Ebay Sales Down

[Bosoxfan5990]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

I know for a fact they remove buyers ability to file claims after they open so many. See people posting on Facebook all the time complaining about it. Of course that raises some questions as to what the parameters are for it. A seller should want the claim opened, I find it odd sellers get upset over it

They don't understand why it's a good thing.

[mogwai316]

Oh it definitely doesn't upset me to get a claim, I'll only do refunds that way so it's all documented and makes filing for the PIP easy, etc. I'm more just thinking about the long-term repercussions here. The current system isn't sustainable as more and more people realize that they can take advantage of it to get free cards. Eventually eBay will force something to change, and I think it's more likely they do it in a way that eats into our profits as sellers than not.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by mogwai316

Oh it definitely doesn't upset me to get a claim, I'll only do refunds that way so it's all documented and makes filing for the PIP easy, etc. I'm more just thinking about the long-term repercussions here. The current system isn't sustainable as more and more people realize that they can take advantage of it to get free cards. Eventually eBay will force something to change, and I think it's more likely they do it in a way that eats into our profits as sellers than not.

People have always taken advantage of no scans even when item is delivered. I looked at my last 50 or so ese sales 9 show no delivery scans 6 of those I have feedback from buyers. Have to go all the way back to January for my last INR on an ese and it was marked delivered in November so I won that one easily.

I don't see that there us any increase in them. I do suspect there maybe some handlers who know what these are and maybe taking them out of the stream. In the end you as the seller have zero proof if the buyer got it or not. Some buyers are not going to fuss or anything others like one posted today are irrational turds and have no issue showing it but that does not prove anything about if they got it or not.

Long term it still falls on the seller. It's their choice on how to handle it. Before the ese there were many pwe sellers who just accepted the risks over the rewards. If you sell 500 cards this way and have to refund 1 or 2 its not really a loss

[BGT Masters]

Anyone else experience something odd with their sales? My sales dropped like a rock about 25% of what they are normally. Whats weird is most of the sales I am making are from items that I listed 3-4 years ago. Today for instance I've made 6 sales, every one of them is from 3-4 years ago. Its easy for me to tell because I changed the background of my newer listings 3 years ago.

Through most of this down time the only items I am selling are items were I am the only seller with the item or items that are 3-4 years old. Its nice moving older listings but not at the cost of me not selling anything else. In the past I'd be lucky to move one of them once a week if that.

[paparoke]

Originally Posted by BGT Masters

Anyone else experience something odd with their sales? My sales dropped like a rock about 25% of what they are normally. Whats weird is most of the sales I am making are from items that I listed 3-4 years ago. Today for instance I've made 6 sales, every one of them is from 3-4 years ago. Its easy for me to tell because I changed the background of my newer listings 3 years ago.

Through most of this down time the only items I am selling are items were I am the only seller with the item or items that are 3-4 years old. Its nice moving older listings but not at the cost of me not selling anything else. In the past I'd be lucky to move one of them once a week if that.

This happens to me as well. I list my listings in batches and also notice that occassionally, cards will sell on the same day from only those batches, which leads me to believe that my listings are only sporatically being seen in batches and that many are probably masked to others. Not sure why Ebay does this, but maybe if everyone had visibility of all listings of all users at any given time, then it would bog down their platform. Just a guess. I think our sales volume would be much higher if our listings weren't masked.

[mogwai316]

You can look at the impressions for the specific days that you think your listings weren't being seen, and see whether they actually were or not. All the data is there (assuming you use an ad rate above zero).

[paparoke]

Originally Posted by mogwai316

You can look at the impressions for the specific days that you think your listings weren't being seen, and see whether they actually were or not. All the data is there (assuming you use an ad rate above zero).

Thanks so much for this. I ran a 1 day report and it confirmed my suspicions. I had 6296 total listings with 1894 having zero impressions, which showed a mask rate of 30%. Now I'm sure there are several variables, like maybe no one search for a 2002 Jermaine Dye auto that day, so I know there is definitely some variance to consider. But I think based on the 30% void, it does prove at least a significant amount of masking. FYI, I promote everything @ 2%.

The biggest problem I have with masking listings is that sellers pay for the listing and if it isn't being put in front of eyeballs to sell, than I feel like the seller isn't getting the full service they deserve on the platform.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by paparoke

Thanks so much for this. I ran a 1 day report and it confirmed my suspicions. I had 6296 total listings with 1894 having zero impressions, which showed a mask rate of 30%. Now I'm sure there are several variables, like maybe no one search for a 2002 Jermaine Dye auto that day, so I know there is definitely some variance to consider. But I think based on the 30% void, it does prove at least a significant amount of masking. FYI, I promote everything @ 2%.

The biggest problem I have with masking listings is that sellers pay for the listing and if it isn't being put in front of eyeballs to sell, than I feel like the seller isn't getting the full service they deserve on the platform.

