changing markets

soolin

I have often mentioned on here where people say that ebay is dead for them, that it does not pay to stay in one market for too long. I now have absolute personal proof of that.

I have a very popular item, I really couldn't order in this stuff fast enough and have been selling it for perhaps as long as 6 years now. It was my main bread and butter stock, whilst everything else went up and down this remained a daily and steady seller. About a month ago the market completely died.

I thought it was just my stock, but I have been watching my competitors, as well as the keywords and it is the market that has gone. It used to be pages of sales every hour, now that can show longish periods between successful sales. It is a shame as it was an easy stock, if I sold out one day I could guarantee to be able to order in more within 24 hours. I'll carry on with my MVLs until I am out of stock and then quietly dump the line. That does mean I will have more room back again as it was something I held a lot of stock in and with dozens of variations but on the downside it makes some of my packaging in stock superfluous as it was bought just for these items.

This is exactly what happened when I used to sell books, my market completely died in 2010

forgotmyname

Finding ebay a pain in the backside these days. I have a feeling the searches are being seriously manipulated.

Recently looking at some electronic items, I posted up the links and specs on another site i use. A couple of members have posted back with devices with slighty better spec or cheaper that did not turn up in my search despite me being vague and sorting by price and trawling through the results.

I could phone them and ask i guess but i know they will tell me lies and says its me or my computer, just like they did when they stopped you being able to stay logged in forever.
I would stay logged on 24/7 x 365. But it kept logging me out. They blamed me and my computer. Then a few months later stopped everyone being able to stay logged in for that long. Seems i was a guinea pig for that test also.

soolin

I think search is being manipulated, I posted on another thread a rather rambling conspiracy theory of mine :cool:

This though is a complete collapse of a market, it is as though everyone woke up one morning and decided to stop buying this item. In fact talking yesterday with one of my suppliers they have even cut back n the lines they could offer me as people aren't ordering .

Exactly the same thing happened with my books on Amazon, I was selling a steady70 or so books a month for years, then bang, literally overnight the market died and I went down to fewer than 15 a month.

Luckily I have replacement lines already set up with the advantage they are smaller, so easier and quicker to pack. I can switch to that line with no problems . The reason I haven't until now is the slight reluctance to give up on something I know well and I didn't want to go full out with two large lines and overwork myself (I am the laziest eBay seller ever!)

Money-Saving-King

soolin wrote: »

I think search is being manipulated, I posted on another thread a rather rambling conspiracy theory of mine :cool:

What about trying Google's keyword tools to see how Google's searches have been effected?

https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner

ballisticbrian

Doing business on eBay is one of the hardest places. In order to invest in stock, one has to ask, what if a competitor goes 1p cheaper than me and lies to people to say his is better, my sales will dry up. I have to consider abandoning the market place and setting up else where. You wouldn't open a physical shop on the high street on this basis. Firstly that leads to the lack on the investment I just mentioned, and secondly it further drives the race to find cheaper goods. eBay knows this, and that is why they are manipulating the search, for the good of eBay, but not necessarily sellers.

soolin

ballisticbrian wrote: »

Doing business on eBay is one of the hardest places. In order to invest in stock, one has to ask, what if a competitor goes 1p cheaper than me and lies to people to say his is better, my sales will dry up. I have to consider abandoning the market place and setting up else where. You wouldn't open a physical shop on the high street on this basis. Firstly that leads to the lack on the investment I just mentioned, and secondly it further drives the race to find cheaper goods. eBay knows this, and that is why they are manipulating the search, for the good of eBay, but not necessarily sellers.

I am rarely ever the cheapest seller on ebay, I hold my prices and if I can't achieve what I want for my goods I move on to a different market.I prefer to be flexible rather than compete on price and my sales are still better than they have ever been - this has been one of my best years yet. I just have to move on from a market that I was comfortable in and could get stock for easily.

campdave

The stuff I sell lots of now is not the same stuff I was selling lots of two years ago. Tastes change.

I'm not the cheapest seller, but I'm one of the cheaper sellers. Some of the sellers in my area must be making about half the profit I make on the item. I'd rather sell one and make the same money as selling two - and I know my items are better quality than what they're selling.

bartelbe

ballisticbrian wrote: »

Doing business on eBay is one of the hardest places. In order to invest in stock, one has to ask, what if a competitor goes 1p cheaper than me and lies to people to say his is better, my sales will dry up. I have to consider abandoning the market place and setting up else where. You wouldn't open a physical shop on the high street on this basis. Firstly that leads to the lack on the investment I just mentioned, and secondly it further drives the race to find cheaper goods. eBay knows this, and that is why they are manipulating the search, for the good of eBay, but not necessarily sellers.

Ebay is far easier than a shop, I've worked in a few, and I was shocked by how much they had to pay in rents, business rates ect.

Alot of economics is about information. Having more information about a market place gives the seller an advantage over the buyer, an advantage the internet has destroyed.

A classic example is baseball cards. Before the net collecting the cards was difficult. You had to travel to conventions, know the right shops and the right people.

Then along came ebay, and suddenly many collectors found that their prized collection of rare cards was worthless. Ebay showed everyone how common the cards were, and the values collasped.

Of course many of the traders probably knew this already, but the the public didn't. Thanks to the net anyone with a computer/smart phone can check your prices. The information advantage for sellers has gone.

RFW

ballisticbrian wrote: »

Doing business on eBay is one of the hardest places. In order to invest in stock, one has to ask, what if a competitor goes 1p cheaper than me and lies to people to say his is better, my sales will dry up. I have to consider abandoning the market place and setting up else where. You wouldn't open a physical shop on the high street on this basis. Firstly that leads to the lack on the investment I just mentioned, and secondly it further drives the race to find cheaper goods. eBay knows this, and that is why they are manipulating the search, for the good of eBay, but not necessarily sellers.

It does happen all over, on the high street and online, I've been involved in the opening of several retail outlets and a threatened competitor will often immediately drop prices. You only have to look at how many smaller wholesalers have gone out of business since the rise of the giant supermarkets. I know several who just couldn't wholesale some goods at the prices supermarkets were selling them, bedding being a prime example. At a lower level, wander round a local market and you'll see one selling something for £1, one for 99p and then another selling the same item for 95p.
Price cutting is one of the reasons all the supermarkets are running around like headless chickens trying to cling on to market share, customer loyalty is getting rarer. Retailers should be investing in customer service, friendly staff doing things customers want rather than trotting out the same phrases that they think they want to hear.

There are loads of markets that have been destroyed over time, even before the internet, the internet seems to act to hasten certain markets' downfall and raise others. As sellers we just have to be alert.

Earlier in the year I did an OK deal on loom bands, I was offered a bigger deal that never materialised, if it had I would have lost out big time. One week a pack was 50p from the manufacturer, the next they were being retailed at 25p.

ballisticbrian

Earlier in the year I did an OK deal on loom bands, I was offered a bigger deal that never materialised, if it had I would have lost out big time. One week a pack was 50p from the manufacturer, the next they were being retailed at 25p.

It wasn't making dresses was it by any chance?

ballisticbrian

Ebay is far easier than a shop, I've worked in a few, and I was shocked by how much they had to pay in rents, business rates ect.

This wasn't a general comment. It's obviously easy and cheap to set up an eBay shop. It was specifically about how competitive eBay is on price and easy for buyers to click "sort by price" and price wars happening far quicker than on the high street, in milliseconds in some cases.