My Dad always says there's 3 kinds of people: those that MAKE things happen, those that WATCH things happen, and those that don't know WHATS happening!
It is hilarious that EBay wants to expand into the luxury market when they offer no real seller protection. What makes them think sellers will risk getting scammed on such expensive items? Then there are also the buyers who want to rent luxury items and will wear it for a month and then return it. I don’t list any of my designer items on EBay EVER because of that.
I "sold" an authentic Nike USWNT soccer jersey earlier this year that came back 2 weeks later covered in perfume and pet hair... Pisses me off but what do you do? Guy left me a 5 star review said it didn't fit his wife........ ok lol
I'm reading all this and I have better higher end items to list this fall. I'm very anxious about doing so. I just opened an account on another venue to sell my vintage glass bc eBay resellers seem to undercut each other and screw themselves. I think that's what bothers me the most. They don't know the worth of the higher priced items and undercut the lowest priced seller where it gets to the point that you might as well put your vintage item in the closet and look to sell elsewhere. Frustrating.
My biggest issue with eBay is the poor customer service to their sellers. They definitely do not have our back. I would never sell a luxury or high ticket item on eBay …the long window for return is ridiculous ….seems recently buyers will want full refund with no return of merchandise and if they don’t get their way they initiate a charge back with credit card. I much prefer Mercari’s 3 day window and the fact there is no return price haggling. I think eBay has cut their own throat by allowing buying fraud and scams to run rampant on the site. Fraud eBay buyers want to claim item was damaged or not as described AND not pay for it AND keep item. That doesn’t work on mercari….you get a refund but the item has to be returned…including broken
I'm an everything seller. Most specifically, a hard goods seller. Minimal clothing (maybe .05%) Shoes are perhaps 2% of my sales. All other items are hard goods. Mostly things that people need. I keep a focus on Made in the USA and other greater nations, but will grab Made in China when it has a high sell through rate. Very few collectibles. I have an extremely low return rate. Very rare. I purposely pick items with a 60% -100%+ sell through rate. I literally look up everything, unless I'm well versed enough to just grab it with confidence. With everything described above, I have never been "screwed" by eBay as a seller. They have always had my back for the last 3+ years. Clothing may very well offer a completely different experience that I'm not aware of. I encourage sellers to focus more on hard goods to open the doors for more satisfies buyers with a much lower return rate. Focus on items that can be packed/shipped in 5 mins or less and shipped anywhere in the Continental US for $14 or less.
Same I don’t sell anything expensive on EBay because I know if something goes wrong they will screw me. Those items go on Poshmark exclusively. Mercari has very poor seller customer service too. Beware of them also they screw sellers alot too.
Okay, one thing ya'll need to keep in mind. Ebay is an older platform, with a much older demographic than most of these newer platforms. That being said, I know for some of my older collectables such's post cards, marbles, stamps, coins, etc. etc. those demographics are dying off. I would argue, that there is NOT a decline in many or most categories. In one of my categories, I was doing 800-1200 dollars a day, now that categories produces 15.00-100.00 a day. I had about 200 buyers that bought with me every month some every day, I check those buyers feedback and they just aren't buying, not just from me but anywhere, and they were spending thousands a month with me. This tells me its financial for some, and as mentioned earlier, death from others. I know my clients in this category i speak of are 60-80 year old range, some older, retired docs, lawyers, dentists, professors, mostly professionals(retired). I kind of rambled on as I had to step away a few times writing this, but its food for thought. good luck.
I am ready to quit ebay. I sell rare books and now they list other dealers in my listing and show their listings. I have been on ebay for 14 years and have 100% positive feedback. Now my listings in my store show the picture and the filled in items, publisher and so on, then right below that they show other dealers like items. The you must scroll way down to know about my store. Why, when I am paying for the listing should other listings be on that page...........
I can tell you why I left. Fees too high, fees on shipping costs, fees to process payments and finally shipping costs are way too high. OP Shops have also moved to full retail & everything is too expensive to buy.
I am a part time reseller. Traditionally, I work weekends Friday-Sunday. I've always listed during the week. I haven't quit ebay entirely BUT since the pandemic we are short handed. I now work 70 to 80 hour weeks. It so hard to list and source now. I'm 55 and exhausted. I let my store go for months because I didn't have time for it. I am now forcing myself to list a few things every day because this is what I plan on doing when I retire. Im trying to build up my store again. We lost A LOT of people through retirement and death. I'm just putting out a different perspective. I would love to keep listing and selling, but I just don't have the time I used to have. I'm probably counted in with the sellers leaving the platform.
The Niche Lady has a link to a company that will prepare the listing drafts for you if you send them the pictures. I haven't tried it yet. I think it is $1.75 per listing. I'm going to try and pick some higher priced items so I can afford to pay the $1.75 per listing and give it a try.
Other than shipping being expensive. The thrift stores are getting far too expensive to make money. Our Goodwill had t-shirts from $5.99 to $11.99. I am not surprised people are quitting. You have to find other ways to make money.
@Mattsy-sells better yet..just grab what they pull to the curb. I've made good $$$ doing so. I barely thrift besides the outlets. Other than that...I see what ppl toss out and clean it up and resell
I was at Goodwill two days ago, it was barren. I never saw anything like it. Each row... At least 300 ft Long, each side maybe .. maybe had twenty items. It was like Goodwill in Venezuela. Again, I never saw anything like it. Either ppl are not donating and selling themselves, giving stuff away pre- goodwill donations or Goodwill is putting everything online. I think it's a lil of all three.
We resellers treat ebay like its the only God body app. There are other apps that others crosslist on and still making a living. Poshmark, Depop and Mercari have been beating my eBay something serious. I barely have been paying attention to ebay unless its for comps. Also, I dont shop Goodwill stores anymore and havent for 2 years. I journey 2 hours to go to the Goodwill bins. I live in central Illinois where is in all directions 2 hours close to 5 Goodwill bin outlets. I also yard sale and dumpster dive. There are many ways to stay afloat in these times. Dare yourself to think outside the box. You shouldn't allow Goodwill and eBay to make you or break you..go outside of your comfort zone😊
To add to that person who was talking about her Goodwill that stopped doing dollar days, my Goodwill won’t sell the donated nice purses or merchandise in the store anymore they are selling it online to the highest bidders, I went in there the past few weeks and all that was in there was junk, looked like just a very few items sparsely scattered across the shelf’s and what was there truly looked like it needed to be put in the dumpster out back
I've noticed this in a lot of thrift stores. One thrift store I frequent had good prices and a mix of high end items, now they are opening up a "boutique" thrift store up the street. Which means they are sending their higher end items to this store and jacking up the price. Good for them, but I'm not going to go to a thrift store that just sells junk for same prices and then pay up even higher prices for pre-owned items. I'd rather go to garage sales now.
@@delightfuldeb1218 I agree, not to mention these things were DONATED TO THEM, what gives them the right to sell it in a boutique or online to highest bidders, to me it sounds like it’s not a charity anymore but a scam
They aren't thrift stores anyore - they are operating like a regular store with regular prices. What's going to happen when we are a cashless society - how will we pay cash at garage sales! Yikes!@@patriciawilder66
Thrift stores used to be my #1 source. That has changed. Prices are up, some like Goodwill do their own auctions, and more. The Goodwill bins can still be a great source. It can be like going to 50 garage sales without driving all over town. But some bin stores are awful.
First thing Resellers need to keep their mouths shut when sourcing. You guys talk too much! You're telling the employees in these Goodwill stores what you're doing, and they are raising their prices. Get your source on and keep it moving. As for eBay, it's just a stepping stone for me. Reselling is not my end goal, branding my own product is what I am working on now and I will be selling on my own website.
