Ebay items just not selling any more - not even getting views, what has changed?

danny69

I hadn’t realised it was this bad. So where are eBay making money from private sellers? Just the promoted listing fees? Did this come in around the same time as private sellers who should be business sellers were told to change their accounts? As I don’t recall getting 300 free a month. Now I’m a business seller I am correctly registered, it is just difficult to see how being honest is of benefit to me on this platform. 

soolin

danny69 said:

I hadn’t realised it was this bad. So where are eBay making money from private sellers? Just the promoted listing fees? Did this come in around the same time as private sellers who should be business sellers were told to change their accounts? As I don’t recall getting 300 free a month. Now I’m a business seller I am correctly registered, it is just difficult to see how being honest is of benefit to me on this platform. 

Apparently the German model of free private listings increased profits as sellers spent money back on eBay and statistics showed they bought mainly from businesses. This is because private sellers don’t now get automatic payouts, they have to request their funds. Whilst that doesn’t seem an issue a lot of private sellers just went into full meltdown thinking they couldn’t withdraw money and refusing to read the actual announcements. 

troglodyte

Hello and a belated happy new year everyone - hope it is successful and prosperous for all!

I just popped in to say that I actually sold something last week - my first sale since last April! I chose the option of promoting it this time and I think that must be the key. Can't remember which proportion I opted for but the end result was that I received approx. 90% of the selling price after fees. Inspired to try and shift a few more bits and pieces now!

ballisticbrian

forgotmyname said:

Puzzles me why a business has a website and yet uses generic emails like yahoo or gmail. Use your website
domains email, it may get you more business if the stuff on your website is cheaper or for people that don't
use ebay as much.

Because the hosting companies keep putting your price up year on year and charging for lots of odd extras but know you're locked in due to using their domains email.

Ebay_oldboy

Hi. Late commenting here I know but I've only just seen this. I've been selling professionally on EBAY since 2004 and at the risk of sounding immodest, I've gained a LOT of experience in that time and have seen umpteen changes. I'd summarise the early 2025 position as essentially "EBAY is dead for most category sellers". What follows is wordy, so apologies in advance but I thought it worth sharking my experiences.

Now to be fair, I'm only speaking of my sector - antiques of various genres. I also recognise that not everyone will agree but I now find it virtually impossible to sell on EBAY (really, since about 2020). The halcyon days were the late 90s up to about 2007-8 and the first of the financial catastrophes but since then it has been worse and worse.

Many of the problems are well documented. EBAY's poor strategic vision in trying to become another Amazon, rising costs for sellers (aka greed), doing vast things to empower buyers at the expense of sellers, crooks posing as honest sellers discrediting the site, changing buyer preferences and tastes etc etc etc.

 However, a real biggie that is often ignored is the background of ever-deteriorating economic conditions since around 2008. Although this is part referenced in saying "buyers don't have the cash they once had", which is correct, what is often not commented on is how this has massively increased competition on EBAY. The problem is, as people get poorer and poorer, more and more have poured onto EBAY in desperation, seeing it as a way of making 'easy money' to help them survive.

Of course, it's no such thing. However, many sellers have flooded onto the site trying to sell everything. Unfortunately, many have little or no idea of pricing and market science and they're often asking lucicrous prices for things that they haven't a chance of selling at that price. I have spoken to many of them and asked where they got their price from and in about 80% of cases, their response is "oh, other people are asking similar prices for these".

That, of course, is madness. Many have been shocked when I've pointed out that there's a way of checking 'sold prices' on EBAY and even more shocked when they've finally got around to looking at what things are selling for rather than what other people are asking for them. Quite a few have become aggressive and adopted the "well, it's the price I want and will wait for". Of course, they usually end up waiting forever.

Why does this matter? 

