Download Ebay Sales
Ayana Hammerschmidt
Been on ebay for 18 yrs. top rated seller with 100% approval ratings. Over the course of that time, I've grown and added many new product lines & put thousands of dollars in new items online here this year alone.
This year it seems is the year that ebay has died, for in spite of discounts, and sales, I am now lucky if I get 100 dollars in sales in a week! (used to be 3-5x that much) I have 1400+ current active listings on ebay and not a single sale in 2 days now? WTH is going on here? I do price searches for similar items. Our prices are competitive, nearly always lower than others. I share several product posts daily on facebook, instagram ect. (free advertising) Still nothing. Some say its the new algorithms, but how do we counter or fix that if this is the problem? (you'd THINK ebay would be more on top of this issue) I'm not going to be able to hang on here if things don't perk up. Open to suggestions.
It's not the economy. eBay has employed adult children who tinker with things they know nothing about resulting in a broken platform. My sales have improved on other platforms as I continue to list more on them. I never had time before because I was busy packing and shipping eBay orders. If you want the traffic you were used to on eBay, you will have to promote your listings at 15%+. Good Luck!
Now, I know that you and the makers of what you sell are using the money earned, in turn, for essentials, so you're hard hit, too. But until the overall economy brightens up, I don't think you will see a positive change in your sales.
I agree that sales have been horrible and I don't see it recovering. Between all these floods and tornadoes thousands of homes were destroyed. People lost everything and are just struggling to survive.
All these rah rah sellers here, that find no fault in what ebay is doing, are going to pay more for us that leave. When the seller base shrinks, that means fees need to go up, for eBay to continually grow it's income. How much are rah rah sellers willing to pay before reality slaps them in the face?
Sears was an old company, "too big" to fail. But they did. eBay has not been keeping up with the times. They run on an ancient platform plagued with problems, being run by a bunch of people who try to invent new ways to squeeze more money out of every sale. Nothing has been invested in this platform to make it better. They are milking a dead cow. There is nothing left to milk. It's been imploding on itself for 2 years now. All these sellers complaining about dead sales, will leave. I bet by 4th quarter this year, eBay will be on the brink. Money is no longer flowing for them. It's about to stop.
I think like many sellers who are selling here and on other platforms inflation is having a big effect discretionary spending causing lower sales. Most people only so much income and more of it is eaten up by rising prices of necessities like food and gas. Gas in my area is approaching $4.00 per gallon again.
However, my issue for the moment is the way the fees are calculated. I just sold an item for $1,150. After the buyer paid, the total amount, with shipping and sales tax, came out to $1,273. My Final Value Fee was based on that amount, even though I personally didn't collect the sales tax (eBay did). My total fees for this sale were $160 (which is 12.55% of the sale including shipping AND sales tax, plus a $0.30 eBay fee).
I understand why eBay bases the FVF on the total + shipping (because in the old days, people would sell something cheap and then charge hundreds in shipping fees in order to bring down the FVF). But why the sales tax???
Thanks for the info on the fees. I guess that's right... eBay has to pay to process the transaction, including the sales tax, but it doesn't seem fair. I don't think I should be charged a fee for something I never see (like the sales tax).
I noticed this, too, and it doesn't seem right. At first I thought, oh well, I'm not paying the sales tax anyway. The seller is. But then I realized the fee to the seller is based on the total of transaction. So although I'm not paying the sales tax, the FVF percentage I'm paying is higher because it's included in what I'm charged. So basically, eBay collects sales tax from the seller and sends 100% of it to the corresponding state. Then eBay includes it in the total transaction to calculate the FVF to the seller. So who's paying the 12.9% fee? Answer: the seller. It doesn't matter who pays the sales tax. The issue is who pays the fee. It gets added to the total amount of the selling fee. So it costs the seller for eBay to collect sales tax from the buyer and eBay is actually making money from the sales tax.
Look at it this way, you are paying eBay to do the bookkeeping and distribution of funds to 1000s of different taxing districts. If I did the math right; Item $100 x .07% sales tax = $7.00 for the buyer. 12.9% of that $7.00 would cost about .10 for seller on the additional $7.00 paid by buyer for sales tax. .07% was used as a ballpark, the tax rate is all over the place depending on where the item was shipped.
I just started selling clothes late last year, before that I had been selling my own stuff here and there etc. I focus and buy either new with tags, new without tags or just excellent condition that look pretty much new. Until last month, sales were great. I would think adding more inventory would do better for me but my sales have pretty much stopped. I'm selling high-end clothing most new with tags, some is without tags but still new, all the other stuff I'm selling only because I want to have something for everyone and have more items to list.
At first, it seemed like every other day my views and watchers were being reset, I kept calling eBay and they did say a couple of weeks ago that other sellers have reported and it would be fixed in 48 hours but my sales still haven't picked up like before.
I totally get it, I've never been top rated because I've totally stop selling multiple times so even though I've sold many items, it's never been 100 in a year lol. At first, I didn't really have that many items listed but as I got serious with the clothing I kept adding more and more. I should be top rated soon, my sales are way above $3000 but my item count is still less than 100 for this year but I'm very close and would've gotten to top rated had my sales not slowed down. I get it, I'll keep on listing and see if I can get some stuff out for cheaper to reach the top rated.
That's a good idea. I wasn't sure if you were top rated and your drop in sales coincided with you losing top rated, as that would definitely cause a large drop in traffic and sales volume. Over the past month or so the site has been very wonky which I believe is what's causing your slump in sales, but it's hard to say. Just keep sourcing good items with high sell-through and you'll be fine. If you have the storage, then don't avoid cold weather items as in a few months those will start moving, too. Anything with demand, if priced right, will sell no matter if it's off-season or not. Good luck!
@hrmretrochic I haven't found being above standard versus top rated to make any difference in my sales. I used to drop to above standard every year when I closed shop and took the summer off - I wouldn't even know that I was at top rated again until I'd notice it one day - it made no difference to my sales.
I don't think I've ever seen so many sellers complaining about slow sales as I have in the last couple months. Anybody who has been selling for even a few years can see it. Why is it happening? Well, there may be a legitimate reason for it.
Perhaps if you're a larger seller, you may have noticed an unusual number of nightly slow/shut downs by eBay, where sales completely turn off until the next morning. Several Youtubers have mentioned it. I personally have noticed the same pattern in two of my larger stores where nightly sales have fallen by the wayside.
Could this be part of eBay's "improved" Promoted Listings "tool"? After all, we have watched this "tool" morph into what I like to call a gladiator arena, where sellers now have to fight each other to stay alive. In fact, it would be naïve to think that eBay isn't aware of the fact that when sales are "unusually slow" for an extended period of time, sellers will try to bid up their visibility against their competitors with PLS or now with PLA. I'm not saying that they are doing this on purpose in order to get more sellers on board with PL. However, what I will say is that eBay has made a great effort to NOT be transparent about all the glitches, shut downs and slow sales. No emails, no explanations, no effort, no concern. That is what concerns me as a 24-yr seller. Yet, what we do receive from eBay is an extensive marketing campaign aimed at sellers in an effort to convince them that these are beneficial "tools" or "assets" for sellers. Are sellers really that stupid?
Very interesting hypothesis. The most likely reason for all the disgruntled sellers complaining about the lack of sales could be as simple as understanding that buyers' discretionary income is very slim these days & are shopping less. Plus, you have more sellers flooding certain categories & sellers are also chasing a smaller population of active buyers. Sellers just need to understand that buyers aren't flush with money these days!!! All businesses are struggling these days!! Hang in there!!!
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