dismal sales again

[trustykeiley23]

Ebay used to be pretty good for a couple of years then I had a bad few months last year, then sales and views picked up.I have spent hundreds of dollars on lovely new stock, my prices are very fair. but lately sales have suddenly dropped off again .I was trading at about 60% of this time last year, but now about 30% anyone else feeling left out ?

[stylesilver]

Yes -as others have pointed out it would just hurt you / us more than them. Sooo ... if it is happening (& it seems it is) I want to know WHY? anyone got any theories or does anyone know why they would do this! Doesnt make sense to me, at all!

[twyngwyn]

Throttling - from 2014:

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2014/12/1418064225.html

[dazzledayz]

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@stylesilver wrote:

Yes -as others have pointed out it would just hurt you / us more than them. Sooo ... if it is happening (& it seems it is) I want to know WHY? anyone got any theories or does anyone know why they would do this! Doesnt make sense to me, at all!

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It doesn't make sense from our perspective as it rather looks like eBay is losing FVF's on unsold/unseen items.

However, viewed from a different perspective (ebay's) there is quite a bit of sense in throttling.

eBay are trying desperately to get more stable cashflow by increasing the number of sellers using stores as evidenced by their recent promotion of free stores for new sellers.

Once these guys have signed up and stocked up they, like Dave, will be reluctant to go backwards.

The real problem is eBay's declining popularity with buyers so in a contracting market it's much better to have lots of steady income from store subscriptions than to rely on FVF's.

To accomplish this it would seem reasonable (if highly unethical) to share the limited sales amongst the largest number of sellers in any given category; hence the apparent throttling which in my view is actually "sharing" of sales.

Once you've made your share of sales in your category you are switched off so other sellers will get a few sales.

Any regular sellers without stores could be given an artificial sales boost to encourage them to take the plunge.

If identical products are being hidden eBay won't lose FVF's either.

Check your invoices and you'll see remarkable consistancy from month to month and week to week.

After a while you'll be able to predict your future sales based on past revenues.

Check the Alexa.com site to see the popularity of the various eBay sites globally and you'll get a real eye opener.

All the eBay sites I've checked show the same decline (.com, .com.au, .com.uk,  .com.de)

This is all a mad scramble IMO to keep eBay's earnings up for wall street reporting purposes but it's not the real problem.

Over the years eBay has lost its way and has failed to re-engage with its customer base.

The site has become over complex, difficult to use, difficult to search, slow to load pages and the mobile app has never been a success.

Large contracted sellers are allowed to run up huge neg/neut tallies with impunity but ebay deosn't seem to think that upsetting thousands of buyers per month is an issue.

The list of issues goes on a good bit longer than that.

If we were selling in the US or Europe we'd have a bit of venue choice but in Aus you'll be hard pressed to find any viable alternatives.

Our ridiculous O/S postage rates make life pretty hard as well.

It's a perfect storm for sellers at the moment as Aus retail in general is in the doldrums.

[ourphonecase]

I don't think throttling will hurt eBay at all, only the particular seller.

For example if I sell screen protector for phones and it's on the front page of searching, then suddenly the throttling drops me to the last page, buyers would probably buy from another vendor ranked higher on the list. eBay will get the fees either way.

[misterforgetfulsbooks]

ebay want you to have free postage listings, but choose to put the free postage listings on the back page and the listings + postage on the 1st page. Same total cost, just a different sorting system by ebay

[stylesilver]

Thanks Dazzledayz & Twyngwyn- What you've said explains a LOT. Now I see what it is & why it's done. Sooo ... that means they spread out sales to more people if there are identical products. BUT if you can find unique products (eg vintage/ collectables/ artwork or just something no-one else is selling, for example). This throttling wouldnt happen so much to these sellers because there's no other sellers to share the sales out to. They would leave these visible in case of a sale? Do you think this would be the case?

