Why oh, oh why? Are you still selling on this platform?

[max-power-models]

Sad reading through all these seller posts, low sales, manged payment systems. ZERO support from ebay. I stopped selling on this joke  years ago.  No fees,  no frauds. No goal post getting changed all the time, no jumping through hoops. No Stress. Enjoy.

[digital*ghost]

Yes, one of the things I've just been thinking is that eBay has been humbled a bit recently, and that certainly puts into better perspective why I've been feeling that. The other site had quite a different experience through the pandemic. Their seller numbers doubled, which I get because they are geared towards makers / crafters and there were just a lot of people who were in lockdown with not much to do and needing a way to make money, so that site pretty much kills two birds with one stone. 

I'm sure this created issues for them, lots of new sellers who from their perspective needed a little whipping into shape, but it also reaffirmed other things for them (the way I put it elsewhere is that sellers are seen as  expendable fodder for the money making machine, buyers are the thing that machine needs to both produce and satisfy). Consequently the other site has a bit of an ego problem, the same one ebay has had, resulting in the introduction of very similar policies that ebay has introduced but since rolled back quite significantly because they hurt more than help (policies that completely weaponise the feedback system against sellers, for example), so it's been really interesting in some ways to go through the same thing a few years after going through it on eBay - the "we know through data what a majority percentage of buyers trend towards, so if you're not geared to cater to those things, you're basically hurting our profits" coupled with "every idea we have is great and can only improve things" - it's like eBay has moved on from a very ego-centric and awkward teenage-hood, while the other one is still a spoiled rich-kid tween who hasn't had a real dose of reality yet, just the fantasy of perpetually increasing profits. It probably doesn't help that their CEO (since 2017) is ex-eBay. 

It's been a severe culture shock for sellers who have been there a very long time but never sold on a site like eBay - once upon a time that site was very seller-friendly, but things really started to shift once they were publicly traded (no surprises there, having shareholders pretty much always means the shareholders are the real 'customers' of any business). 

@glen - I still think there are definite pros and cons to both sites so my goal wasn't really to turn anyone off from it as such, I'm highlighting a lot of the bad stuff partly because it might surprise some people how much eBay has improved in the last year or two in comparison to a site that is very much like they used to be, as it surprised even me once I started to really think about which site was creating a better environment for sellers as a whole. I know the bitterness towards eBay all too well, and I understand where it comes from, but I've definitely noticed myself directing that bitterness at the other site more and more 🤣 (PS, most days I have no idea how I cope with maintaining all 3, lol - I'm still recovering from the peak shopping volume that hit me like a truck during 2020's lockdowns, I'm sure I've lost a few sanity points 😅 ). 

[jellybirddesigns]

@digi - what you say is true.

As a long term seller on Etsy, I definitely agree that their customer service is absolutely atrocious. When I first joined there back in 2015, it was not an issue. Now there are daily complaints that there is virtually no way to contact them at all, and even if someone manages to raise a support ticket, they're lucky to get an answer 2 weeks later. Fortunately for myself, I've only ever had to contact their CS once and that was in 2016. In that respect, Ebay is better in the CS department, even if the actual reps are mostly useless.....at least you can chat to someone and you've probably got a 50% chance of a resolution.

Having said that, I can say that my fortunes on both sites have flipped around. Up until Nov 2020, I was getting 3 sales here on Ebay for every 1 sale on Etsy. Now I'm getting 5 sales on Etsy for every small sale here on Ebay. As I mentioned, I'll still stick around here as one sale is better than nothing, but I have cancelled my shop subscription (sadly), in order to minimise fees. I do have the other Ebay account as well as a second Etsy accounts and my website, so between the 5 online streams it's enough to keep me busy, thankfully. A diversified basket is better in the long run anyway.

[bmanly3]

I sell my products through several platforms. Private internet forums, ebay, facebook groups and Gumtree.

The one that is easiest with least problems is the private forum, everyone knows each other and if they don't others do and trust is paramount. It also has no selling fees. However the forum brings in the lowest profits.

Gumtree is also free but there are a lot of time waters there and I don't really like face to face meets which a lot of buyers there want. Plus anyone can join, make up a bogus name and just send messages to sellers without any intention to buy. Having said that, if you get 2 good strong buyers out of  say 10 then you have done well and saved a lot of money on fees. But buyers on Gumtree are very few compared to say ebay.

