Have people stopped buying?

forgotmyname wrote: »

All comes down to the price and the search experience and for me ebay is lacking on both fronts.

Today searched for an item, plenty of Chinese sellers with 2week+ delivery times listed at £4.25. Select UK only and you get the same sellers showing 8 day delivery instead of 14, i get the feeling its still going to be 2weeks+ and a couple of £ premium.

First genuine UK seller with a 3 day estimate delivery wants £13.99 + £2.75 postage for the same item. To me that's excessive and i doubt they will sell many, good luck to them selling 50 they show in stock.

Especially when i can get it on prime next day for £11.99.

And whats with the new and refurbished??? Anyone fancy some refurbished Sellotape?

Ebay's consistently had problems with new things being added on before old ones were sorted out.

I've only recently returned to selling on Ebay and I probably run at about a fiftieth of what I sell on Amazon. I'll persevere a bit more and see how it goes until Christmas but compared to Amazon it really isn't worth my time and effort.


I spoke to a (non Amazon) fulfillment centre recently and he said that they largely expect Amazon sellers to sell 20-30 times stock on Amazon compared to Ebay. That's very much a believable statistic. If you've got a product range and a brand Amazon make it really easy, Ebay don't.


As far as sales go, this past week is, in general, one of the worst sales weeks of the year in the UK. In most cases they aren't going to pick up too much until late August. So I'm having a few days off and prepping for Christmas (actually during my days off, but that's another story!).

LadyDee wrote: »

I've become so disillusioned by Ebay - pages of tat that claim to be in the UK but aren't. Pages of the same widget listed with one word (or even one letter) changed.

Secondhand junk being sold for prices either more, the same or just a smidgeon below brand new prices.

Stuff listed in the wrong categories so you can't really eliminate stuff you aren't interested in.

Sellers that can't be bothered to give full/proper measurements, etc., etc. etc.

Poor photographs.

I invariably find anything new that I want at lower prices elsewhere.

Agree with all of that.

I'll add a few recentish changes ebay have made which annoy me:

• They're phasing out the ability to filter by private sellers only (it works on desktop view on my mobile, but not on standard mobile view or in my desktop browser)
• Ebay searches automatically choosing specific listing categories when I want to search all listings
• If you click on a complete listing you're taken to an unrelated listing and have to click a second link from there to view what you wanted to see in the first place

...and my number 1 seller pet peeve:
Sellers who won't combine postage costs for multiple purchases.

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To the OP - what type of items are you selling out of interest?

Take a read of the "business seller forum" in the community. Some shocking stories in there of how sellers are treated coupled with the huge number of recent glitches in Ebay it is simply unbelievable.

Many business sellers including myself have noticed sales these last couple of months have been been absolutely dire. We are not getting the views, not appearing in searches and nobody at Ebay can tell us why. Ebay are playing around so much just now with their systems they are becoming unworkable.

I also have a private account which has always been successful for selling my unwanted goods. Tried to sell some items of branded clothing in brand new condition and failed to sell one. Some of the items did not even get any views in the 7 day listings.

Ebay needs a good competitor to come up with a product of what Ebay used to be like before greed took over.

To add some balance, I work part time selling on ebay alongside a part time "regular job". My turnover the last year has been far more than previous years, yes ebay has changed and there are a lot of issues however it is still possible to have reasonable sales.

I'm currently turning over about £4k per month, obviously that isn't massive and is total so not all is profit but the items have a decent margin, around 25-30% after fees and postage, and I keep adding listings so the sales are building month on month.

What I realised is that trying to sell in a flooded market is pointless, you never even get seen. Anything that can be just bought from China and sold as is, that is pointless, everyone is doing it and now even the Chinese sellers are opening warehouses in the UK to do it. or pretending they are in the UK and setting long dispatch times. Then there are the issues with "multi-item" listings, where they all show 99p and that is for a different item which plagues the search results.

You can sell if you differentiate yourself - I started a lot of my listings when I couldn't find spare parts for an item and I spent a lot of time looking for a compatible spare, whether that is from a manufacturer of a similar item or a generic item that I found would fit and work. Then I turned lots of these "finds" into listings on ebay, offering spares where there otherwise was no spare available (unless you hunt like I did).

I enjoy the hunt for a compatible item and taking things apart so its basically a hobby that has turned into a part time job. I am nervous of turning it into a full time job as we all know that ebay can change their policies or just take a dislike to you and sales could drop, however at the moment part time seems to work.

What I have found is that I get a lot more sales when I am a "Top Rated Seller" so i've tried to be realistic with dispatch and postage times (sometimes setting them to a longer service than I actually use, as ebays estimates are usually tight) and I now take Royal Mail items directly to a sorting office around midday so i'm cutting out the time for them to be collected from the post office - this gets me very good feedback on delivery times, even 2nd class often arrives the next day.

I just wanted to show that its not all doom and gloom - everything changes over time, if its not ebay changing then it can be other sellers crowding your market or Chinese sellers cutting you out - more a case of "who moved my cheese".

Thanks.