Yep! I said this exact thing. UA-camrs need to keep their mouths shut! I walked into goodwill in Bakersfield and they were using a UA-camrs account to train new employees on what to pull for the online store. No lie.
i am a seller on ebay and lets say i sell an item that cost me 25$ and its worth 40$ , and i sell it for 40$ i only make 5$ because ebay fees are 13% plus you have to promote the item or they wont show on the list and thats 11% plus taxes and shipping, so ebay fees are 24% its not right, because there are sellers selling the same items for below its worth just to get feedback
@nathanmoore7120 If you are selling a $10 dollar item but shipping from let's say NC to OR it costs $8.55 dollars for even an item that weighs 14 ounces with a box. Even state to state it costs $7.60. Just two years ago we were talking $3.50 and $4.25 which correlates to people not willing to buy an item that shipping costs almost as much as the item. It's a psychological manner and many sellers on eBay have inventory now that falls into that category and why sales have dropped tremendously.
@@JohnnyLightningV10 I see! I am from the UK and our shipping is not as expensive. The UK is very small compared to yours! Thanks for taking the time to reply mate 👍🏻
Goodwill now has an eBay store and raised it's prices because UA-camrs told them that they are making a fortune from reselling their items. eBay wants a piece of the action, also, by raising fees and promoted listings. 😢
Goodwills lack the staff to keep an online store running. My local goodwill cant even keep the employees in store. They just fired the manager that worked there for several years . I think its best for resellers to focus on getting the best items at the lowest price possible . I only shop at the bins and a local honey hole.
@girlwiththecurlyfro2552 it also depends on what you sell. I still find A LOT and for low prices but I can tell the workers don't know what they are looking at.
I haven't been goodwill shopping like I used to in the last couple years because of the pricing.. I don't even resell I'm a collector. They had a table set priced at 699$ for a coffee table and 300$ a piece for the 2 end tables. It's goodwill! That's what they cost brand new. I have seen dollar tree candles that are 10 years old and stale priced a 2-3$ .. its become corrupted i believe.
Due to the decline in the economy I think I will have to throw in the towel eventually down the road as it gets worse.. but for now there are still things I can improve on and change up to get more sales
I got an email from ebay asking if I wanted to be a part of research. I signed up for it and received another email a few days ago (late August 2023) asking me to take a survey. I only looked at the first question and DID NOT complete it because it consisted of three photos that were options for sellers to promote their items and they wanted to know which was most appealing!! They were "Promote your listings", "Promote your brand", "Promote offsite".
eBay killed things with promoted listings in 2015! Killed…downhill ever since! eBay has a delay on the site! I get a notification and it takes several mins to convert to desktop or phone! Definite delay! Impressions are back but sales are worse! I don’t believe their numbers they don’t add up to what I’m seeing! Even the sale tally isn’t correct!
Economic issues in the USA ARE KILLING both eBay and resellers and buyers…..everyone is having to change what they’re doing, increasing prices to survive….
Generally I think that the increase in fees, shipping and increase in prices for inventory across the board are making it too hard for many sellers to make a living on ebay. Mega sellers with massive inventory are more likely to survive the "seasons" versus the smaller guys. I will also say that the mega sellers with huge stores who also have monetized youtube channels related to their stores greatly help their income as well as converting viewers and subscribers to buyers/repeat buyers. Too many big sharks to let the little fish have a life within the sea of resellers in my honest opinion.
Exactly, the way they charge the feew and the percentage is too much of a piece of the potential profit, leaving you making less money than them, when it is suppose to be the other way around.
I’ve been selling for 20 years with 100% feedback . I have more on now than I ever had, but the slowest month ever. I’m trying all the tricks, but nothing is working.
I think the excess death rates have something to do with the slow sales. There is an abundance of donated goods due to deaths. That is creating an environment of more people becoming resellers but we need to realize the buyers are generally older and richer and they are dying from the clot shot.
@@phillipperkins5476 I don't think it's ridiculous...my neighbor died from it this past Febuary! They sold his van and I saw his son removing all his belongings from the house!
Apparently they thought i was a BOT in a notification when i logged into my selling figures, people just wanting to return items before they have even received them !!! (you know the ones), the constant list 20 to sell 5 regime which we all know ends up with you needing a storage unit/warehouse lol, my workaround has been to auction the things i can roughly 1/3 of stock just to get viewers in and possibly sales
I just stopped shopping and donating to goodwill all together I go to mom and Pop thrift stores all the way goodwill has gotten sick with greed . Selling used t shirts for 5.99 when the same shirt at Walmart is 5.88 they are out of there minds
Yours is the most intelligent explanation I've seen for what I've seen happening and what I've suspected myself. Ebay is passing its increased costs along to the sellers and squeezing out the everyday seller by jacking up the promotional fees, and if you don't go with them forget about buyers seeing your stuff. The only problem with this is that many average small time sellers can't just pass the cost along to their buyers because especially right now people don't want to pay more, not even for higher priced items, and there's too much competition to be able to raise prices. I chose the dynamic ad rate for a couple of things and ended up with less than half of the listed price after all the fees were taken out. I'm already lowering my prices to remain competitive and have a prayer of selling anything and now this? Ridiculous. I don't have as much wiggle room in my pricing because I don't sell designer items so I'm just the kind of seller this is going to ruin. I only sell stuff from my own closet, I don't go out and buy things in thrift stores to sell. Raising my prices to make up for higher fees is not going to sell my stuff faster, in fact if I do that the stuff will sit there especially if other sellers are selling the same or similar items for less. This will end up canceling out the benefits of going with the higher promotional rates. And this is a big problem for me. If I'm going to make half or less than half of what I made before it's not going to be worth it after a while, especially on stuff I paid retail price for in the first place. In the past few years less and less is going into my pocket. After all the fees are taken out I'm not even making half of my listing price, which is usually less than I paid for it. So just yesterday for the very first time I've cross listed on Poshmark. We'll see how that goes. I might have to branch out even further. To be honest I think Ebay is discouraging the small time buyer from listing in the first place. If you're just doing this for some extra money it's not worth the time and effort to make so little money. As a result sellers are going to look for other ways to make money. And Ebay doesn't care if people like me leave, they are putting their time and energy into the big time profit makers for them. The only problem is that no one becomes a big time seller unless they start small first, and if you discourage the small time sellers they'll get discouraged before they ever become big time sellers. I think Ebay's strategy is short-sighted and in the end will fail their goals for their own profits in the future. By the way, my sales plummeted sharply as soon as this dynamic ad rate thing started. I barely sold anything for the first couple of months after that started because I refused to go up to 15 or 16% and even when I gave in my sales were still lower than 50% of any year, not just last year. If your listings are still at the lower fixed ad rate forget about people seeing them. And I don't necessarily buy it that suddenly everything I sell is through the promotional listings, which is what Ebay is telling me. Seriously? I didn't even promote anything last year and everything sold just fine. I have continued to try to do what I can to sell my stuff, so something beyond my control must be causing this. First I blamed the economy and inflation because my items were perhaps appealing to buyers that were buying less overall, but that didn't hold water after a while because people were out there in the stores and all the news reports said people were still spending. So I suspected it was Ebay itself that was the cause of this. I do all the things you say to do - concentrate on what sells, pay attention to trends and competitor pricing, send out offers, etc., but even the stuff I was selling last year and the 3 years before that suddenly stopped selling and I don't buy it that suddenly those items are not so popular anymore. My listings are very detailed, I put that much attention into them. And yet my sales on those items just fell off a cliff this year. I don't think that's a result of changing buyer demand either, or that my stuff is in an oversaturated category. In fact I see LESS of those items for sale this year than in the past 3 years. On top of that I see the same or similar items selling for more than my listings (yes I check that stuff) and that told me my items were not reaching the buyers. I am a top seller with 100% satisfaction rate and I've been selling for 5 years now so this should not be happening. Speaking of being a top seller, I just got an email from Ebay telling me that my top seller ranking is in jeopardy if I don't sell another 10 items in the next 2 months. For the very first time I don't even know I'm going to make that! That's how bad it's gotten! First they make it so hard for me to sell anything that I sell a lot less, then they want to penalize me for what is their fault in the first place! That was the final straw and what has been the final push for me to cross list. I firmly believe that the less you sell the less your stuff gets seen by buyers, but how can you ever overcome that without making so little it eventually becomes not worth it? It ends up being a vicious circle. I am not against lowering my prices but there becomes a point where it's not worth all the time and effort to make pennies on my items. I am not a high volume seller - I can't be doing this for hours every day and make that little. It's just not worth it after a while. Plus I have tried slashing prices on some things and they're STILL not selling! So that's not even a solution in this situation! I think you might be over-optimistic about the future with Ebay. I think they're going to continue to make it harder for us as sellers to try to nickel and dime more money out of us and changing our strategy is not going to make up for this. And it won't matter what we sell or how we strategize or lower prices. There is only so far I can lower my expectations. They make it harder to make money but at some point it becomes way too much work for constantly diminishing returns. And I don't think telling new sellers to start out not promoting it's going to help them. They are not going to be seen by anyone and will never sell anything. So they will get discouraged and move on. Fortunately for me Ebay is a side hustle and not my primary source of income. But I am not in the category where going without that income is easy either. Maybe some of your advice will work and is reasonable for people that pay pennies for their items to begin with, but remember that a lot of us are selling our own stuff that we bought on sale in stores but not at thrift prices. Thanks for your insights, though, as I say this is the most intelligent take on this issue I have seen so far.
