To ask what is going on with Ebay?

[shonapop]

I'm a long time seller on Ebay, almost 20 years. I have always sold everything I list, no matter how shit it is. This past year, very little has sold.
Anyone any idea why? Is it the cost of living crisis or Is Ebay trying to pull a fast one and attempting to make us 'promote' all the listings at extra profit to themselves? I never do this, is this where I'm going wrong?

I find it's overrun with stuff from commercial resellers and annoying to search through the cheap tat to find decent stuff.
Vinted seems more popular in my friend group but kids clothes go for very little.

Too much dross to wade through now I'm afraid.

The private sellers are few and far between. It's also highly irritating that the site doesn't save the search parameters I set ( generally UK only for me) and I find something only to discover it's in the USA and its £20 extra in postage....

OP it's not just you, I think it's a combination of the cost of living crisis and the huge number of eBay sellers now. You have to be really precise in the title of you listings to ever be seen. I have stuff for sale which has been up on eBay for over a year and then suddenly it sells, who knows why it takes so long.

Everyone is selling and buying on Vinted. Much more user friendly and cheaper.

I think it very much depends what you're selling. I sell an item regularly and it sells well. However, I agree that there have definitely been less sales in the last few months.
I do pay to promote my items, which I find massively annoying, but it's the only way to get good sales these days. But, I then get fed up with buyers who think that they can make stupid offers. My items generally sell for between £4.99 and £12/£15 depending on the exact thing. Some buyers seem to think I should give them to them for half the price I have advertised. I've worked out my prices by checking previous sales, and how much the individual item is actually going for these days.
I take a lot of time listing everything about my item (track listings etc for many items), most sellers do not. I also include postage costs/offer free postage - again, in my category, a lot of sellers do not. I explain to buyers when they make their ridiculous offers, that I have to pay eBay fees plus postage costs and, although some people understand this, others think that they can still get away with being stupid.
With postage having gone up by 35% in recent months for large letters, sellers can't afford to offer items at cheap prices, unfortunately, this has put off buyers who aren't intelligent enough to realise that just because somebody offers free postage it doesn't mean they can actually post it for free.

I do think the promotion of your listings does help, and, when I do get sales it does show that it usually comes from items that have been promoted and that a buyer has come to the listing in that way, but it does annoy me massively that I have to do it.

It might be worth you trying the promotions for a while, just to see if it will help you get those extra sales. If you do use it, I recommend going for the 'dynamic ad rate' and setting an upper limit of how much you are willing to pay as this may give you an edge and an extra push over other sellers who don't choose that option.

Whenever I search for anything on eBay, the first few pages are always full of businesses and drop-ship sellers, not individuals selling random things from their garage.

Vinted is better for one-off items nowadays.

I used to sell loads on eBay but have been put off by fees now. They are extortionate. Also how the money is paid and no longer being instant. I use Vinted, have to list cheaper but sell far more.

Ebay and Etsy have both been overrun by dodgy looking overseas companies selling misadvertised dross unfortunately. I still sell the odd thing there, but you have to thoroughly vet sellers before buying anything from them, and lots of people cba with it.

This 👆

There are other methods of selling that don't incur such ridiculous fees.

Another one for Vinted unless it is a well-known brand. Then the search functionality carries you ime.

Impossible to list- they w ant so many boxes filled
Listings don't show up-I made the same search today and yesterday and there were double the listings today- very specific item being searched
Overseas sales have just gone. China blocked about 6 months before the pandemic and not come back (used to send a lot there) and shipping is too high to Europe now.
Vinted for small stuff

I have free listings for 2 months and have sold about £1000 worth but slowly. Listed 8 items on Vinted yesterday and all gone

I have 10,000 feedback on ebay- probably bought and sold double that- originally had a US account as no UK Ebay.

What I can't understand is how sometimes when I search for my own listings I can't find some of them and these items don't sell. Very odd. Perhaps I should look at the promotion tab.

I only sold personal stuff on ebay (not as a job) but I stopped because my account was hacked and money was sent to someone else's pay pal and ebay gave zero help. I also found that they were always on the side of the buyer - I was about £40 out of pocked when I sold camera equipment on there and in spite of the fact that the buyer hadn't read the specification I was made to do a full refund and pay postage both ways (to send and receive the equipment back) although it wasn't my fault.

For the above reasons I stopped using them. Of course if multiple people do that the platform dies.

It's been rubbish recently and I don't sell much

I think the fees will be even more soon.

It's a shame

It's their own fault. Ebay was working fine until they imposed extortionate fees. No one's going to want to sell at a loss. Plus your best offers on your items are ignored.

I used to buy loads on ebay but tend to buy from Facebook marketplace and Vinted now. Ebay is just so full of businesses selling cheap tat and it's really hard to filter them out if you're looking for decent second hand stuff.

I have tried vinted but just feel everyone wants something for nothing. I wonder if I'm best just to start giving it all to charity. It's so time-consuming, too. It used to be worth it.

I'm a buyer not a seller and from my POV eBay seems so overpriced now, I sometimes compare items across both sites and recently for a particular brand dress recently eBay was twice the price. Vinted is riskier as the stuff can be in worse condition and sellers are less reliable but for the price it's worth a try. Secondhand clothes (at least at the price point I buy) have really devalued recently.

Have you tried putting stuff on Marketplace? You get a few cheeky fuckers but there are no selling fees and some people will collect. I buy stuff off there occasionally and never had any issues.

People looking for a second-hand thing would, in the past, have turned to eBay first but now I go to Marketplace (less choice where I am but picking up locally is attractive) and Vinted. I spent ages looking for something on eBay then a year or so later it occurred to me to look on Vinted and there were loads- so I think sellers have moved there, it's gained critical mass and buyers have followed.

So your market on eBay is reduced. Plus as pp said all the dropship crap /out of stock stuff to wade through.

I intend to do boot sales. I had good results at the end of last year but got interrupted by winter. Looking forward to next month when they start again.

No-one goes on eBay to buy stuff anymore. Facebook marketplace or Vinted.

What happened to the app spock don't know how to spell it but they used to advertise on TV.
Ebay has alot of competición now.

I used to buy a lot from it, both for my business and for myself. But it’s become a nuisance. I have frequently ordered things that clearly didn’t exist. Then it takes several days before a case can be opened, and finally I get a refund nearly a fortnight after ordering. This happened three times on the trot for an item I needed for my business (each time I reordered from a different seller, who also turned out to not have the item and I was refunded again). Six weeks later and I still didn’t have the item. So I went to Amazon! And I’m noticing that if I see an item listed at £6 available in various sizes, when I put in the size I want it jumps up to £10, and if you put other sizes in there turns out to be nothing at the advertised price. Or a post says there are various sizes, but when you click on it there is only XXL or XXXS - no average sizes. So I’ve just given up wasting my time trying! And if you email eBay they never respond. So it’s just not what it used to be.