eBay is a lost cause - Why I'm leaving

[retro_games_exchange]

I was selling really well for a while in the video games category. I had around 200-500 listings and would sell 5-10 items a day. Promoted listings came out and my sales and impressions tanked by around 80%. I called eBay and complained about my listings being hidden so their solution was to give me a week as if my items were promoted. I already knew at that moment it was so they could sell me on how great promoted listing was. I was not happy but my sales did boost for about a week. After that my sales continued to tank and i was only selling 1-2 items a week and only on weekends for some reason. So i bit, i tried to promote listings. I put a standard 3% promotion across all listings. My sales were back to where they were before all of this and it was going pretty well so i left it how it was. Slowly but surely my sales were tanking again to around 1-2 a week and only on weekends and eventually going to 2 weeks without a sale. I gave up and decided to try something new and ended my subscription and unlisted all my items. Good riddance.

[stevemartin60]

So sorry this has happened to you.  Been screaming how terrible "pay-to-play" is for all involved for a month now, FOR EVERYONE INVOVLED, including eBay stockholders.  This will be the death of the platform as your post so clearly shows.  Good luck with your new venture.

[stevemartin60]

P.S. I sold nine paintings for $3600 over the first six weeks of this year, and none since.  It is so obvious they threw the switch and when it happened.  Thanks for letting me know pay-to-play really does nothing either.  I won't ever resort to it, or become a fraudster, drop shipper, or stolen goods supplier...you know, the accounts that always seem to do just fine...lol.

[inhawaii]

I commend you.

Unlike people who come here every day to complain about ebay yet continue to sell here.

Good luck to you in the future.

[desertcanyon4]

Are you trying out another platform? If so, which one(s), and how is it going?

[whatmorefabric]

Every platform that I sell on is having a decrease in sales.     I have gone from 15 a day on Amazon to 2 and Etsy is about the same where I have gone to 2 or 3 sales a day from 10.

The only platform that has shown a gain is Ebay.

Every platform has the same pay promoted listings.      Etsy forces me to participate.

You have a younger generation that does not have the money to buy extras and an older generation trying to get rid of the junk.

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

Funny how with inflation of EVERYTHING, cost of shipping and eBay's fees and not showing items unless promoted, the only ones that can sell are thieves or buyers that were lucky enough to get items for pennies.

It's not really funny. eBay has made it so there is no margins left and if there is, the government gets it. One fraudulent return or NAD is like negative 10 sales. Not much future left here. I've watched eBay take another inch every month for years and now they have taken it all.

[luckythewinner]

---

@retro_games_exchange wrote:

 My sales were back to where they were before all of this and it was going pretty well so i left it how it was. Slowly but surely my sales were tanking again to around 1-2 a week and only on weekends and eventually going to 2 weeks without a sale.

---

Over a period of time, promotion is not the only variable in play. Did you check your competition to see if your prices were still competitive?

[stainlessenginecovers]

As more and more sellers join the 'internet selling' craze, there will more that will give up 10-15-20% additional to 'be on the top'. They are ok with making $1 instead of $3, but sell 10x more. All about the quantity sold. 

Pay to Play has been an industry standard on Search Engines for over a decade. Using the same 'term' was $1 to be at the top (this is for a click to your site and NOT for a sale) and 5 years later, that same 'term' is $6 to be on the first page of Google.

Sad thing is you are leaving, but there will still be 100 other sellers selling what you sold.

Buyers will not go without.

eBay will not go without a sale or a fee.

eBay will be here another 25 years simply because there are WAY more sellers for every item than there was even 5 years ago (pre-pandemic, which gave Millions 'time' to figure out selling online)

[isaiah53-57 · Accepted solution]

---

@retro_games_exchange wrote:

I was selling really well for a while in the video games category. I had around 200-500 listings and would sell 5-10 items a day. Promoted listings came out and my sales and impressions tanked by around 80%. I called eBay and complained about my listings being hidden so their solution was to give me a week as if my items were promoted. I already knew at that moment it was so they could sell me on how great promoted listing was. I was not happy but my sales did boost for about a week. After that my sales continued to tank and i was only selling 1-2 items a week and only on weekends for some reason. So i bit, i tried to promote listings. I put a standard 3% promotion across all listings. My sales were back to where they were before all of this and it was going pretty well so i left it how it was. Slowly but surely my sales were tanking again to around 1-2 a week and only on weekends and eventually going to 2 weeks without a sale. I gave up and decided to try something new and ended my subscription and unlisted all my items. Good riddance.

