has anyone else had no sales for the past 9 days ?

[lmckec2009]

In the past year my sales have not been as good, like a lot of sellers, i believe.

For the past 9 days I have had no sales at all a first.

Is it just me or have the lights been turned off again ?

[clarry100]

Like a bolt out of the blue we have just had 12 sales today.

That is the single biggest day in more than a month.

Its still way less than the 30+ per day we should be seeing this time of year but at least in the right direction.

[theforevergarden]

I'm not a big seller by any stretch, really only starting out and was looking at getting a store package this month or next......but since the new hub sales basically slowed and I'm really hesitant on going there (store) now (it's just another expense). Previous 4 months or so has seen sales increasing, at least something sold every second day if not almost every day, now today I'm apparently 50% down. The only change being the sales hubs. Have just opted out of it, will see if anything improves.

[chameleon54]

Just a couple of interesting observations.

Yesterday I dropped some parcels into a smaller country post office that I use sometimes. The manager was a bit suprised to see me as I hadnt been in for awhile. He said ALL of his regular ebay sellers had stopped selling over the last twelve months and I was the only one left.

He mentioned he is still getting a lot of ebay parcels coming through to buyers, but it is all from China.

The larger regional PO that I usually use reports a similar story. They had a number of small ebay sellers and around three quite big ebay sellers. Again, most have moved on and no longer sell on ebay or only sell the occasional item. One very large customer who sells natural baby products has succesfully started their own website and are now using a courier service instead of AP.  Another large seller of equestrian products is still in business, but their sales have slowed dramatically.

As mentioned before, my stores sales are very stable, but at around half the rate of two years ago. I use what was our private account to increase sales when I get the time. This non store account does not seem to suffer the same lights on, lights off effect that the stores suffer from and sales are dictated by the quality of the items I list and effort I put into the account. 

There is certianly some major changes going on in the small business, online retail sector.

[trustykeiley23]

good luck XX

[dell1312]

I have also noticed a severe decline in sales over the last few months. I don't know if it is because I don't support eBay with their postage satchels or I don't always offer free postage (which is a lie anyway) To be honest, I am just so fed up with eBay wanting a percentage of every part of my sales with their grab on a percentage of postage fees charged etc. They keep sending me an email with top selling tips to help improve my sales, but when I click on the bulk editing tool link it goes through the motions and then says it has finished bulk editing my items and that 0 items have been edited. It is all so frustrating. I have an unusual number of views on some items, but I suppose eBay can make it look like people are looking, but  just not buying. I would appreciate any constructive input from experienced sellers if you get a chance. Good luck to all other sellers over the Christmas buying period.

[transport-posters]

I spent yesterday and today putting some stuff on Gumtree to push traffic to my website and it has resulted in several sales.  (I know Gumtree is owned by eBay.)

It could be that a lot of buyers are starting to consider eBay a land of big retailers having sale promotions every week (how about all those emails!), rather than a place to find other things they might want or need, unless they are 99 cent items from China.

[englishrosegardens]

All those advertising emails ebay sends out aren't helping.  I don't mean the ones for sales at the big retailers.  I mean the ones that say "this item is no longer available" when a listing ends (or auto relists).

Apart from the emails being really annoying because a lot of them are for things we looked at but DIDN'T want to watch, they're just confusing the buyers because they don't know listings auto relist and the items ARE still available.

I sent an item yesterday and today I got a message from the buyer saying, "I got a message saying my item had been posted, but then I got another email saying it's no longer available.  Which is it?"  The first email was from me but the second one wasn't, but buyers don't know the ins and outs of how ebay works.

They've changed some of the details in our watchlists as well.  When a watched listing ends there's a message saying it's sold out, when in fact this often isn't the case.  A lot of buyers could see this message and not notice the "see relisted item" button.  If anyone uses Sell Similar instead of Relist, there won't even be a See Relisted Item button.

[*tippy*toes*]

What did you buy for 55c? I'm looking for something for my hated (step) daughter in law. I was going to buy her a bullet, but they can be quite costly. Something for 55c and free post is probably still a tad more than I'd like to spend, but I'm willing to spend that little bit extra to keep the peace.

[lyndal1838]

  I was going to ask that too Tippy.

My preset limit was 50c for my son-in-law but I too would be prepared to spend the extra to keep the peace.

[rocket2retro]

Your scenario is virtually identical to mine. My sales increased every year over a 10 year period. Then 2-3 years ago it started to decline and is now on a serious downward spiral. This is despite having a lot more ittems listed than ever before, holding the ocassional sale (something I never did in the past) and generally listing my items for less.

At the rate it is declining I can't see it will be worth the time/effort in the not too distant future.