Hi Beau, this podcast was so interesting! I sell predominantly women’s clothes and shoes. In my opinion, I feel like eBay looks and feels dated compared to some of the other platforms, and therefore, less appealing to the younger buyers. Poshmark has fewer active buyers, but I feel a larger percentage of those buyers are looking to buy clothes than over on eBay, where there is a much broader range of items for sale. I crosslist to eBay, Poshmark and Mercari and now sell more on Poshmark than eBay - this is relatively new. I think we have to consider who our buyer is and where they are shopping. What kind of shopping experience are they looking for? Maybe ebay isn’t the only (or best) platform to sell clothing on anymore.
Agreed but don’t tell them! Let them just keep moaning about eBay while people like me and you capitalise! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 I am part of a few FB eBay groups and when people are saying they can’t go on any longer, I tell them to give up and get a job if it’s not working. It frustrates me how people believe they have a god given right for their items to sell! Someone was complaing because they got negitive feedback because the buyer said the item of clothing they purchased had a horrible smell. They seller was livid and said how dare they leave bad feedback! I wash all my clothing before I sell because if I purchased an item and it smelt fusty, I would be pissed off!
Agree EBay really needs to update their branding and look badly. How hard is it for them to hire some young trendy graphic designers to fix their website and app??
Sales have declined so much. It definitely makes it hard to continue to put in work when you aren't seeing anything in return but declining sales. I've received offers and cannot even accept them.
I think you are right. I am just starting to add quite a few items to eBay, which all have been higher end and a lot of them are selling versus the lower end. Thanks for pointing that out as I will keep that in mind. By the way, I have subscribed and love your attitude, your faith and the love for your family.
Innovation- not just eBay needs to be innovative, but the sellers also need to be innovative. The selling platform is a tool we use. What can we do to increase our sales? Can we try another tool within the platform? Can we try another type of item? Different photo techniques?
Beau first I loved your answer to "yes my wife works "!! Stay at home Moms are hard workers and in this day it's more important than ever to know what your children are being taught! Stay at home Mom here and all my kids are grown now. It's a blessing for sure! Two your information is very helpful. I am a newer reseller and I've had issues with listing going missing 🤷♀️ I'm selling ok but I appreciate knowing the behind the scenes info !!! Thank you
I’m a little seller I set up in 2017 and I think EBay turned on it’s own and started eating them. They have made a big mistake and even if you make you spouse mad lol it takes time to make up EBay needs to start making up. My mom always says you can’t change and stay the same and you can’t stay the same and change. Great book “who moved my Cheese! If men buy a size wrong they give it to Jim lol we are not return junkies. I have noticed on EBay where the white board base is loaded with let’s just say creepy hairs please use felt or clean your photo stations. Great video keep on keeping on
I am leaving Ebay. I understand your platitudes but I have found a better platform for my sales. Ebay's fees are draconian. I have been at Ebay since 1999 and like a divorce I want out.
I'm an everything seller. Most specifically, a hard goods seller. Minimal clothing (maybe .05%) Shoes are perhaps 2% of my sales. All other items are hard goods. Mostly things that people need. I keep a focus on Made in the USA and other greater nations, but will grab Made in China when it has a high sell through rate. Very few collectibles. I have an extremely low return rate. Very rare. I purposely pick items with a 60% -100%+ sell through rate. I literally look up everything, unless I'm well versed enough to just grab it with confidence. With everything described above, I have never been "screwed" by eBay as a seller. They have always had my back for the last 3+ years. Clothing may very well offer a completely different experience that I'm not aware of. I encourage sellers to focus more on hard goods to open the doors for more satisfies buyers with a much lower return rate. Focus on items that can be packed/shipped in 5 mins or less and shipped anywhere in the Continental US for $14 or less.
The USA is the greatest nation. Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, a handful of European Nations, etc. fall into my "greater nations" classification. I focus on picking up items that are Made in USA and other greater nations and source very few items from China. I love the people of China, I love the variety of cultures and religions of China. They have a tremendous history and beautiful lands full of ancient culture. I'm not a fan of the CCP oppressing the beautiful people of China, forcing them to work for slave wages and then dump their cheaply made goods into the US. I'm even less a fan of the crackpot US Politicians that opened the trade door to facilitate goods from Chinese Slave Labor, in turn decimating the small businesses that had provided high quality goods to the American People and the World. Similarly.....love the beautiful people of America and love the beautiful people of China. I despise the crooked politicians that run both nations that made economic decisions to stuff there own pockets and put there own interests before the interests of their own people.@@phillipperkins5476
Can you do a video where you share your store? I'd like to see how it's structured, what your photos look like, how many items you have and how many you list each day. Maybe you could bring on a guest to review your store for you lol.
EBay is finished tbh, I was more of a buyer than a seller but I closed my account a few months back. Not sure what’s going on with the world wide web but all of the long time household name sites like eBay and Facebook seem to be turning into raging dumpster fires (as an American would say)
I think that was going to happen, anyway, and that's why they don't mind damaging the those still on the platform.... I think Blackrock/Vanguard is scuttling eBay. They own eBay's competitors, too, so they don't care if you leave. You're still buying from them on Amazon, Poshmark, Walmart, or wherever you go.
The past 3 mths Ive been having issues with the best offer option. If I don't put a minimal amt in, ebay has been putting in a very low amount for me. If I dont put best offer on an item, ebay has been doing that for me as well. So I've been going through all my listings and puttinh in a minimal amt. Also been doing this since 2016 because of health issues I coulf no longer work. Since the increase in resellers during the lock downs, it decreased the average price on clothing anyhow. Shirts that used too sell for $18-20 are now selling for $12-14. I promote, unless I know it has a great sell through. If I promote at 10% I mark it up by $3-4 ,leaves me some wiggle room too accept offers close too the price I was shooting for. We do have too diversify through every season.
I also see this as well. Changing my buy it now to the bidding as well, I just left ebay due to they getting worst at being behind sellers, who pay for the tax, sale fee, and more postal service. and more to lots of dumb buyers.
eBay promotion fees in order to get your items seen are absolutely ridiculous. Couple that with the increased cost of resourcing… It is a lot of work for less money. It doesn’t mean I’m going to quit, or whine about it, but it does irritate me quite a bit.
Hi Beau. An error I have been experiencing lately is when I am uploading my photos (desktop) the photos have a 'spinning donut' and then it kicks me out of the listing site and I have to start all over again! Very annoying and time consuming. As always great content.
