It's really changed for me, my selling patterns are all over the place.

However, I still think it is the odd search that is doing it, ebay have all but admitted now that search is manipulated to give preference to certain sellers, and it will only get worse come summer when we lose visibility even more if we don't offer return postage on change of mind returns.

I have noticed when you enter a product n the search bar. It's the big sellers or the outlet shops that come up ,unless it's a niche product..

I have noticed i can sell a few of the same item over a few hours/days, then nothing, ziltch..For ages, and then i get another little run on the product.

I just can't fathom out which product to try and sell perminantly as a bread and butter product, and hen the ad-hoc products i can pick up at a good price and take a gamble on..

I have noticed a few strange patterns and have often mentioned them on here wearing my tin foil hat (I do love a good conspiracy theory). However it does seem odd that I have a MVL listed that might not sell at all for 2 months then within the space of 2 hours I sell 3 from that listing to completely different buyers, then nothing again for 2 months. Or, I sell something in a niche category, then within the same day sell a number of other items from that same category- but absolutely nothing else. Or the one that I think is really strange, I sell something to a specific region, say a Scottish island, and for a whole day virtually everything I send also goes to a Scottish Island.

I am actually thinking of giving up my TRS discount so I can go back to a 2 day dispatch as the discount is so low and I don't think the TRS flag helps at all in search.

I don't think TRS has any impact on search at all. I can search for something and a TRS seller may be at the bottom of the search.

Using best match, I can search for something on my PC, and then search for the same thing using the phone app and the order of sellers is different.

In terms of being quiet, middle of the week has been terrible but today seems a lot busier. On bad days I notice that sales in the day are steady but in the evening it goes dead as if the tap has been switched off.

Same here Soolin. What you discribed is exactly what is happening to me..

I have gone from selling 10-15 items per day on average down to 3-4 if I am extremely lucky.

Even my niche items that plod out so to speak have stopped..

I really hope it picks up

As it's not worth me listing these items on Amazon .due to their fees.

[QUOTE=soolin;72534111]I have noticed a few strange patterns and have often mentioned them on here wearing my tin foil hat (I do love a good conspiracy theory). However it does seem odd that I have a MVL listed that might not sell at all for 2 months then within the space of 2 hours I sell 3 from that listing to completely different buyers, then nothing again for 2 months. Or, I sell something in a niche category, then within the same day sell a number of other items from that same category- but absolutely nothing else. Or the one that I think is really strange, I sell something to a specific region, say a Scottish island, and for a whole day virtually everything I send also goes to a Scottish Island.


I don't have many sales (private account) but like post above anything I do sell seems to come in batches and from same area of the country.
Makes me wonder if ebay turns listings off in areas while showing in other areas of the country.

As an example of a strange pattern of sales, I sold 17 things on Tuesday and 13 things on Wednesday on my business account and only 2 yesterday, those two things were both bought before 11am so it's now been 21 hours since my last sale. Some of the things I listed yesterday afternoon onwards have no views at all and most have 3 or less. It's as though I went invisible before lunch yesterday so I just hope they turn it back on again today ready for the weekend.

Sales not brilliant so thought I would list some items on auction (something I never do on that account). Since last night they have all had either 1 view or 0 and it's competitively priced so would expect some interest

Soolin. I get time batch sales too. I put this down to people ordering when they get up etc..
I really do need my sales to pick back up..

I've had 3 small sales this morning all within a very short time frame . I'm hoping it picks up again soon as I've just laid out a great deal of money on stock .

Same here...and apart from a few lines that I can always get, other stuff I buy at auctions or end of line sales etc. Like now I am buying winter items.. But if sales don't improve then no more forward stock buying.

I had a clutch of a few sales this morning. Then tea time I had 2 sales within 5 mins of each other. And just had one sale and a best offer. Which I declined as it was an insult lol.

I went nearly 44 hours without a sale and was planning to phone ebay this morning to see whether they had a problem as I have never had that sort of dead time before. However, whilst making morning tea and browsing the news online I've just sold 2 items.

I still might phone later as something is obviously wrong somewhere. I did switch from 1 day dispatch to 2 day due to the stupid delivery estimates, but that extension of handling time has barely made a difference to my sales in the past.

