No Ebay sales for over a month, very slow this year

[tectonicplates]

I'm a personal seller and I currently have twenty items listed - mainly clothes and a couple of other things.

I always list everything as Buy It Now and just let them sit there, and they sell whenever.

This time last year I was selling two or three items per month. This year, practically nothing. My last sale was six weeks ago, and the one before must've been about six weeks before that. I do get views and watchers but I think people just watch things for fun. It feels like the whole place is practically dead. I used to have best offers deactivated, but I've reintroduced it to some of my listings (with a minimum offer thing) but not received any offers.

Before anyone says it, I'm on Facebook selling groups and nothing ever sells there either. As has been mentioned before, there's a lot of discussion and questions but very little actual buying or selling going on.

I think people just like window shopping.

I used to be an ardent eBayer, but now I'm just put off. Too many scammers when you try & sell and too many scammers when you try & buy. Plus eBay seem to be against sellers,which surely is ass backwards? I don't bother any more. In fact, I deleted the app the other week. Maybe everyone else has come to the same conclusion.

Yes eBay siding with buyers has not helped things. And adding in new charges - you have no option but to auto-relist but they will charge you when it auto-relists so you have to keep checking when your items are ending. It's sneaky. And people wanting stuff for nothing.

Ebay doesn't auto-relist anything of mine. Why not, Is just a feature forced onto some sellers?

''Watch things for fun'

What does that mean ? I've previously seen another post from an EBayer getting cross as they had many watchers but not buyers

Like, I would think many people I put lots of things on watch to compare or look at my leisure. I probably only buy 1 out of every 10 watched items.

It's just a tool to use

I can take auto relist off using the classic site, if I use the EBay app there's no way to take relist off (that I've found).

Ah, maybe auto-relisting is an app thing. My phone is too rubbish to use app.

You said you put sizing on your title.... do you also put size on the filters as so many don't

I filter by size a lot, and realise I probably miss a lot but don't have the time to scroll though the ones that don't

Thanks Frayed I will have a look.

If the items have been there for a while the I would just relist.

EBay will push you lower down the search results if you are not getting much interest, the sellers making them the most money will be at the top of the rankings.

Reslisting will move you back up the rankings.

Sometimes MNers are brave enough to post links to their Ebay listings to get feedback on how to improve them. Excellent quality pictures seem to be extremely important wrt clothes.

I use every filter and drop down list that I can. I'm also confident that my photos are of great quality.

I will be relisting some stuff soon. I wish there was somewhere else I could sell my clothes but there isn't. I've tried Facebook groups but they simply don't work.

Are other Ebay sellers successfully selling the clothing you offer for similar (higher) prices as you offer?

Yes. I spend a lot of time on my listings and a big part of that is searching through completed listings for similar brands/items so I know how much things have actually sold for.

I've sold clothes on FB marketplace, but the local selling groups tends to be friends selling to friends.

I've also noticed the places that pay cash per kilo for unwanted clothes have dropped the amount they pay and increased the days and hours they're open.

You want to search SOLD listings, not completed. To see the real prices things sold for.

I meant sold listings. I already do that.

I have been doing this for years without problems and it's only this year that the sales have all dropped off.

I think looking at completed to see what hasn't sold is helpful too. When I look I think it is just about the volumes of stuff on there, rather than there being anything wrong with the listings. Buyers have a lot of choice, particularly with clothes.

Ebay is dying. I've been selling for over 15 years and it's def at it's worst.

A few years ago I was seriously considering starting a business. Now I'm starting to decide what to just put in the charity shop as I can't be bothered with making a few pounds on things for all the hassle.

Sales are very slow and I'm practically giving the stuff away and it is mostly new with tags and good brands. I've tried offering free postage didn't make any difference. A few months ago I tried auction, wasn't impressed with what I got, some stuff sold at a reasonable amount but still less than I thought I would have got. However a brand new bikini with tags on sold for 99p and it was Gossard so a good brand, was gutted about that.

Why did you list it for 99p if that price was unacceptable?

Because (a) she hoped more people would place bids, and (b) we're always told that if we start the price too high, nobody will be interested . I would've thought that would be obvious to an expert such as yourself.

I don't know why you called me an expert.
I don't even claim to be able to answer for other posters.

I do know not to list something for a price I find unacceptable. I don't take the risk that item will sell for that price. Loss leaders work for brick-shops and even big online retailers, but not individual sellers with limited selection.

£3 postage+99p would be 40p in Ebay fees, 56p in paypal fees. 3p profit. At least Michelle shouldn't be out of pocket by selling the bikini.

@StrangeLookingParasite to return to your point on page 1 where the seller stated she didn't add the best offer feature. Ebay have added new default shite features to their mobile app, one of which is to automatically add BO to BIN ads a few days before the item ends. I only noticed this when I received offers on one of my BIN listings.

They also don't allow you to list the sale for a certain no of days, only "good till cancelled", reduce the BIN price by a certain % automatically as time goes on, and offer best pricing suggestions - which is stupidly low because all they want is a sale. You can over ride all this on the desktop site, so I now start my ads on the app to take the photos, and save as draft to finish on the desktop. Super annoying and timewasting.

As for the seller putting the price up, well I play around with the BIN all the time, weirdly some brands will go for a higher price sometimes even if you've had no bites when priced lower. You get different buyers looking all the time.

Maria you can turn off the easy pricing bit (where they gradually reduce the price over time) on the app - I think when you go to confirm the listing it says turn easy pricing on or off.

I actually make a point of creating all listings on my desktop computer, using the advanced listing tool, as I know the app and mobile site miss things out.