Ebay sales tanked

hubb

I have a business selling genuine vintage (1970's-80's) music memorabilia. 100% and top quality. had my stock for about 9 years and always sold EVERY item. This year sales have absolutely tanked to selling around one in ten. Good price and 100% feedback. Other sellers selling same for £3 -5 more successfully. IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE !

For me this is not working as the fees are costing me too much to make it worthwhile. Ditto for my private sales too.

The days of having a clean record, selling good quality items with integrity count for nothing

RFW

Sales are erratic all over, the Ebay boards are full of similar stories and I know it's not just Ebay. I doubt that any one seller is generally doing better than you overall, most probably one on another forum somewhere complaining that the last thing you sold went for more than they had it listed.

I know some sellers in some fields are doing very well but the overall picture is falling sales. Consumer confidence must be at an all time low with bank scandals, benefit cuts, job cuts, etc..

Strapped

I think times are hard for everyone at the moment

Crowqueen

Yes - and additionally, unless this is a long-term trend or unseasonable, the summer months are a slow period as people's thoughts turn towards holidays, sport, Proms, festivals etc.

It may be that there is less money this year for memorabilia AND, say, a holiday or a trip to the Olympics. In previous years people could have had both - but not right now. Personally I gave up selling pure collectables (postcards and stamps, the excess baggage I brought back from Eastern Europe etc) at the time of the credit crunch. The market bottomed out and now it would just not be worth listing a lot of the collection I have left on eBay at all except as a bulk dealer's lot, and I can't bring myself to do that. I did sign up to Delcampe but haven't bothered listing anything on there - too much effort for probably too little gain.

I'm floating a load of good books that in previous years have usually sold well, but this year...only one sale on which I made a dead loss. I'm going to do FLWs only until the end of the summer, then risk listing fees to catch some of the Christmas market.

I'm not a business, just a private seller, but certainly would not consider going into business in this area right now. Perhaps you need to diversify a little bit - find things that are still selling and go for those.

charlies_mum

Same thing here. I was doing OK and selling 2 or 3 items per day, then suddenly nothing. It was as though someone had turned off all my listings. Weird.

soolin

Dead as a doornail here.

Not an Amazon sale in over 5 weeks, barely ticking over on ebay using stock that normally flies out of the window. The last car boot I did was a complete disaster. Sold a couple of bits on facebook and had one short change me and another no show. Listed loads of stock on ebid and after 3 weeks did not even have a single page view- ie no one at all had looked at anything at all in my shop.

Nothing from Gumtree, not even a scam mail.

I was talking with a lot of dealers yesterday and they are all reporting the same. In fact so few people buying yesterday that I have enough stock to last the best part of 6 months- as it was so cheap as I had no competition, I thought it worth storing until whatever is slowing the sales down recovers.

The only thing of mine doing well is the few odds and ends that I put up on my private ebay account. However as that is mainly stuff I am unearthing from my sons bedrooms due to redecoration, it tends to be cult and one off stuff where there is a market.

EDIT to add: in fact as I am used to having about a 90% sale through on my ebay business account and have dropped to about 65% I have cut down on what I list. That coupled with three holidays already this summer where I had nothing listed for a few weeks each time means I am in danger of losing TRS as my turnover will be too low in the UK market to maintain it.

chemical.galaxy

My sales tanked as well, I bought a load of new stock which boosted it a bit but as many of my items are weather related the lack of a summer combined with the shops selling off all their summer stock has really hit my sales!

Gleeful

Sales this week since Sunday - £230.97

The brand I sell is having a big sale though, so I know that people are buying from the new collection instead.

F&L

OP, if other sellers are getting more for the same product have you checked where you're appearing on search listings? A few low stars can mean other sellers items appear before yours.

soolin

F&L wrote: »

OP, if other sellers are getting more for the same product have you checked where you're appearing on search listings? A few low stars can mean other sellers items appear before yours.

Good point and one I think the rest of us overlooked.

In my own case I am still outselling my usual competitors so I am moderately happy that it is just a general downturn, if my competitors started to outsell me then I would actually be worried.

Dexters_Indignation

Well I may not know the full reasons for ebays current problems.
It may be lack of buyers.
It may be lack of cash
It may be too much competition.
It may be supplies selling to the public.

Or it may be the following.
Sellers like this chap