Wow. I have a similar business model. I list 60 items a day Mon-Fri. I pay to listers to help, but it takes me 3 hours to sort and photograph the clothing. Would love to see your set up.
When I was an educator, our school system had projections for population and future population for each district in our county. How many people were born in a school district, census data, new proposed housing development and business development or loss. In my school, they could get a projection of how many children would register each year within a few percent. It’s the same with eBay, Amazon, Mercari, poshmark, RealReal, etc. Knowing your market is essential. Instead of postcards, people upload pictures and information on social media, don’t need slow motion pictures of a place, the younger generations in many cases look at postcards as clutter. Companies have buying or not buying items will tell Target if a customer is pregnant (I don’t mean a pregnancy tester). Examples could be not buying monthly period products but now buying saltines and ginger ale, so they send you coupons just you for pregnancy items and their pregnancy register signup.
Hi Beau. I started up again in 2022 and for the first year it was dead in the water with 4 sales a month on the first day and no views or sales after that. Worse than previous times by far. Selling Sterling and gemstone and vintage jewelry plus some mix of clothing, and smalls. Finally decided to call and find out what was going on. In May of 2023, second call hit the jackpot and my sales went up to one sale every other day. Whoohoo! Average 12-14 sales a month, with a couple hi dollar sales in the mix for about $500 per month in sales. I have great feedback and 100% ratings. Now in October sales dropped by 60% and November is not good either. 6 low dollar sales to date. I list daily and have 375 items up. Have covered all the bases for weeks but nothing helps. Very frustrating!
One of the reasons for the decline in buyer I would say is that Ebay began to charge commission on shipping charges imposed by the seller. So if the seller is charging $10 for shipping, now he has to charge over $11 to make up for the commission ebay charged for shipping. The continuation in increase in commission on the price of the item and now shipping put excessive burden on the seller who had to increase the price to offset the commission. Finally, buyer decided enough is enough and it was time to go elsewhere.
Holy cow!!!! Three items in the last.2 days, were sold to buyers without my shipping policy and buyers think they are practically getting the item for FREE! so very frustrating!
I started eBay in in 1999 and did it full time until a "low DSR rating" got my account kicked off permanently in 2008 even though I had a 99% feedback rating.
My sales fell off the end of January and i’ve been down 80% since…..my impressions look like a roller coaster….i’ve tried all the normal things …selling similar, listing daily, turning on and off promotions, raised ad rate to 15 and dropped all the way down to 5 nothing seems to be working. Almost 900 listings
The biggest problem in reselling general is perceptions of both buyers and sellers.What use to work may not be working now? Buyers are not as quick to embrace higher fees. Seller’s don’t have a choice? The truth is buying and selling on or off line not as much fun as it was. Offline could be winning except for the fact that there aren’t as many stores anymore? The challenge for the reseller now is keeping the attention of past buyers with good service and great stuff that buyers want? That’s where it get tricky these days? You have to love what you do enough to change and can pay expenses then you have the answer?
Now you have to pay MORE FEES with promoted listings or your stuff doesn't get seen! Also you can get paid same day on debit card BUT they get ya there too with fees! I hate that they NEVER side with sellers.. THAT REALLY SUCKS.
eBay some how ‘relisted’ and item I sold last year. They were great about it though. They looked it up. Saw I was right. Called it a glitch and I didn’t get any negative impacts to my account. My sales dropped during the same period as yours. Good thing we aren’t in business for one day (or week)
The problem with crosslinting ebay items are the same ebay offers you sent to buyers, if the item get sold on other platform, is still on ebay several days up to the offer ends. That is very dangerous.
I'm a numbers guy but there are some huge but subtle issues. I know a couple of sellers in the over $20,000/ category who lost their stores but they still don't know why. We had one 18-year-old eBay store shut down erroneously that never recover and had to replace. For my last penalty, they changed the description and the listing and penalized me for Their definition. To insulate we are now on 8 digital platforms - one is our own website that eBay can not control but has its own inherent problem stet
eBay needs a whole new marketing system. They need to come out of hiding get some fresh faces some fresh ideas and come out with marketing strategies and get back at one time like they were because what they’re doing is not working.😢
Didn't watch this live but wanted to say how much I appreciate your positivity. I've had to stop watching some people I followed. I'm a realist but there is no need to be doom and gloom. So many folks have a problem for every solution. Look for solutions, try different approaches.
Yep!! I'm going fulltime with reselling (I'm on 3 platforms and adding a couple others with different selling points) and also added in two other forms of income to hold that reselling drop. Cause I am not wanting to work my 9-5 office job anymore.
Interesting that they have such high cost associated with innovation but none of that innovation directly benefits the seller. So if they think they’re going to get more of my money for useless innovation - the answer is NO. We are already stretched SO thin, for them to increase suggested promotion %s - feels abusive. Like extortion.
Yep I used sell headphones and related stuff after I stopped using them. Usually once I year I purge. This go around the scammers are worse. They -claim- it doesn’t work but their narrative changes while talking to them. Then they expect their money back and then they don’t ship the stuff AND they give a bad review. eBay is in bad shape.
It all comes down to what you source and accepting offers. Everything has to be high sell through and profit $30 +. Why sell 10 items for $50 when you can sell one and make the same amount. Less work higher profit.
I feel like this is false information, especially for those who are okay with part-time income from ebay, as my wife and I are. In an ideal world you can sell a $50 item you bought for a dollar every day and not bother with anything else, but I think that's probably not the reality for most folks out there. You can sell lower-profit stuff especially if: a. you have the space to devote to it b. you can work in quantity (multiples of a single item) c. you commit to listing less profitable items *fast* so that they don't consume all your time, because time = money. Do the math on the hourly take-home for an item that makes you $10 that take 5-10 minutes to list and sort into your storage. d. related to the above-- you use items that have a UPC associated with them so that listing is fast (avoiding lots of time doing price comps)
@@baddaysbasil5376 ok yea i live in south fl. Its expensive here. Getting a storage unit to sell stuff that sits for months and to only make $8-10 profit is not gonna do it for me. Just the storage unit alone is gonna cost me too. Cleaning, washing, dealing with stains etc for $10 items? No thanks. Id rather focus on high sell through items that will make me more money for my time etc. actually looking into other stuff besides clothing too. Clothing sits and has a longer tail too.
@@michz6864 And that's all to the good. But making blanket statements (I think you meant to speak of yourself, but you came across as attempting to inform in response to an instructive video) that no one can make money on anything less $50 items is misleading is all I'm saying. Here we are talking about innovating to stay afloat, and you kinda implied that there's only one narrow way to do ebay. You do probably have better sourcing as a result of living in an area that's higher cost of living, so yeah, it's gonna be way different depending on where you are, and whether or not you resell full time, and storage space, and a number of other factors.
ebay made less sales than before and more money than before this last Q2. They’re not complaining about people leaving. Still plenty of people left to squeeze for more money while providing fewer services.
People making UA-cam videos bragging they bought something for a dollar and sold it for 50.. buyers watch . I think that plays a big part. Oh, and temu spamming everything.
Well, whenever I try to use Ebay’s lens to find out the cost, it brings me results that look nothing like the item. This has been happening over and over and over again. Have you guys experience this?
I quit selling a while ago. The $ they owe me is fogged out, un-available with some excuse to rip. me off again. I don't have time to play their games anymore. It's easier to sell on Mercari but I stopped them both. I have no desire to go back.
One issue I've has recently is where I posted a paintball mask. It would not show up in search or even when I searched my own inventory. It would show up when I scrolled through my inventory but would not show up if I typed in the words in the title of my listing. . 2 days went by and it still wouldn't show up. No views no watchers. And it was an expensive mask that I put up for cheap. So I posted it on Mercari for the same price and it sold overnight. Then on ebay the next day a lot of views on the mask but had to take it down because it sold on Mercari.
