@wstevenson21 wrote:
The sales crash is due to poor management decisions and greed by Ebay. Private and small scale sellers have dissappeared from Ebay because of the high fees (the high fees combined with time involved in listing, packing and postage mean that you basically loose money by selling on Ebay). Factor in all the scammers and dishonest buyers who claim charge backs for no reason and its just not worth the effort to sell. With the dissappearance of private and small sellers, the variety of stuff for sale and the real bargains have dissappeared, with the result that buyers have also dissappeared. All the interesting stuff and second hand bargains that were provided by private and small scale sellers has been replaced by mass produced chineese junk and (at best) stuff you can buy elsewhere for a cheaper price. There are also lots of bad sellers on ebay - buyers often wait weeks for an item to arrive and when it does arrive its either: a) probably the genuine article but old, faded and dusty like its been used or sat on the shelf for years or b) a cheap chineese knock-off that isn't fit for purpose or breaks after first use. Many buyers have discovered that they are better off buying elsewhere. It's basically a death spiral.
I dont disagree with many of your sentiments, but its not all gloom and doom. Yes the fees are creeping up all of the time and are not nearly as cheap as three or four years ago, but compared to traditional B & M auction rooms or commissions paid to commercial BIN selling agents, the fees are still fairly reasonable.
It does appear that ebay policies are discouraging small store sellers, but maybe that is ebays long term plan. It is possible that the companies focus is to become a clearing house for the large brand name retailers and small sellers of used items dont have a place in this structure.
If you are loosing money selling on ebay, after taking into account time spent on listing packing and posting, you either need to donate your items to charity or change the products you are selling. Even now, I am still making quite good wages per hour for the time I spend on ebay. I was working as a private contractor in the building industry before going into enbay. I still occasionally get offered commercial jobs from past clients etc. but to be honest, I can make more money for my time spent on ebay, than going out and working.
As for sales, I do wonder if ebay have tweaked thier systems recently. My sales have been incredibly consistent month in month out for several years. Recently the patterns seem to have broken down and the market appears less regulated. My sales are actually improving, despite the fact that the effort I am putting into ebay is minimal. It would actually pay for me to spend more time on my stores at the moment as sales are strong and profit margins are quite high.
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