Christmas). This week we are on target for our WORST week this financial year (excluding the week ending 28 December!) - unless it goes crazy tonight!!!

Not slashing my wrists quite yet  - the last couple and first couple of days of each month have always seemed to be a little slow for us  - and this is actually only the second month this financial year when the beginning of a month has fallen on a Wed (ie that the "slow" period actually encompasses the whole working week!!!).

May is also typically a relatively quiet month for retail.

At the moment we use the "quiet" times to add new listings and work on the website (which badly needs work!!!!)

[federalbookcollectibles]

I find my sales always dip during short school holiday periods - people are spending their money on holiday care, outings and trips away.

[vintagebabe44]

I am a small seller with a store and usually have enough sales to pay the fees and give me a bit of money in the bank. This past week has been the worst week ever with no sales at all. I wondered if I was doing something wrong. I came on to see if anybody else was having problems. It appears that I am not alone. Will follow this discussion with interest.

[ozstockman]

I can confirm sales drop too. this April actually worst month ever and beginning of May does not look better at all. I would say sales has dropped at least 80%

But the strange thing is that page views and visits have been raised at least 100-150% in April. Unless ebay statistic is not telling the truth I cannot understand how 2 times more buyers visiting my listings buy 5 times less stuff.

I also have my own online store with the same products than on ebay 5% cheaper. I tried to use adWords to drive traffic to it. It was worth only because I did not spend my own money on adwords. Also  I am not reselling products I make my own products from scratch.  

Since I run out of adwords balance my traffic rely only on search results. I am getting 20 people a day(it was 60 with adwords running) but they are just browsing or asking questions. I am lucky to get one sale in 3-4 days from my online store and for some keywords my website is either first on Google or on the first page.

So it seems that sales dropped not because ebay has done something it is more likely something going on with buyers.

BTW I do not believe that higher AusPost rates can cause it. They have raised they rates 5% only.  And higher ebay fees do not  affect me in a bad way.  Moreover it seems to me I will profit from these changes made by ebay.

[emeraldtarpon]

Time put into a website is an investment and you will aquire new skills.

Time put into ebay is now just an exercise in bending over.

Take your pick. 

[ozstockman]

Actually it seems it has been caused by defaults set for search results.

Before when buyers came to ebay.com.au and search for something they could see Australian sellers only and all international sellers were shown in a special section below. Now they are all shown mixed in one search results and it affect all local sales. And because ebay.com and I believe all other ebay sites works the same way you can get more views but less sales. This extra comes from international buyers that can check your listing but either do not to buy from overseas or cannot buy it because missing or high rates for shipping.

If my assumption is correct and it is going to be this way from now I guess I will be moving to closing my shop on ebay. What's the point to have it if I cannot sell anything on ebay?

[chennaiboy]

This new fee structure i.e. $1.50 for anything up to $100 is dramatically impacting on sellers and limiting the number of items being listed. Why would you list say a magazine for $5 plus postage and pay $1.50 to list it ? It's ridiculuous and greedy, so I'm predicting that sellers will vacate in numbers or simply sell big ticket items, $50 ++

Likewise and at the same time Australia Post increased fees by a whopping amount. For a lot of items, books for example, the total cost including post is prohibitive.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that eBay is costing itself out of the market and killing off the "hobby" seller.   

[ozstockman]

$1.50 is a fee for an auction listing. If you have a store listing for fixed priced items is free. I do not know how many ebay stores owners list their items on auctions but I do think there are many of them. Back 3-4  years ago lower fees for fixed price item listings for ebay stores I believe was the main reason why people paid for ebay stores.

[mccrae2007]

hi ozstockman, I agree the default is set to eBay Australia which I posted a topic earlier about the difference in the listings.  It is making a huge impact.

Location Search Function - ebay Australia & Australia Only

[suitcase_of_memories]

Everyone seemed to overlook reserves comments which I think is highly amazing & highly alarming for anyone running auctions !!!!!!!!!!!!

reserves wrote in post 27 'I'm a buyer. I often have to use auctions to get the Out-Of-Production things I want. When I have a page of auction search results in front of me the column second from the right (normally Time Left) often displays "Ended", even if there might be 14 minutes or 47 seconds to go (examples). There are page after page of auctions noted as "Ended". eBay, in its capacity as an auction site, has an obligation to not state that an auction in progress has "Ended", only when it actually has. I have no idea why this is considered an "improvement", it's just annoying and turning me off browsing the auctions. I'm waiting until it's returned to normal

If this is correct, I would love for watchers to check their Watching Items [even if they aren't interested in Buying the item] as this could explain why there is rarely any last minute bidding frenzy anymore on auctioned goods.

It would also have to be IMPROPER & very UNFAIR to sellers !!