12:00 Ebay's summer 15% off sale coupon ruined the entire site. It ran from the 18th-24th of july and never worked and I am pretty sure it re-indexed the entire site incorrectly for those days.
A glitch I am dealing with is that I am unable to cancel an item that was never paid for. Called ebay a number of times and they can't figure out how to fix it. So I am unable to relist my item. Unable to send an invoice or even contact the customer because of the glitch. Very frustrating.
I have been experimenting with cancel / sell similar lately ... Over all sales still the same .. but most of the sales are from listings that were not cancelled and relisted strange because many of my listings were stale listings from items that haven't sold for years I was expecting at least a small surge in sales ......... but nothing Go figure
As a Buyer/Seller..... Ebay's buying experience is awful because Ebay is Promoting junk from India to the point that traditional seller's items end up on so many back pages that Buyer's never view the good items.... When I sell I do Not pay Ebay extra money to Promote... & Again - if I'm selling Smartphones - Ebay Promotes unknown Phone Brands from India before I see any that is the Brand I'm selling in.... & There are times I don't even see my phone's anywhere... Sometimes I'm able to get it sold on Craigslist instead...
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My Dad always says there's 3 kinds of people: those that MAKE things happen, those that WATCH things happen, and those that don't know WHATS happening!
Love this! So true. Thank you for watching
And most people fall in the third category 😂
@@la6136 Indeed!
It is hilarious that EBay wants to expand into the luxury market when they offer no real seller protection. What makes them think sellers will risk getting scammed on such expensive items? Then there are also the buyers who want to rent luxury items and will wear it for a month and then return it. I don’t list any of my designer items on EBay EVER because of that.
I don't even like listing items over $40-50 for that reason, I have some shoes with comps for $150-300 that I'm scared to even list. lol
I "sold" an authentic Nike USWNT soccer jersey earlier this year that came back 2 weeks later covered in perfume and pet hair... Pisses me off but what do you do? Guy left me a 5 star review said it didn't fit his wife........ ok lol
@@rick9705Wow! That suck! I sold some Versace glasses for men and the buyer paid full asking price. I hope he don’t pull that return crap on me.
I'm reading all this and I have better higher end items to list this fall. I'm very anxious about doing so. I just opened an account on another venue to sell my vintage glass bc eBay resellers seem to undercut each other and screw themselves. I think that's what bothers me the most. They don't know the worth of the higher priced items and undercut the lowest priced seller where it gets to the point that you might as well put your vintage item in the closet and look to sell elsewhere. Frustrating.
@@belindamiller6349 anything 100%+ sell through you can list on the upper end, especially with clean items and great vibrant pictures.
My biggest issue with eBay is the poor customer service to their sellers. They definitely do not have our back. I would never sell a luxury or high ticket item on eBay …the long window for return is ridiculous ….seems recently buyers will want full refund with no return of merchandise and if they don’t get their way they initiate a charge back with credit card. I much prefer Mercari’s 3 day window and the fact there is no return price haggling. I think eBay has cut their own throat by allowing buying fraud and scams to run rampant on the site. Fraud eBay buyers want to claim item was damaged or not as described AND not pay for it AND keep item. That doesn’t work on mercari….you get a refund but the item has to be returned…including broken
Poshmark and Mercari return policies are amazing!! Certainly makes scamming nearly impossible.
I'm an everything seller. Most specifically, a hard goods seller. Minimal clothing (maybe .05%) Shoes are perhaps 2% of my sales. All other items are hard goods. Mostly things that people need. I keep a focus on Made in the USA and other greater nations, but will grab Made in China when it has a high sell through rate. Very few collectibles. I have an extremely low return rate. Very rare. I purposely pick items with a 60% -100%+ sell through rate. I literally look up everything, unless I'm well versed enough to just grab it with confidence. With everything described above, I have never been "screwed" by eBay as a seller. They have always had my back for the last 3+ years. Clothing may very well offer a completely different experience that I'm not aware of. I encourage sellers to focus more on hard goods to open the doors for more satisfies buyers with a much lower return rate. Focus on items that can be packed/shipped in 5 mins or less and shipped anywhere in the Continental US for $14 or less.
Same I don’t sell anything expensive on EBay because I know if something goes wrong they will screw me. Those items go on Poshmark exclusively. Mercari has very poor seller customer service too. Beware of them also they screw sellers alot too.
@brettkell2493 I completely agree. I am about 90% hard goods. I have only had 2 items returned. I also get great reviews.
yessir give me all the items that sell for $10-30 and I'll be happy to keep it simple
Okay, one thing ya'll need to keep in mind. Ebay is an older platform, with a much older demographic than most of these newer platforms. That being said, I know for some of my older collectables such's post cards, marbles, stamps, coins, etc. etc. those demographics are dying off. I would argue, that there is NOT a decline in many or most categories. In one of my categories, I was doing 800-1200 dollars a day, now that categories produces 15.00-100.00 a day. I had about 200 buyers that bought with me every month some every day, I check those buyers feedback and they just aren't buying, not just from me but anywhere, and they were spending thousands a month with me. This tells me its financial for some, and as mentioned earlier, death from others. I know my clients in this category i speak of are 60-80 year old range, some older, retired docs, lawyers, dentists, professors, mostly professionals(retired). I kind of rambled on as I had to step away a few times writing this, but its food for thought. good luck.
Very true...many have not thought of buyers passing or just moving on to other things! It sucks getting stuck with merch you can't move!
I am ready to quit ebay. I sell rare books and now they list other dealers in my listing and show their listings. I have been on ebay for 14 years and have 100% positive feedback. Now my listings in my store show the picture and the filled in items, publisher and so on, then right below that they show other dealers like items. The you must scroll way down to know about my store. Why, when I am paying for the listing should other listings be on that page...........
I can tell you why I left. Fees too high, fees on shipping costs, fees to process payments and finally shipping costs are way too high. OP Shops have also moved to full retail & everything is too expensive to buy.
I am a part time reseller. Traditionally, I work weekends Friday-Sunday. I've always listed during the week. I haven't quit ebay entirely BUT since the pandemic we are short handed. I now work 70 to 80 hour weeks. It so hard to list and source now. I'm 55 and exhausted. I let my store go for months because I didn't have time for it. I am now forcing myself to list a few things every day because this is what I plan on doing when I retire. Im trying to build up my store again. We lost A LOT of people through retirement and death. I'm just putting out a different perspective. I would love to keep listing and selling, but I just don't have the time I used to have. I'm probably counted in with the sellers leaving the platform.
The Niche Lady has a link to a company that will prepare the listing drafts for you if you send them the pictures. I haven't tried it yet. I think it is $1.75 per listing. I'm going to try and pick some higher priced items so I can afford to pay the $1.75 per listing and give it a try.
Other than shipping being expensive. The thrift stores are getting far too expensive to make money. Our Goodwill had t-shirts from $5.99 to $11.99. I am not surprised people are quitting. You have to find other ways to make money.
We can go to rich neighborhoods and steal there cloths off there cloths line lool 😅 jk
People need to just stop donating to Goodwill then, it’s become nothing more than a racket for Goodwill owners
@Mattsy-sells better yet..just grab what they pull to the curb. I've made good $$$ doing so. I barely thrift besides the outlets. Other than that...I see what ppl toss out and clean it up and resell
I was at Goodwill two days ago, it was barren. I never saw anything like it. Each row... At least 300 ft Long, each side maybe .. maybe had twenty items. It was like Goodwill in Venezuela. Again, I never saw anything like it. Either ppl are not donating and selling themselves, giving stuff away pre- goodwill donations or Goodwill is putting everything online. I think it's a lil of all three.