---

THANK YOU!

for putting your self-respect first - for helping to show your outrage at a program that in my humble opinion, can only perceived as a malicious attempt at extortion, whether decidedly or inadvertently. I could see the nefarious nature and endless ways of exploitation of the program as soon as it was introduced and refuse to give them a single cent toward it - I will burn my 7 figure collection before I ever do so...Good thing is, there appears to be an ever-increasing number of principled sellers like yourself who are willing to show their disdain for perceived disrespects by ending their relationship with the company - and this will allow for more eyes on new and upcoming venues that will hasten an inevitable transfer of power due to current and LONG TERM trends and policies that are hard to be perceived as anything other than a lack of user respect and usability of the site.

The shameful attempts to make this malicious program essential are becoming more evident everyday - Look at the new "DYNAMIC AD RATE" that funnels you(by adding a Large Blue "RECOMMENDED" next to it)to choose a rate modifier that allows ebay to change the current percentage to basically WHATEVER they want, by YOU allowing THEM to automatically adjust it "ebay's Daily Suggestion"!!!??? Are you kidding me????

Sad thing is I was not always as informed and cynical as I am now, and if I was a new user on ebay, I may likely go right along with all their "recommendations" that allow for me to give up 25%-30%-35%-40% and even more of my items selling price. And the sadder thing is, once again in this author's humble opinion,  if you don't go along with the "recommendations"(as in "I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse") then you are slowly and intentionally being forced out.

[mr_lincoln]

@retro_games_exchange 

My observations:

-When the GTC mandate rolled out my BIN listings tanked for a period of time Auctions were selling.

-When PLS came out I worked in a system to run one PLS campaign per quarter for 30 days, until 2022 they did well.  In 2022 they were horrible

-This year my 1st Quarter PLS was great like prior to 2022

-Historically after every 30 day PLS my BIN sales would tank for a week. 

-Now I am concerned because I am well past the week after my PLS and for almost one solid week not a single BIN sale, all sales have been Auction since last Thursday.

-So is the trend you saw and the trends I have sees some type of algorithmic manipulation that allows visibility to increase if a PLS campaign is started?  I'm sure it would be denied but at the end of the day Sellers really DO notice significant changes with the categories they sell in.  Early this week I switched over 50 BINs to Auction format and oddly some have gotten bids already while the previous BIN formats were at or over a month old ...

-On a certain level there is now too much for sale on eBay which allows a large number of listings to not be seen without hurting the monthly bottom line.  So not every sale is important but what is important are sales with higher fees paid to Home Office ... think about it.

[yuzuha]

Were you listing new items regularly, or did you just list a whole bunch of stuff and then let it sit? Because if it's the latter, the results you got aren't surprising.

When you list a whole bunch of stuff, some of the stuff is inevitably going to be more sought after than the rest. The desirable stuff sells first, and then what you're left with is the less desirable stuff that will take longer to move. That's why you need to keep adding new things on a regular basis.

[isaiah53-57]

---

@stainlessenginecovers wrote:

As more and more sellers join the 'internet selling' craze, there will more that will give up 10-15-20% additional to 'be on the top'. They are ok with making $1 instead of $3, but sell 10x more. All about the quantity sold. 

Pay to Play has been an industry standard on Search Engines for over a decade. Using the same 'term' was $1 to be at the top (this is for a click to your site and NOT for a sale) and 5 years later, that same 'term' is $6 to be on the first page of Google.

Sad thing is you are leaving, but there will still be 100 other sellers selling what you sold.

Buyers will not go without.

eBay will not go without a sale or a fee.

eBay will be here another 25 years simply because there are WAY more sellers for every item than there was even 5 years ago (pre-pandemic, which gave Millions 'time' to figure out selling online)

---

Wow - That seems like a defeatist way of looking at things...

I dont agree with it at all - In fact I believe that if the site continues its current trend forward, then it will likely be bought out at some point with the purchasers attempting to adjust for the wrong turns the company made over the last 15 years. ebay relies on word of mouth and I see sentiment changing rapidly...

Exploitation is the force driving profit in online sales right now, but it simply cannot continue - It will get to the point where the profit that venues demand will be unattainable and it will be cheaper to sell locally, especially for small sellers - This will also create an uncontrollable reduction in product and seller quality which will slow online sales even further. I believe this will force a turnaround to occur at some point - It has to if the adage of "Adjust or die" you see pointed at sellers so often on this forum has any bearing on the venue itself, which of course it does  - There is no way online selling venues can keep asking for more at the expense of loss of users and the bad word of mouth that occur along the way.

I believe a portion of the slower sales you are seeing across the board are due to this happening right now...

[joseh1445]

Good luck to you.  In my case, I removed promoted listings on all of my items.  As the ebay machine continues to get more greedy.  And when I thought the greed was not going to continue, ebay continues to think of more ways to get more money out of every sale. 

[coolections]

---

@stevemartin60 wrote:

Been screaming how terrible "pay-to-play" is for all involved for a month now, FOR EVERYONE INVOVLED, including eBay stockholders.  

---

@stevemartin60  No need to scream or worry stockholders.  For every item the OP stopped selling there is another seller who got the sale.