a massive decline in sales on Ebay

[daintreejudi]

Is anyone else experiencing a decline in sales?  I cannot believe how bad it has got, my sales have been reduced by more than half for same time last year, having problems keeping up with relisting fees, only ones making any money is Ebay

[chameleon54]

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@lyndal1838wrote:

  How hard is it to give a blind lady the slip, unless she sets her dog onto you?

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Dont believe it.....Even in socks, she can hear us creeping about and knows where everyone in the house is......

[chameleon54]

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@stylesilverwrote:

Also meant to say ... Insnt it fun finding things in bulk boxes at auctions... My brother has a luck doing this! He goes to some country auctions near him, gets job lot boxes with costume jewellery... And I get the job of looking thru them & there's always a few heavy silver pieces & often a gold chain or brooch etc amongst the useless stuff! Lucky me! As I get the job then of cleaning them up! Woop for me! Yay!😩

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Heres a picture of the only silver piece I have found in a box of jewelery.........And yes that is a dried chooks foot on the end.....

[lyndal1838]

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@chameleon54wrote:

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@lyndal1838wrote:

  How hard is it to give a blind lady the slip, unless she sets her dog onto you?

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Dont believe it.....Even in socks, she can hear us creeping about and knows where everyone in the house is......

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All mothers have that ability chameleon....you don't have to be blind to be one step ahead of the family.

My children (now aged 45 and 49) are still convinced that I had eyes in the back of my head....even when they were out of my sight I could still hear them and know what mischief they were up to.   I can't count the number of times there was a stunned silence when I would yell out to stop doing whatever they were doing.  Then the youngest would ask in hushed tones...how did she know that is what I was doing?

I might add, being quiet was not her strongest attribute....still isn't for that matter.

[tangledstitches]

More to the point would be the fact that when you get home you wouldn't be able tp resist boasting about what you bought.

[stylesilver]

Eewhh! That's NOT good! BUT if it's Silver ?..... It'll still be a treasure to someone!! ha haa! BUT you'd have to be nuts to want THAT!

[chameleon54]

The mount is hall martked silver, with thisle adornments. Turns out its an antique scottish good luck charm, worn as a brooch. ( nice addition to the evening wear wardrobe ....   )  I just kept it as I have a bit of a thing for odd & unusual stuff.

[chameleon54]

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@tangledstitcheswrote:
More to the point would be the fact that when you get home you wouldn't be able tp resist boasting about what you bought.

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Was I a bit excited that you could still find something for a couple of bucks and sell it on ebay for over $400.......Sure I was, same as I would expect you to be if you had done the same.

While I may share some of that excitement on the forums, a much more serious intent is to try to counter balance some of the gloom and doom about ebay that regularly crops up on the forums. Sure the site has many faults and appears to be becoming more convoluted and difficult as it goes, but to be honest. I,m having as much fun & success selling here as I did when I first started.

One of the reasons for this is I have been honest with myself about the changes in demand for my traditional product lines and have drastically changed what I,m doing. In the process I have gone away from a fairly structured business model, where I was purely working from an office, from sourcing stock on the internet, transacting on the internet and frantically packing orders, to a more loose model, where I go back out searching for rare items in unusual places. More like those picking shows on the telly. And yes it has made a refreshing change and I,m enjoying ebay again.

And as an added bonus, my sales are way up on the last couple of years, to the point where I could go full time ebaying again if I wanted too.

I realise a lot of people are struggling on the site at the moment, but does some real life, constructive suggestions that have been shown to work on ebay right now and some positivity on the boards really hurt ?

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

I agree, clearance auctions can be a great source of stock for selling on eBay.  The key is to spend wisely at the auction, and be prepared to do some homework afterwards.

Buying from other eBay sellers can also reap rewards, although you may need to wait a while to realise these rewards.  I have plenty of K1000 cameras here but am waiting for prices to rise a little more before selling again.  I got my cameras on eBay from USA sellers when our dollar was at $1.10, paying about $50 to $70 per camera.  Film cameras are getting harder to source, so I feel the prices will continue to rise for the higher quality pieces.  Good ones are regularly selling for over $350 nowadays.

When I first joined eBay I bought some Zimbabwe $100 trillion dollar banknotes.  I got 5 notes for $8.  I was buying these and giving them away to friends and family as novelty items.  I bought more directly from the seller and my last big purchase was 75 notes for about $250.  I used to include one with items I sold that got a good price (back when I was selling lenses).  I used to buy from other eBay sellers and remember an auction for 20 notes that I won for $20.

Some years ago I saw that they were selling for $25 so I sold about 25 that I had here.  About 18 months ago I sold 5 for $350.  Now, the asking price is as high as $180 per note, with enough selling for above $150 to have me thinking about listing the remaining 20 or so notes I still have.

I don’t think eBay is dying, I think it is evolving . . . . . . . as it always has since it began . . . . . . and sellers who evolve will survive, and those who find rare items will always be able to realise a good return if they price their items appropriately.

[stylesilver]

Good thing u have a thing for odd things, Chameleon ....Cos that's as odd as they come!! The best find my brothers had ( & he's had many) is a little box of "costume" jewellery, he paid about $10 for  ..that contained a good gold chain that he onsold for about $200 AND a old Victorian brooch in it ( that is worth about $600) but that's not sold yet! What I don't get is how come the people who sell these things haven't looked thru 1st & had the items checked out, to check for gold etc.... But the fact that they haven't is where the fun comes in for others. He used to look at the "tender centres" too .... But they all closed down now round here!