We resellers treat ebay like its the only God body app. There are other apps that others crosslist on and still making a living. Poshmark, Depop and Mercari have been beating my eBay something serious. I barely have been paying attention to ebay unless its for comps. Also, I dont shop Goodwill stores anymore and havent for 2 years. I journey 2 hours to go to the Goodwill bins. I live in central Illinois where is in all directions 2 hours close to 5 Goodwill bin outlets. I also yard sale and dumpster dive. There are many ways to stay afloat in these times. Dare yourself to think outside the box. You shouldn't allow Goodwill and eBay to make you or break you..go outside of your comfort zone😊
Taking stuff from Goodwill bins is a crime. Thats a bad business plan.
@@thedave5748bins is a pay per weight model, I have no idea why you say it's a crime
To add to that person who was talking about her Goodwill that stopped doing dollar days, my Goodwill won’t sell the donated nice purses or merchandise in the store anymore they are selling it online to the highest bidders, I went in there the past few weeks and all that was in there was junk, looked like just a very few items sparsely scattered across the shelf’s and what was there truly looked like it needed to be put in the dumpster out back
I've noticed this in a lot of thrift stores. One thrift store I frequent had good prices and a mix of high end items, now they are opening up a "boutique" thrift store up the street. Which means they are sending their higher end items to this store and jacking up the price. Good for them, but I'm not going to go to a thrift store that just sells junk for same prices and then pay up even higher prices for pre-owned items. I'd rather go to garage sales now.
@@delightfuldeb1218 I agree, not to mention these things were DONATED TO THEM, what gives them the right to sell it in a boutique or online to highest bidders, to me it sounds like it’s not a charity anymore but a scam
They aren't thrift stores anyore - they are operating like a regular store with regular prices. What's going to happen when we are a cashless society - how will we pay cash at garage sales! Yikes!@@patriciawilder66
@@patriciawilder66completely is not a charity
Thrift stores used to be my #1 source. That has changed. Prices are up, some like Goodwill do their own auctions, and more. The Goodwill bins can still be a great source. It can be like going to 50 garage sales without driving all over town. But some bin stores are awful.
First thing Resellers need to keep their mouths shut when sourcing. You guys talk too much! You're telling the employees in these Goodwill stores what you're doing, and they are raising their prices. Get your source on and keep it moving.
As for eBay, it's just a stepping stone for me. Reselling is not my end goal, branding my own product is what I am working on now and I will be selling on my own website.
Awesome thank you for watching.
Well said.
Yep! I said this exact thing. UA-camrs need to keep their mouths shut! I walked into goodwill in Bakersfield and they were using a UA-camrs account to train new employees on what to pull for the online store. No lie.
i am a seller on ebay and lets say i sell an item that cost me 25$ and its worth 40$ , and i sell it for 40$ i only make 5$ because ebay fees are 13% plus you have to promote the item or they wont show on the list and thats 11% plus taxes and shipping, so ebay fees are 24% its not right, because there are sellers selling the same items for below its worth just to get feedback
This also devalues items for other resellers if many follow the trending prices that are sold or selling.
Its shipping costs. They have jumped so quickly and took that 10 dollar sweet spot away
What you mean by ‘10 dollar sweet spot’ mate?
@nathanmoore7120 If you are selling a $10 dollar item but shipping from let's say NC to OR it costs $8.55 dollars for even an item that weighs 14 ounces with a box. Even state to state it costs $7.60. Just two years ago we were talking $3.50 and $4.25 which correlates to people not willing to buy an item that shipping costs almost as much as the item. It's a psychological manner and many sellers on eBay have inventory now that falls into that category and why sales have dropped tremendously.
@@JohnnyLightningV10 I see! I am from the UK and our shipping is not as expensive. The UK is very small compared to yours!
Thanks for taking the time to reply mate 👍🏻
Goodwill now has an eBay store and raised it's prices because UA-camrs told them that they are making a fortune from reselling their items. eBay wants a piece of the action, also, by raising fees and promoted listings. 😢
Yup Goodwill is big business that could wipe out resellers if they were more efficient.
Goodwills lack the staff to keep an online store running. My local goodwill cant even keep the employees in store. They just fired the manager that worked there for several years . I think its best for resellers to focus on getting the best items at the lowest price possible . I only shop at the bins and a local honey hole.
And that will be the end of goodwill. It's resellers that keep that boat afloat. See ya goodwill. 😅😅
@girlwiththecurlyfro2552 it also depends on what you sell. I still find A LOT and for low prices but I can tell the workers don't know what they are looking at.
Problem solved if everyone would just STOP donating to Goodwill, with what they are doing it’s not good will!
I haven't been goodwill shopping like I used to in the last couple years because of the pricing.. I don't even resell I'm a collector. They had a table set priced at 699$ for a coffee table and 300$ a piece for the 2 end tables. It's goodwill! That's what they cost brand new. I have seen dollar tree candles that are 10 years old and stale priced a 2-3$ .. its become corrupted i believe.
I'm a nurse and I know they were selling scrub sets as much as the price of new ones.
I only sell on Poshmark and do really well. How many people who buy on ebay buy women's clothing?
My store keeps on getting bigger yet my sales are declining. I was doing better numbers a couple of years ago with 30% less inventory.
Stores always get bigger if you're listing regularly. Some stuff doesn't sell at all, or takes years to sell, and they pile up in your inventory.
Due to the decline in the economy I think I will have to throw in the towel eventually down the road as it gets worse.. but for now there are still things I can improve on and change up to get more sales
I got an email from ebay asking if I wanted to be a part of research. I signed up for it and received another email a few days ago (late August 2023) asking me to take a survey. I only looked at the first question and DID NOT complete it because it consisted of three photos that were options for sellers to promote their items and they wanted to know which was most appealing!!
They were "Promote your listings", "Promote your brand", "Promote offsite".
One tip i will give small sellers is you have to do whats outside of your box but still within your purpose of reselling.
love it and I agree!
makes no sense
What????
eBay killed things with promoted listings in 2015! Killed…downhill ever since!
eBay has a delay on the site! I get a notification and it takes several mins to convert to desktop or phone! Definite delay!
Impressions are back but sales are worse! I don’t believe their numbers they don’t add up to what I’m seeing! Even the sale tally isn’t correct!
Economic issues in the USA ARE KILLING both eBay and resellers and buyers…..everyone is having to change what they’re doing, increasing prices to survive….
Generally I think that the increase in fees, shipping and increase in prices for inventory across the board are making it too hard for many sellers to make a living on ebay.
Mega sellers with massive inventory are more likely to survive the "seasons" versus the smaller guys.
I will also say that the mega sellers with huge stores who also have monetized youtube channels related to their stores greatly help their income as well as converting viewers and subscribers to buyers/repeat buyers.
Too many big sharks to let the little fish have a life within the sea of resellers in my honest opinion.
Exactly, the way they charge the feew and the percentage is too much of a piece of the potential profit, leaving you making less money than them, when it is suppose to be the other way around.
I’ve been selling for 20 years with 100% feedback . I have more on now than I ever had, but the slowest month ever. I’m trying all the tricks, but nothing is working.
12 years selling on Ebay and I m leaving in the next couple of months! closing my store
I think the excess death rates have something to do with the slow sales. There is an abundance of donated goods due to deaths. That is creating an environment of more people becoming resellers but we need to realize the buyers are generally older and richer and they are dying from the clot shot.
🤦♂️
Why are u face slapping urself?
@@w8what575 because of that ridiculous comment
@@phillipperkins5476 I don't think it's ridiculous...my neighbor died from it this past Febuary! They sold his van and I saw his son removing all his belongings from the house!
You a WACK-A-DOO!
