drop in sales

[lovemyjeans237]

Has anyone noticed a dramatic drop in veiws and sales in the past 7 days?

I have noticed the veiws on my items have slowed and my sales have more than halved. This has happened suddenly. 

I have also noticed my items are hard to find when I am doing a general search where as before I would find my items quite easy.

[the4masters2013]

You are not alone. Sales are dreadful at the moment.

The views are even worse...it's very depressing at the moment.

I am hoping it improves as it gets closer to Christmas.

I tend not to search for my items. That would just add to the depression I feel...LOL!!

[lovemyjeans237]

I have been selling for 5 years and never experianced a drop like this. I think eBay have changed somethig, formating maybe.

[kopenhagen5]

This month - Dead.

[chameleon54]

There have been regular reports of poor sales recently on other threads. I know there are swings and roundabouts on ebay and I do experience periods of dreadful sales which can be very worrying.

Having said that my sales have been slightly above average through my existing stores and actually very exiting through the new store we opened a bit over a week ago. We have approximately 100 listed items on the new store and sold around six items on Monday and seven yesterday. Total sales for the nine days since we opened are now sitting at 30 with a number going to international buyers. 

I have to admit, we listed a few " juicy " items to kick start the store and push it high in visibility ranks right from the start. This seems to be paying dividends as sales are progressivly increasing as we go along.

With Cassini, ( best match ) the more you sell, the higher your visibility and so the more you sell. Conversly, the opposite occurs when sales drop away.

One thing that sometimes helps when sales drop is to list a number of very popular selling items at reasonable prices, to try to generate some sales and views. Newly listed items get a push high in the rankings on best match for a day or so. This can sometimes tend to re-start things when they drop away.

I appreciate it is very worrying when sales suddenly drop away and there have been periods when I have thought ebay have changed search parameters etc. to cause the sudden drop. If it helps, I have found that things always seem to return to normal and sales average out again, although over several years, the trend seems to be gradual general decline in sales.

[chameleon54]

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@lovemyjeans237 wrote:

I have been selling for 5 years and never experianced a drop like this. I think eBay have changed somethig, formating maybe.

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Ebay do change formating from time to time. I am sure they changed the formula related to pushing popular sellers higher in search rankings and less popular sellers lower in searches around six months ago. I have a few competitors I keep an eye on and the changes where very noticable at the time. This has been a permenant shift and somthing else we need to keep in mind when managing our stores.

Ebay have also announced penalties for listings that sit unsold for extended periods. In future, they will simply be deleted by ebay or face higher penalty listing charges.

Ebay are definately trying to weed out the stock that just sits there going round and round, unsold for extended periods of time.

[clubesquire]

Yes, it seems to be universal, at least within Oz. Something is happening.

We've investigated our listings very closely and will be trying a few new approaches, including some 'clean' plain black and white, minimum info listings. It's suggested that we're way too cluttered and 'wordy' and we need to take that advice on board and try something different.

Pricing too? Some quite silly offers in the last few weeks. This had me really investigating our prices, but all fine there. Well under the market with many. So, I really don't know what it it, but like others I've noticed a dramatic drop in page views. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this means firstly that our items are not initially being seen, being seen, but not attractive to buyers, which I severely doubt, or eBay has tweaked something, unbeknownst to us. My gut says the latter in which case they will clean out the gene pool so to speak, and we'll undoubtedly be a part of that.

The period after Xmas is decision time for us. It's certainly no good the way it is. We're wasting time, resources and money. It might be time to build a website and pay the fees otherwise marked for eBay, to  google to keep our website prominent. Thinking, thinking!

Good luck everyone.

Melina.

[egglesdtp]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

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Ebay do change formating from time to time. I am sure they changed the formula related to pushing popular sellers higher in search rankings and less popular sellers lower in searches around six months ago. I have a few competitors I keep an eye on and the changes where very noticable at the time. This has been a permenant shift and somthing else we need to keep in mind when managing our stores.

Ebay have also announced penalties for listings that sit unsold for extended periods. In future, they will simply be deleted by ebay or face higher penalty listing charges.

Ebay are definately trying to weed out the stock that just sits there going round and round, unsold for extended periods of time.

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What constitutes an extended peiod of time?

And what are higher penalty listing charges?

[lovemyjeans237]

My suff is seasonal so half my stock has only been listed in the last month or two. From selling 6-10 items a day to 2-3 a day, over night, they have definitly tweeked something for such a dramatic change. Not to mention eBays push on the premontional listings, is this a coincidence, I think not.

[clubesquire]

I was just talking with my competitive friend in Botany. She and hubby have a website and also sell on eBay. The only change on their website is seasonal and it's up nicely. eBay though is a disaster. They are down almost two thirds and for the past few weeks have only been selling to regulars who know how to find them. In 24 days she's only had two sales to newcomers, whereas before this figure would be every day. That's how dramatic it's been. The email traffic between her and eBay is enormous.

She's a real metrics person and is sending me up some stats that she says clearly identifies almost to the hour, when this all started. She's very clever, I wish I was half, and she 'knows' something has been 'tweaked.' All her stats n stuff by the way are provided by a very expensive, in my opinion, third party provider, but she reckons it's a lifesaver and proves when eBay has switched to 'big porky mode.' They're a pretty big business.

We've had two complaints now from overseas buyers about the shipping bungle. They're both okay, but it's all extra work and now we need to re-jig our listings and get postage policy's back in order.

It all upsets me really. Being in bed with deliberate deceitfullness and dishonesty is really unsettling - like and unfaithful husband I reckon. Once trust is gone,mthetes nothing left and that's how I'm feeling about eBay, even though as I've said, we've always enjoyed good service. But, it's what they're doing to others.

prattle, prattle, sorry!

Melina.