Not sure what to make of this, probably have to cut my losses and accept it!

Brooker_Dave

soolin wrote: »

I buy worldwide, although all my purchases today unusually have been from the UK. I bought some stuff from the US yesterday

I sell worldwide as well, more than 50% of my sales go to non UK buyers, although once again strangely my UK sales are increasing. At one point I rarely had a UK sale at all.

In most of the categories I sell in all my competitors are in the UK although I have a notable competitor in Ireland and one in Spain.

Good for you.

But you would agree that the bulk of the items advertised on ebay are now either people flogging cheap Chinese tat, or cheap Chinese tat straight from China?

soolin

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Good for you.

But you would agree that the bulk of the items advertised on ebay are now either people flogging cheap Chinese tat, or cheap Chinese tat straight from China?

I don't sell in categories where I have any Chinese competition, so I assume we view it from the categories we use.

Looking at any of the collectable categories there isn't a Far East seller to be seen, likewsie antiques unless you factor in the keyword antique as you get that used as a colour and you do get some Chinese sellers.

Books rarely come from the far east, nor do vintage childrens toys nor do one of my big markets where I am one of only a few sellers none of whom are within a hundred miles of the Far East.

If you limit your browsing to small electricals, MP3s etc then yes those categories are heavy on Far East sellers, but that is about it.

RFW

soolin wrote: »

I don't think they miss your sales that much. Anyway, places like auction bytes and other commentators suggest eBay listings are increasing.

Given the change in listing format and the duplicate listing rule it's probably harder to quantify the difference.

With variations one listing can be the equivalent of 200 in days gone by, also sellers had 100s of the same item listed when they tend not to get away with that now.

Then again there will always be people ready to say things are not what they were, they're usually the same ones that keep saying it for 20 years and then one day they end up being right.