Tge brown outs have been discussed before its stated in the ebay TOS. You have to keep in mind ebays algorithm is going to push items up that it feels have the best chance to sell. If there is anything in your listing it does not like it could wipe your listing

[BGT Masters]

Originally Posted by paparoke

This happens to me as well. I list my listings in batches and also notice that occassionally, cards will sell on the same day from only those batches, which leads me to believe that my listings are only sporatically being seen in batches and that many are probably masked to others. Not sure why Ebay does this, but maybe if everyone had visibility of all listings of all users at any given time, then it would bog down their platform. Just a guess. I think our sales volume would be much higher if our listings weren't masked.

2 for 3 today. So that makes it 8 of my last 9 sales were all from items I listed 3-4 years ago. With much of the last two weeks to a lesser extent like that. Really strange.

edit: Just sold another one from 3-4 years ago. So its now 9 of 11 in the last two days alone.

[paparoke]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

Tge brown outs have been discussed before its stated in the ebay TOS. You have to keep in mind ebays algorithm is going to push items up that it feels have the best chance to sell. If there is anything in your listing it does not like it could wipe your listing

Yeah I remember you mentioning brown outs before shreve. I try to cram as much info into the item specifics and title as possible. I also try to make offers on most of my watch items and will tweak prices here and there to try to make them competitive. I'm now a firm believer that "sell similar" puts a nice mini boost to listings and I vow not to let items go over 60 days now. I wonder if I should be increasing my already 2% ad rate. I hate to add more, as the current FVF are already pushing close to 15%.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by BGT Masters

Anyone else experience something odd with their sales? My sales dropped like a rock about 25% of what they are normally. Whats weird is most of the sales I am making are from items that I listed 3-4 years ago. Today for instance I've made 6 sales, every one of them is from 3-4 years ago. Its easy for me to tell because I changed the background of my newer listings 3 years ago.

Through most of this down time the only items I am selling are items were I am the only seller with the item or items that are 3-4 years old. Its nice moving older listings but not at the cost of me not selling anything else. In the past I'd be lucky to move one of them once a week if that.

I am running at about 20-30% (ETA: I am down 70-80%) over the last 2.5 days compared to the previous 10....but I've also been in vacation mode and not sending out offers. That's still a huge drop even considering those two factors.

Originally Posted by paparoke

Thanks so much for this. I ran a 1 day report and it confirmed my suspicions. I had 6296 total listings with 1894 having zero impressions, which showed a mask rate of 30%. Now I'm sure there are several variables, like maybe no one search for a 2002 Jermaine Dye auto that day, so I know there is definitely some variance to consider. But I think based on the 30% void, it does prove at least a significant amount of masking. FYI, I promote everything @ 2%.

The biggest problem I have with masking listings is that sellers pay for the listing and if it isn't being put in front of eyeballs to sell, than I feel like the seller isn't getting the full service they deserve on the platform.

One thing you can do is a spot check from a random day two weeks ago or whatever and see how things compare.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by paparoke

Yeah I remember you mentioning brown outs before shreve. I try to cram as much info into the item specifics and title as possible. I also try to make offers on most of my watch items and will tweak prices here and there to try to make them competitive. I'm now a firm believer that "sell similar" puts a nice mini boost to listings and I vow not to let items go over 60 days now. I wonder if I should be increasing my already 2% ad rate. I hate to add more, as the current FVF are already pushing close to 15%.

Problem with 2% is alot of sellers use that. So it kind of counters itself out

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

Problem with 2% is alot of sellers use that. So it kind of counters itself out

I bet 2% is a huge edge. It puts us ahead of everybody who uses 0%, which I bet is a lot of sellers. Personally I do 2.5% for this very reason though.

[paparoke]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

Problem with 2% is alot of sellers use that. So it kind of counters itself out

Yeah I bet a bunch of sellers do that too. I'm just glad the ad rate isn't charged on most transactions.

Originally Posted by rwperu34

I bet 2% is a huge edge. It puts us ahead of everybody who uses 0%, which I bet is a lot of sellers. Personally I do 2.5% for this very reason though.

I agree with you there, I'm sure the vast majority of sellers do not utilize the ad rate. I may have to try 2.5% as well, because I think Shreve has a good point too. We may be nulling out our rankings amongst all the other 2% folks.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

I bet 2% is a huge edge. It puts us ahead of everybody who uses 0%, which I bet is a lot of sellers. Personally I do 2.5% for this very reason though.

Every seller I see on Facebook tell others to us 2% at least. It's a pretty common thing to tell people to get more traffic on all the sellers groups. Ebay raised tge number from 1 to 2 due to the reason most sellers were using 1%

[shrevecity]

Will say with impressions mine have not fallen off the way I figured tgey would have. I ended 2200 listings last week. Started over have added about 50 fixed price since. Have 30 auctions up and my impressions for this month have fallen off about 50% the past few days. So something is a miss or its further evidence that auctions and new listing get a boost. Could be a bigger boost than many have thought

[thenightman]

29 auctions went down last night. Grossed $2,233.78. Not bad.

[Raleigh504]

I do 3.5% and it has been that way for awhile. There has been a jump in sales (and they have been consistent) since upping it to 3.5%. Also it seems that maybe half will be due to it vs. most sales that I have. I did 2% for a long time before that and I just didn't like the results of it and it seemed that more sales had that ad promo taken out compared to it at 3.5% but that is just from me looking vs and actual scientific look.