<thanks any deity listening that it isn't just me, penny-ante player tho I am>

Thank you for posting!

As from tomorrow I am going to try and keep a time diary, so I can confirm the cluster sales pattern.

The only thing I can think of. Maybe eBay has become its own enemy so to speak. And for the system to work with min glitches it works on a rotation system so it's sytem can cope??

Does that make sense??

I've been selling on eBay for about 10 years and seen many complain it's quiet but we've always done well. eBay sellers are a bit like market traders, never say when they are doing great but enjoy a good old moan about how it's not what it used to be.

However since the start of this year it's gone very quiet for us, about a grand a day is what's expected, yesterday we did 250 and it's only 150 so far today.

Time of year doesn't help, nice weather, longer nights but there's a lot more competition online now, the majority of businesses should have figured out they need an online presence and the big companies are firmly on board with eBay now, significant increase in sellers from the US and China as well.

You have Brexit, a general election and house prices not flying as they were to create uncertainty.

A younger generation that can't afford their home so less space to put stuff plus a move away from hoarding a load of stuff in general.

People are more absorbed in their phones with plenty of apps to distract you from shopping and tempting you to spend money.

If you look on the Amazon forums there's a long thread complaining of slow sales with lots of blame at Amazon changing things and rotating visibility, go on eBay and you'll read the same thing. People say they've called CS to complain and suddenly get a sale but it's mere coincidence.

We went to the local market last week and it was a nice day, but not nice enough to send to everyone to the beach, and it was fairly quiet. A neighbour has a shop in town and said they've been very up and down.

I think it's just a case that people are not spending what they were and with eBay always been driven by cheap, cheap with a relatively poor reputation it could be viewed that core eBay shoppers who use the site all year round will be the first to be hit by money being tight.

If you sell collectibles and the market is still there then you'll do well, if you sell generic stuff anyone can access you really need to shift volume on a low margin to make it work.

Wasting time trying to figure out sales patterns on eBay is pretty pointless as you won't learn anything and will ultimately get frustrated.

Either expand your range or ride it out. For us it's looking like the end (not really eBay's fault, just a change in what people want) and I'm looking to change what the business does completely if my skills are up to it!

As an aside OP, Amazon can be busier than eBay depending on what you sell, particularly if you use FBA. Their fees are higher but we've always found them worth paying.

I used to sell about 30 hosting plans on ebay each month ( which was enough for me), then this gradually dropped to 1 sale a month.
I have noticed that some sellers still place multiple duplicate posts and it would take days to report all these.

One thing no one has yet mentioned!!!8203; is that eBay's site has undergone a revamp and to be honest, it makes it harder to navigate until you are used to it.

People hate change, so don't visit eBay so much.

I would suggest incorporating other market places such as Farcebook, sGumtree and schlock into your sales strategy. Also, try offering alternative payment systems.

You misspelt sGumtree, should be spelt sGamtree

Whose font makes that look like a C

Facebook can work for certain items as long as you don't mind 75% of buyers messing you around and never actually bothering to collect, it does also limit you quite a lot to local sales anyway.I've virtually given up on Facebook due to time wasters.

Gumtree is dead in the water, virtually no one there apart from scammers now.

Assuming you mean Shpock - then that's not too bad, obviously again it is designed for local sales so a severely limited market. Also a fair share of time wasters again, I posted recently about someone with a very cheap item who wanted me to actually take it to their place of work at Canary Wharf as they were far too busy to actually come and collect.

For proper business sales these sites cannot compare to a global market like ebay, I can't spend time on Shpock negotiating with someone who wants to mess around with collection, then expect me to wait in for a whole day as they don't know exactly what time they will drop by. A business needs a platform that is easy- you see, you pay item is sent. Unfortunately at the moment that place is ebay and we sellers need to find out how to trigger the on switch that ebay seem to keep losing.

As for different payment methods I'm not sure what you mean. Paypal is now so integrated into ebay that buyers rarely pay by any other means, I do not recall the last time anyone wanted to use a cheque - I even struggled with cash on collection recently for a collected item as buyer just wanted to use paypal.