Apparently they thought i was a BOT in a notification when i logged into my selling figures, people just wanting to return items before they have even received them !!! (you know the ones), the constant list 20 to sell 5 regime which we all know ends up with you needing a storage unit/warehouse lol, my workaround has been to auction the things i can roughly 1/3 of stock just to get viewers in and possibly sales
I just stopped shopping and donating to goodwill all together I go to mom and Pop thrift stores all the way goodwill has gotten sick with greed . Selling used t shirts for 5.99 when the same shirt at Walmart is 5.88 they are out of there minds
Yours is the most intelligent explanation I've seen for what I've seen happening and what I've suspected myself. Ebay is passing its increased costs along to the sellers and squeezing out the everyday seller by jacking up the promotional fees, and if you don't go with them forget about buyers seeing your stuff. The only problem with this is that many average small time sellers can't just pass the cost along to their buyers because especially right now people don't want to pay more, not even for higher priced items, and there's too much competition to be able to raise prices. I chose the dynamic ad rate for a couple of things and ended up with less than half of the listed price after all the fees were taken out. I'm already lowering my prices to remain competitive and have a prayer of selling anything and now this? Ridiculous. I don't have as much wiggle room in my pricing because I don't sell designer items so I'm just the kind of seller this is going to ruin. I only sell stuff from my own closet, I don't go out and buy things in thrift stores to sell. Raising my prices to make up for higher fees is not going to sell my stuff faster, in fact if I do that the stuff will sit there especially if other sellers are selling the same or similar items for less. This will end up canceling out the benefits of going with the higher promotional rates. And this is a big problem for me. If I'm going to make half or less than half of what I made before it's not going to be worth it after a while, especially on stuff I paid retail price for in the first place. In the past few years less and less is going into my pocket. After all the fees are taken out I'm not even making half of my listing price, which is usually less than I paid for it.
So just yesterday for the very first time I've cross listed on Poshmark. We'll see how that goes. I might have to branch out even further. To be honest I think Ebay is discouraging the small time buyer from listing in the first place. If you're just doing this for some extra money it's not worth the time and effort to make so little money. As a result sellers are going to look for other ways to make money. And Ebay doesn't care if people like me leave, they are putting their time and energy into the big time profit makers for them. The only problem is that no one becomes a big time seller unless they start small first, and if you discourage the small time sellers they'll get discouraged before they ever become big time sellers. I think Ebay's strategy is short-sighted and in the end will fail their goals for their own profits in the future.
By the way, my sales plummeted sharply as soon as this dynamic ad rate thing started. I barely sold anything for the first couple of months after that started because I refused to go up to 15 or 16% and even when I gave in my sales were still lower than 50% of any year, not just last year. If your listings are still at the lower fixed ad rate forget about people seeing them. And I don't necessarily buy it that suddenly everything I sell is through the promotional listings, which is what Ebay is telling me. Seriously? I didn't even promote anything last year and everything sold just fine. I have continued to try to do what I can to sell my stuff, so something beyond my control must be causing this. First I blamed the economy and inflation because my items were perhaps appealing to buyers that were buying less overall, but that didn't hold water after a while because people were out there in the stores and all the news reports said people were still spending. So I suspected it was Ebay itself that was the cause of this. I do all the things you say to do - concentrate on what sells, pay attention to trends and competitor pricing, send out offers, etc., but even the stuff I was selling last year and the 3 years before that suddenly stopped selling and I don't buy it that suddenly those items are not so popular anymore. My listings are very detailed, I put that much attention into them. And yet my sales on those items just fell off a cliff this year. I don't think that's a result of changing buyer demand either, or that my stuff is in an oversaturated category. In fact I see LESS of those items for sale this year than in the past 3 years. On top of that I see the same or similar items selling for more than my listings (yes I check that stuff) and that told me my items were not reaching the buyers. I am a top seller with 100% satisfaction rate and I've been selling for 5 years now so this should not be happening.
Speaking of being a top seller, I just got an email from Ebay telling me that my top seller ranking is in jeopardy if I don't sell another 10 items in the next 2 months. For the very first time I don't even know I'm going to make that! That's how bad it's gotten! First they make it so hard for me to sell anything that I sell a lot less, then they want to penalize me for what is their fault in the first place! That was the final straw and what has been the final push for me to cross list. I firmly believe that the less you sell the less your stuff gets seen by buyers, but how can you ever overcome that without making so little it eventually becomes not worth it? It ends up being a vicious circle. I am not against lowering my prices but there becomes a point where it's not worth all the time and effort to make pennies on my items. I am not a high volume seller - I can't be doing this for hours every day and make that little. It's just not worth it after a while. Plus I have tried slashing prices on some things and they're STILL not selling! So that's not even a solution in this situation!
I think you might be over-optimistic about the future with Ebay. I think they're going to continue to make it harder for us as sellers to try to nickel and dime more money out of us and changing our strategy is not going to make up for this. And it won't matter what we sell or how we strategize or lower prices. There is only so far I can lower my expectations. They make it harder to make money but at some point it becomes way too much work for constantly diminishing returns. And I don't think telling new sellers to start out not promoting it's going to help them. They are not going to be seen by anyone and will never sell anything. So they will get discouraged and move on. Fortunately for me Ebay is a side hustle and not my primary source of income. But I am not in the category where going without that income is easy either. Maybe some of your advice will work and is reasonable for people that pay pennies for their items to begin with, but remember that a lot of us are selling our own stuff that we bought on sale in stores but not at thrift prices. Thanks for your insights, though, as I say this is the most intelligent take on this issue I have seen so far.
Hi Beau, this podcast was so interesting! I sell predominantly women’s clothes and shoes. In my opinion, I feel like eBay looks and feels dated compared to some of the other platforms, and therefore, less appealing to the younger buyers. Poshmark has fewer active buyers, but I feel a larger percentage of those buyers are looking to buy clothes than over on eBay, where there is a much broader range of items for sale. I crosslist to eBay, Poshmark and Mercari and now sell more on Poshmark than eBay - this is relatively new. I think we have to consider who our buyer is and where they are shopping. What kind of shopping experience are they looking for? Maybe ebay isn’t the only (or best) platform to sell clothing on anymore.
Agreed but don’t tell them! Let them just keep moaning about eBay while people like me and you capitalise! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I am part of a few FB eBay groups and when people are saying they can’t go on any longer, I tell them to give up and get a job if it’s not working. It frustrates me how people believe they have a god given right for their items to sell!
Someone was complaing because they got negitive feedback because the buyer said the item of clothing they purchased had a horrible smell. They seller was livid and said how dare they leave bad feedback! I wash all my clothing before I sell because if I purchased an item and it smelt fusty, I would be pissed off!
Agree EBay really needs to update their branding and look badly. How hard is it for them to hire some young trendy graphic designers to fix their website and app??
Sales have declined so much. It definitely makes it hard to continue to put in work when you aren't seeing anything in return but declining sales. I've received offers and cannot even accept them.
the whole platform is having issues.
@@BeauJohnson1 Major issues. I've been reselling on Ebay for over twenty years, and it keeps getting worse.
I think you are right. I am just starting to add quite a few items to eBay, which all have been higher end and a lot of them are selling versus the lower end. Thanks for pointing that out as I will keep that in mind. By the way, I have subscribed and love your attitude, your faith and the love for your family.
Innovation- not just eBay needs to be innovative, but the sellers also need to be innovative. The selling platform is a tool we use. What can we do to increase our sales? Can we try another tool within the platform? Can we try another type of item? Different photo techniques?
Great info thx for sharing!!! I like it’s how you finish. I’m having that day today!
Loved the mindset, the attitude! Lets do this. In crisis we grow! 🎉
Absolutely!!
Thanks for all the info, encouragement, and for sharing your faith.
Beau first I loved your answer to "yes my wife works "!! Stay at home Moms are
hard workers and in this day it's more important than ever to know what your children are being taught! Stay at home Mom here and all my kids are grown now. It's a blessing for sure! Two your information is very helpful. I am a newer reseller and I've had issues with listing going missing 🤷♀️ I'm selling ok but I appreciate knowing the behind the scenes info !!! Thank you
Thanks UA-cam for suggesting this guy! Subbed!
Great podcast Beau!