[*tippy*toes*]

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@stylesilver wrote:

Thanks Dazzledayz & Twyngwyn- What you've said explains a LOT. Now I see what it is & why it's done. Sooo ... that means they spread out sales to more people if there are identical products. BUT if you can find unique products (eg vintage/ collectables/ artwork or just something no-one else is selling, for example). This throttling wouldnt happen so much to these sellers because there's no other sellers to share the sales out to. They would leave these visible in case of a sale? Do you think this would be the case?

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Probably that and if you're Chinese. Chinese sellers don't get throttled.

[chameleon54]

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@stylesilver wrote:

Thanks Dazzledayz & Twyngwyn- What you've said explains a LOT. Now I see what it is & why it's done. Sooo ... that means they spread out sales to more people if there are identical products. BUT if you can find unique products (eg vintage/ collectables/ artwork or just something no-one else is selling, for example). This throttling wouldnt happen so much to these sellers because there's no other sellers to share the sales out to. They would leave these visible in case of a sale? Do you think this would be the case?

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Unfortunately I dont think that is the way it works. I suspect the throttling is based on sharing sales site wide and catagory wide, rather than for specific items. .  A large % of my items are the only ones listed on ebay Australia and often the only ones on ebay worldwide, yet I still get throttled. I had a good day on Sunday including accepting an offer on a big ticket item. I said to the wife, " I bet I wont sell anything for the next couple of days " Sure enough only one sale since, for a $6.95 item. This is the cheapest item I sell, with an average item price of $38.00. Mondays are usually one of my best selling days.

The only way I have found to have any effect on throttling is to auction rare collectables on our private account. These dont seem to be affected by throttling and secret selling limits. The stores with BINS sell pretty much the same figures month in, month out regardless of what I do ( or dont do )

I suspect that at Jan. 1st last year, my hidden selling limit was lowered substantially. I did my tax a few weeks ago and every month until Jan 1 st 2015 my sales numbers started with an "X" number of thousands of $ for the month. After Jan 1st, every months sales figures started with a lower "Y" number of thousands of $.

As an interesting aside, my monthly fees to ebay dropped in line with sales, until the commission on postage was introduced several months later.  Ebays $ value, monthly fees increased back up to a similar figure to the previous year, but taken from the lower monthly sales figures, obviously leaving me with even less take home pay at the end of it all.

It certianly takes away any motivation to try and excell with service, fresh new listings etc. to try to grow your business..    

Two years ago, I was a full time ebay seller hoping to expand my online sales. I have always had 100% pos feedback, minimum defects and Powerseller status across all 3 selling acounts.  Recently I have been developing a sheep grazing business to replace lost ebay income.............. Guess its time to hop in the ute and go for a drive through the lush, green hills and check out the new born lambs.    

[dazzledayz]

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@*tippy*toes* wrote:

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@stylesilver wrote:

Thanks Dazzledayz & Twyngwyn- What you've said explains a LOT. Now I see what it is & why it's done. Sooo ... that means they spread out sales to more people if there are identical products. BUT if you can find unique products (eg vintage/ collectables/ artwork or just something no-one else is selling, for example). This throttling wouldnt happen so much to these sellers because there's no other sellers to share the sales out to. They would leave these visible in case of a sale? Do you think this would be the case?

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Partially - but in conjunction with what Chameleon has to say above:

I said this was a blunt instrument algorithm (not very intelligent) so if the category is worth $X overall and there are Y number of sellers then your share is X divided by Y

That's only a very crude description as some sellers may be given more than 1 share or a decimal fraction of 1 dependant on any marketing or contractual obligations eBay may have at the time.

If that's the case then it won't really matter what you are selling as the category value is known and dynamically subject to an imposed algorithm.

How a seller gets themselves upgraded to a higher share value is only known to eBay.

I have noticed however that some sellers have a bit of success selling across multiple categories which would make sense if this theory of category based sales sharing is correct.

[davidc4430]

throttling chinese, hmmm, could be a new sport at the oilyimpicks