Well, again my humble market research indicates many potential buyers now never even think about EBAY because the pricing on the site is often unrealistic. Remember, if they're coming to EBAY they're looking for bargains and hopefully an online bidding experience that will give them a sniff of a bargain. When they see thousands of items of absurdly high fixed prices or on auction but with absoutely insane opending prices, guess what happens? They simply stop vising the site, as it's a waste of time. 

What's killed EBAY is largely very poor commercial awareness and realism on the part of sellers. They've flooded many sectors with junk at absurd prices and that has driven the buyers away. There were things EBAY could have done to help reduce that but ultimately, they can't dictate sellers' commercial policies even when fundamentally wrong.

EBAY will never again be what it was. It will have an ongoing marginal market role but it's unlikely to ever be a major viable selling channel for professionals again.    

RFW

Ebay_oldboy said:

EBAY will never again be what it was. It will have an ongoing marginal market role but it's unlikely to ever be a major viable selling channel for professionals again.    

I'm not in your sector but largely agree. I was a pro seller on Ebay for many years and largely stopped after a succession of issues, mostly of Ebay's making and a general downturn in sales. I've been in a couple of areas that have slumped, one retail side is now largely becoming extinct after being quite lucrative. So lots of things are changing.

Ebay has evolved over the years and for Ebay it seems to be a good business. It's much harder to develop a brand on Ebay than Amazon. It's much harder to be visible on Ebay than some other marketplaces. It is overcrowded and increasingly difficult to find things you want amongst the noise. Perhaps the latest changes will work on that a bit but some of it does seem to have had a headless chicken approach.

Pollycat

I'm just a private seller getting rid of my unwanted stuff. That's clothes, shoes, silver jewellery.

I price my items realistically and get a lot of sales.
Until I started selling on eBay, I took all my stuff to a charity shop.
Now, I list as 'auction' for 6 or 7 weeks, dropping the price until I decide it's not worth selling.

My main problems are postage costs and the new so-called 'buyer protection fee' which in reality is just another fee for the seller to pay.
It's hard to sell a dress for £5.00 when the postage is £3.39 (RM Tracked 48) and I have to list for £4.11 for the buyer price to be £5.00 who ends up paying £8.39 in total.

Ebay_oldboy

Yes, agree with all these things. I still sell on EBAY but only a tiny amount professionally. In that respect, I use it mainly for some very minor market testing though the results can't be over-interpreted because it's no longer a dynamic channel. There's also a bit of nosalgia for me at times I guess.

I agree, for private sales where margins aren't (or are much less) important then it's still just about 'OK'. 

What I think EBAY's 'evolution' has done is to remove the "excitement of the auction" culture that it once had and where it had a major market lead. That's all now lost in a total hdge-podge mess of pseudo-amazon operations. Many buyers went out of their way to visit EBAY for that experience and now it's largely either gone or buried under piles of standard ticket-price buying.

I would have thought that there's an opportunity for someone to recreate the old very successful EBAY auction site culture if they had a mind (and money) to, though perhaps the world has just moved on and there's no real demand for that any more.

Selling everywhere is now very very difficult. Too many people selling and far too few buying. That applies to most sectors I know anything of, though some are worse than others.
    

meg00

Thank you all for these insights.

I wish I'd read them before listing my beauty items, only a couple of "watches" across 8 items and not even getting the views....

Can anyone reccomend an alternative? My listings will be high street fashions, bags and shoes etc., LKB, Reiss.Hobbs, Jaeger, all in immaculate or unused condition I had a look att vinted but felt it was a bit downmarket, aimed at very young people.

RedImp_2

meg00 said:

Thank you all for these insights.

I wish I'd read them before listing my beauty items, only a couple of "watches" across 8 items and not even getting the views....

Can anyone reccomend an alternative? My listings will be high street fashions, bags and shoes etc., LKB, Reiss.Hobbs, Jaeger, all in immaculate or unused condition I had a look att vinted but felt it was a bit downmarket, aimed at very young people.

You could try ‘promoting’ them - will cost you a fee but might pay off