has anybody else having a sales crash in oz ebay since the new year and experiencing no sales now

[tgfineminerals-2]

I sell on another id and have been a seller for 10 years and have experienced a huge downturn from $500 to $800 a week to now zero this week, buyers are scarce even watchers, ebay is useless in finding why, just says sellers are dependant on buyers-what if they have dissapeared like here? I am only giving it another few weeks to show something is happening beyond my control & will not have any money to pay ebay for my store and listers, any suggestions?

[padi*0409]

......................and it fires anti-virus thingies out of the peashooter exhausts Tippy..............

Spoiler

Methinks you have very valid reasons to quiver in your old girl wellies.........................

[chameleon54]

Just another thought on the decline in sales thingy..........Ebay greatly increased the number of listings stores could run a few months ago. The dramatic decline in sales for some sellers seems to have coincided with this.

My small store runs around a quarter of the listing numbers that my large store runs. Both stores are linked in ebays systems ( in order to get higher listing limits initially and dodge the 21 day money hold thingy ) .The listings on the smaller store are higher quality and usually good sellers. Although only a quater the size of the larger store, it used to sell around half as much in dollar terms.  Since the changes to store listing numbers and slight fee increase, sales in the smaller store have fallen dramatically, while the larger store is doing very nicely. 

Maybe ebay is doing some serious pre winter pruning. Encouraging sellers with multiple stores to consolidate their listings under the one ID, using the extra listings they gave us recently. They could also be encouraging sellers of less popular items to leave the system by dramatically reducing listing visibility and sales of sellers with poor sell through rates.

Ebay cant just come out and say these things as it would create a huge uproar, but they can use the cassini search system to achieve the same result without saying a thing. If this is ebays plan,  it is working as I am considering closing my small store and transferring the listings to my larger store.

[padi*0409]

I'd agree with those theories chameleon, as a buyer I've seen a lot of my watch-lists deluged with carp that isn't even worth the postage on them from sellers that have been hell-bent on using as many of their freebies as possible, all that makes me do is either delete those sellers from the particular watch-list or scroll rapidly past their listings.

[nadjahughes]

Yes well tried that, apparently at 55 years old, I'm unemployable!!!!!!  This is why I am doing what I do, no overheads and little outlay and guess what, NO SALES for the last 6 days.  No sales for 10 days before that, I could go on, but it's too depressing.  

I heard that unless you have a 30 day return policy, your store will not be even looked at.  I sell, new, nearly new and designer clothing for women.  There are some unscrupulous women out there that will buy a dress, wear it and then return it saying it was damaged!  I think 30 days is too long, even if you live in the remotest part of Australia, a parcel could get to you within 10 days maximum.  It would only take maybe a day or two for you discover whether the item you ordered was not satisfactory and then return it within the 14 day stipulated policy (which I currently have for this reason). If I offered 30 days, this sort of thing would happen all the time. I don't think Ebay have thought this through or simply don't care. I don't ship internationally, only in Australia so 30 days is way too long.  Anyone else with thoughts on this?

[springyzone]

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@nadjahughes wrote:

Yes well tried that, apparently at 55 years old, I'm unemployable!!!!!!  This is why I am doing what I do, no overheads and little outlay and guess what, NO SALES for the last 6 days.  No sales for 10 days before that, I could go on, but it's too depressing.  

I heard that unless you have a 30 day return policy, your store will not be even looked at.  I sell, new, nearly new and designer clothing for women.  There are some unscrupulous women out there that will buy a dress, wear it and then return it saying it was damaged!  I think 30 days is too long, even if you live in the remotest part of Australia, a parcel could get to you within 10 days maximum.  It would only take maybe a day or two for you discover whether the item you ordered was not satisfactory and then return it within the 14 day stipulated policy (which I currently have for this reason). If I offered 30 days, this sort of thing would happen all the time. I don't think Ebay have thought this through or simply don't care. I don't ship internationally, only in Australia so 30 days is way too long.  Anyone else with thoughts on this?

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My sympathies are with you as I do believe women's clothing would be a minefield on ebay. Way back in the '70s when i was a teen, I used to work part time in a women's clothing store & I can still recall that occasionally someone would bring back an evening type dress, saying they wanted to exchange or money back etc.

I well remember the boss saying no to one woman as it had sweat marks under the arms and the hem had been taken up! She stood there though, still swearing she had not worn it then stormed out of the store in a huff when she got nowhere. If someone will be so brazen to your face, I imagine some of them wouldn't hesitate to do it remotely.

But I also have a distinct impression that buying online is actually increasing. In the last week, I have probably spent about $150 online & I now buy an awful lot of gifts that way. Maybe about 50-75%. Yet I am near big shopping centres, so i could go to real stores if I wanted to. However, I have not used ebay for much in the last month or so.

Why do I shop online? Some of the sales sites I buy from have a good range of brand name new stuff at better than shop prices ( I know this as i can google for comparative items).

My advice would be if you have a range of products and ebay isn't working, it could be an idea to start up your own website. You'd have to have someone who knows what they are doing to tweak it so it would come up in search results, or else advertise on sites relating to your products. A good website is gold.

[*tippy*toes*]

I think you'll find that women's fashion is saturated. Every second seller is selling clothes so there's a lot of competition. I haven't looked at your listings and I'm not suggesting for a minute you're doing this, but some sellers try to make a profit on their second hand clothes. As in, they paid $100 for it new and have it listed for $120. Then they wonder why they can't sell anything!

I think with clothes, like DVD's, you're going to encounter more than your fair share of wardrobers. DVD sellers have issues with someone buying a second hand movie, watching it, then sending it back for a refund. I really don't know if there is really much you can do about it other than take photos of every square inch of each garment and if the buyer claims NAD to get a refund due to some "defect", you'll have proof it wasn't there when sent.

It could be change of season that has got buyers not buying as much clothing. There are sales on all over the place. Plus the end of financial year sales will start in the next couple of months.

[everard6920]

April is always my worst month by far for sales. No idea why. This year I prepared an update of over 50 new items and put it up mid-March to try and solve the problem, but once again, April sales have been abysmal.

[goldcoaster_007]

One sale in the last week and it looks like there wont be too many more the way things are with Ebay.It must be the changes ebay are doing.

Well its only a hobby for me, I have plenty of other thyings to keep me busy.

[davewil1964]

For the next 36 days any sales are over last FY. So I am guaranteed to at least equal last year's results.

Horses for courses. Or maybe eBay read the boards and punish the whingers.

[lyndal1838]

Careful Dave, you will be accused of being teacher's ebay's pet......or maybe an employee.