With facebook they have private groups (depends what you are selling). I don't do facebook marketplace. With these groups they are run by moderators and known non payers or scamming sellers are weeded out quickly. As quick as they are weeded out others drop in. So in the end it can end up a bit like the private forum where you only buy from trusted sellers. On facebook groups items are sold pretty quickly, they run same day auctions sometimes. This is also without any fees. Your profits are a little better than private forums.

Then comes ebay. ebay is the only one of my avenues that charge fees but ebay also brings in the highest price my items can receive. But the fees ebay charge knock out any higher prices that I may receive as profits.  Where ebay is a clear and undoubtful winner is that your products are out there for millions of people to view. I read somewhere that in Australia 7.1 Million people use ebay. There is no way in the world I can reach that many Australians otherwise, all my other avenues only reach people in the thousands. 

ebay makes up about 35% of my sales and I like it a lot even though the profits are not more than my other avenues. It's the ease of putting up your ad, leaving it out there, getting the cash register sound on my phone when my items sell, then packing and sending that I like. Plus they handle all the payments and within 3 business days they automatically drop all my funds into my bank account, I like that too.

I also buy a lot of my packing gear and other goods from ebay with excellent products and good service.

So I guess ebay is always going to be part of my life.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all. Lets hope 2022 will bring good profits to all you great sellers. 

[digital*ghost]

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@jellybirddesigns wrote:

@digi - what you say is true.

As a long term seller on Etsy, I definitely agree that their customer service is absolutely atrocious. When I first joined there back in 2015, it was not an issue. Now there are daily complaints that there is virtually no way to contact them at all, and even if someone manages to raise a support ticket, they're lucky to get an answer 2 weeks later. Fortunately for myself, I've only ever had to contact their CS once and that was in 2016. In that respect, Ebay is better in the CS department, even if the actual reps are mostly useless.....at least you can chat to someone and you've probably got a 50% chance of a resolution.

Having said that, I can say that my fortunes on both sites have flipped around. Up until Nov 2020, I was getting 3 sales here on Ebay for every 1 sale on Etsy. Now I'm getting 5 sales on Etsy for every small sale here on Ebay. As I mentioned, I'll still stick around here as one sale is better than nothing, but I have cancelled my shop subscription (sadly), in order to minimise fees. I do have the other Ebay account as well as a second Etsy accounts and my website, so between the 5 online streams it's enough to keep me busy, thankfully. A diversified basket is better in the long run anyway.

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Pretty much the same here, through I started on there a little earlier - back then, the company hadn't been publicly traded and a lot of staff they had also ran their own shops, which did absolute wonders for how the site was shaped in those days (imagine CS being able to speak from first-hand experience, too, rather than repeat whatever they could call up on their computer). 

eBay absolutely used to bring in the lion's share of my revenue not so long ago, but now I often do just a third of what the other sites each do independently (eg many weeks eBay will bring in just 1/6th of the total, which is down from about 2/3rds the total). The other site has that going for it, plus a different kind of buyer base, though that is starting to shift, too. You'll always get your... undesirables? no matter where you go, but on average I find eBay buyers to be very price-driven in my categories (they can be on the other site as well, but quite often it's in the other direction), and a little less forgiving when something goes wrong (my prices are the same between here and there, a bit less on the website, but the change to tracked only postage had a very noticeable effect on my sales volume here, yet didn't make a difference with the other two). 

I agree having multiple streams is the best strategy, perhaps the solution for me is to scale back the size of my shops a little, if just to keep my foot in each door. In some ways I'm starting to feel like maintaining the stores on eBay and t'other one is holding me back, as there is so much time needing to be invested every day in everything involved, which leaves me little time to pursue some of the things I want to do for the site....but that's getting a bit off-topic 🤣

[jellybirddesigns]

"With facebook they have private groups (depends what you are selling). I don't do facebook marketplace. With these groups they are run by moderators and known non payers or scamming sellers are weeded out quickly. As quick as they are weeded out others drop in. So in the end it can end up a bit like the private forum where you only buy from trusted sellers. On facebook groups items are sold pretty quickly, they run same day auctions sometimes. This is also without any fees. Your profits are a little better than private forums."

@bmanly3 - My experiences with FB and Marketplace have been kinda different. I joined a number of FB selling groups to see if listing certain products (not ones in my Ebay store, but on my website) was worth it. Of the 5 groups that I joined, I didn't get one single enquiry between mid November to 20th December. I could not believe the utter lack of interest, especially since some of the groups had over 100K members. On the other hand, I listed the same items in Marketplace and had almost 100 enquiries in the same time frame and dozens and dozens of requests to pick up the products. Of course I ran out immediately as this was my first time after diversifying that I had had such a strong response to a product and didn't anticipate the demand.