I also increased my min price too to account for the 3.5%

[f2tornado]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

I bet 2% is a huge edge. It puts us ahead of everybody who uses 0%, which I bet is a lot of sellers. Personally I do 2.5% for this very reason though.

I did 2% and bumped it up to 3%. Maybe a slight difference. I went to 3.1% a couple weeks ago to edge any flat number folks. It seems like no matter what I do, I sell about 10-20% of the BINs within the first couple days, then one here and there after that. I usually need to hit the send offer button to get a volume bump after the first few days. Buyers are smart and know that's a possibility. I try not to keep inventory sitting for more than two months. Maybe once I get a few more bills paid I can pay for the basic store subscription. That would allow me to sit on a higher number of items without eating relisting fees.

[rwperu34]

Originally Posted by f2tornado

I did 2% and bumped it up to 3%. Maybe a slight difference. I went to 3.1% a couple weeks ago to edge any flat number folks. It seems like no matter what I do, I sell about 10-20% of the BINs within the first couple days, then one here and there after that. I usually need to hit the send offer button to get a volume bump after the first few days. Buyers are smart and know that's a possibility. I try not to keep inventory sitting for more than two months. Maybe once I get a few more bills paid I can pay for the basic store subscription. That would allow me to sit on a higher number of items without eating relisting fees.

I should probably up it to 2.6% for this very reason. I do this when bidding on auctions (ie bid $10.07 instead of $10) for that very reason.

[BGT Masters]

The fact we have to pay ebay an extra percentage to sell our items on top of the 13% or whatever is such a great scheme for them.

I'm sitting on a goose egg for sales today. Which is about as rare as an unassisted triple play for me. I did have a buyer ask me for me pictures to an item they wanted. So far a complete dead week for me has followed by a week of one good day one bad day, one good day, one bad, one good, and nothing today.

[paparoke]

Originally Posted by BGT Masters

The fact we have to pay ebay an extra percentage to sell our items on top of the 13% or whatever is such a great scheme for them.

I'm sitting on a goose egg for sales today. Which is about as rare as an unassisted triple play for me. I did have a buyer ask me for me pictures to an item they wanted. So far a complete dead week for me has followed by a week of one good day one bad day, one good day, one bad, one good, and nothing today.

I agree! The ad rate seems like a scam to me, just another way for them to grab more money. One day there will be a platform that will either force Ebay to lower their high fees or just take over the market. That doesn't exist yet, but I'm hopeful. COMC isn't it.

[premium1981]

Originally Posted by BGT Masters

The fact we have to pay ebay an extra percentage to sell our items on top of the 13% or whatever is such a great scheme for them.

I'm sitting on a goose egg for sales today. Which is about as rare as an unassisted triple play for me. I did have a buyer ask me for me pictures to an item they wanted. So far a complete dead week for me has followed by a week of one good day one bad day, one good day, one bad, one good, and nothing today.

If your sales are that bad you need to take an honest look at your store. If you are selling baseball cards right now and nothing is moving, it isn't ebay, its you. Not trying to be rude, but its the truth. Baseball is blazing hot right now and everyone I know is selling cards like crazy. Your cards, your prices, your account health, or something is not good if nothing is selling.

Originally Posted by paparoke

I agree! The ad rate seems like a scam to me, just another way for them to grab more money. One day there will be a platform that will either force Ebay to lower their high fees or just take over the market. That doesn't exist yet, but I'm hopeful. COMC isn't it.

Ebay fees are not expensive. Take a peek at other auction houses and platforms and do an actual comparision. Ebay is one of the cheapest. You are paying for access to many millions of buyers. We all want more for less. But ebay fees are not really that bad. They could raise a couple more percentage points and I wouldn't even bat an eye at it. Look some corporation numbers, and other industry numbers and see how much they spend on advertising alone. Everything in life is perspective.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by paparoke

I agree! The ad rate seems like a scam to me, just another way for them to grab more money. One day there will be a platform that will either force Ebay to lower their high fees or just take over the market. That doesn't exist yet, but I'm hopeful. COMC isn't it.

I agree with premium here the fees are good for the reach you get. Amazon charges more and treats sellers alot worse. Sorry there is not another site on the horizon that will be able to beat ebay fees and provide the protections they do for both buyer and seller. Yes it seems they do favor buyers but reality is they protect sellers in slot of ways as well. And do alot of things that if fees were cheaper would fall on the back of sellers.

They do all your sales tax,if not you could be liable for making sure that money gets where it us supposed to go.

They make accounting pretty simple in regards to figuring sales shipping and ebay expenses.

This list is actually pretty long of things tgey do for sellers

[Raleigh504]

Originally Posted by rwperu34

I should probably up it to 2.6% for this very reason. I do this when bidding on auctions (ie bid $10.07 instead of $10) for that very reason.

Haha I do the same thing for bidding too. Weird numbers because most do rounded or .25, .5 or .75 it seems.