I’m a little seller I set up in 2017 and I think EBay turned on it’s own and started eating them. They have made a big mistake and even if you make you spouse mad lol it takes time to make up EBay needs to start making up. My mom always says you can’t change and stay the same and you can’t stay the same and change. Great book “who moved my Cheese! If men buy a size wrong they give it to Jim lol we are not return junkies. I have noticed on EBay where the white board base is loaded with let’s just say creepy hairs please use felt or clean your photo stations. Great video keep on keeping on
I am leaving Ebay. I understand your platitudes but I have found a better platform for my sales. Ebay's fees are draconian. I have been at Ebay since 1999 and like a divorce I want out.
Good topic and content. It truly matters what and who influences us and the positive vibe is a builder and multiplier in many respects. well done.
I'm an everything seller. Most specifically, a hard goods seller. Minimal clothing (maybe .05%) Shoes are perhaps 2% of my sales. All other items are hard goods. Mostly things that people need. I keep a focus on Made in the USA and other greater nations, but will grab Made in China when it has a high sell through rate. Very few collectibles. I have an extremely low return rate. Very rare. I purposely pick items with a 60% -100%+ sell through rate. I literally look up everything, unless I'm well versed enough to just grab it with confidence. With everything described above, I have never been "screwed" by eBay as a seller. They have always had my back for the last 3+ years. Clothing may very well offer a completely different experience that I'm not aware of. I encourage sellers to focus more on hard goods to open the doors for more satisfies buyers with a much lower return rate. Focus on items that can be packed/shipped in 5 mins or less and shipped anywhere in the Continental US for $14 or less.
Greater nations???🤦♂️🤦♂️
The USA is the greatest nation. Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, a handful of European Nations, etc. fall into my "greater nations" classification. I focus on picking up items that are Made in USA and other greater nations and source very few items from China. I love the people of China, I love the variety of cultures and religions of China. They have a tremendous history and beautiful lands full of ancient culture. I'm not a fan of the CCP oppressing the beautiful people of China, forcing them to work for slave wages and then dump their cheaply made goods into the US. I'm even less a fan of the crackpot US Politicians that opened the trade door to facilitate goods from Chinese Slave Labor, in turn decimating the small businesses that had provided high quality goods to the American People and the World. Similarly.....love the beautiful people of America and love the beautiful people of China. I despise the crooked politicians that run both nations that made economic decisions to stuff there own pockets and put there own interests before the interests of their own people.@@phillipperkins5476
@@brettkell2493 I agree 👍
Can you do a video where you share your store? I'd like to see how it's structured, what your photos look like, how many items you have and how many you list each day. Maybe you could bring on a guest to review your store for you lol.
If resellers are leaving eBay that means more sales for me.
100%
Exactly! I think they should leave
I am doing awesome.
no, thats more money for ebay as they will hold your funds and more money for the scammers empowered by ebay
But, if they feel that there is no true competition or alternative they don’t feel the need for innovation. .
EBay is finished tbh, I was more of a buyer than a seller but I closed my account a few months back. Not sure what’s going on with the world wide web but all of the long time household name sites like eBay and Facebook seem to be turning into raging dumpster fires (as an American would say)
Yup eBay has changed
Let the sellers leave the platform! I would be over the moon if 50% of sellers give up and leave!
More chance of my items selling 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I think that was going to happen, anyway, and that's why they don't mind damaging the those still on the platform.... I think Blackrock/Vanguard is scuttling eBay. They own eBay's competitors, too, so they don't care if you leave. You're still buying from them on Amazon, Poshmark, Walmart, or wherever you go.
@@treasurehunt7812 🤦♂️🤦♂️you sound ridiculous
The past 3 mths Ive been having issues with the best offer option. If I don't put a minimal amt in, ebay has been putting in a very low amount for me. If I dont put best offer on an item, ebay has been doing that for me as well. So I've been going through all my listings and puttinh in a minimal amt. Also been doing this since 2016 because of health issues I coulf no longer work. Since the increase in resellers during the lock downs, it decreased the average price on clothing anyhow. Shirts that used too sell for $18-20 are now selling for $12-14. I promote, unless I know it has a great sell through. If I promote at 10% I mark it up by $3-4 ,leaves me some wiggle room too accept offers close too the price I was shooting for. We do have too diversify through every season.
I also see this as well. Changing my buy it now to the bidding as well, I just left ebay due to they getting worst at being behind sellers, who pay for the tax, sale fee, and more postal service. and more to lots of dumb buyers.
team no promoted listings, organic only!
Search function is absolute shi rubbish. The fees to sell are huge. Customer service is laughable.
eBay promotion fees in order to get your items seen are absolutely ridiculous. Couple that with the increased cost of resourcing… It is a lot of work for less money. It doesn’t mean I’m going to quit, or whine about it, but it does irritate me quite a bit.
Great video. Lots of positivity. Adapt or die. That's what it comes down to.
100%
Hi Beau. An error I have been experiencing lately is when I am uploading my photos (desktop) the photos have a 'spinning donut' and then it kicks me out of the listing site and I have to start all over again! Very annoying and time consuming. As always great content.
Wow. I have a similar business model. I list 60 items a day Mon-Fri. I pay to listers to help, but it takes me 3 hours to sort and photograph the clothing. Would love to see your set up.
Love your mindset and Love of Christ! single woman business here struggling but getting it together. Thanks
When I was an educator, our school system had projections for population and future population for each district in our county. How many people were born in a school district, census data, new proposed housing development and business development or loss. In my school, they could get a projection of how many children would register each year within a few percent.
It’s the same with eBay, Amazon, Mercari, poshmark, RealReal, etc. Knowing your market is essential. Instead of postcards, people upload pictures and information on social media, don’t need slow motion pictures of a place, the younger generations in many cases look at postcards as clutter. Companies have buying or not buying items will tell Target if a customer is pregnant (I don’t mean a pregnancy tester). Examples could be not buying monthly period products but now buying saltines and ginger ale, so they send you coupons just you for pregnancy items and their pregnancy register signup.
Had great sales this weekend. Sold 10 items on Poshmark and 21 on Ebay. My Poshmark sales keep gaining on Ebay and go for more money.
Agreed. Poshmark now a close second to my overall monthly sales. eBay is slowly losing traction!
I just started on both first Poshmark and my sales are even so far. eBay fees are higher though.
Good work Jeff!
Hi Beau. I started up again in 2022 and for the first year it was dead in the water with 4 sales a month on the first day and no views or sales after that. Worse than previous times by far. Selling Sterling and gemstone and vintage jewelry plus some mix of clothing, and smalls.
Finally decided to call and find out what was going on. In May of 2023, second call hit the jackpot and my sales went up to one sale every other day. Whoohoo!
Average 12-14 sales a month, with a couple hi dollar sales in the mix for about $500 per month in sales. I have great feedback and 100% ratings.
Now in October sales dropped by 60% and November is not good either. 6 low dollar sales to date.
I list daily and have 375 items up. Have covered all the bases for weeks but nothing helps. Very frustrating!
One of the reasons for the decline in buyer I would say is that Ebay began to charge commission on shipping charges imposed by the seller. So if the seller is charging $10 for shipping, now he has to charge over $11 to make up for the commission ebay charged for shipping. The continuation in increase in commission on the price of the item and now shipping put excessive burden on the seller who had to increase the price to offset the commission. Finally, buyer decided enough is enough and it was time to go elsewhere.
Holy cow!!!! Three items in the last.2 days, were sold to buyers without my shipping policy and buyers think they are practically getting the item for FREE! so very frustrating!
I started eBay in in 1999 and did it full time until a "low DSR rating" got my account kicked off permanently in 2008 even though I had a 99% feedback rating.
My sales fell off the end of January and i’ve been down 80% since…..my impressions look like a roller coaster….i’ve tried all the normal
things …selling similar, listing daily, turning on and off promotions, raised ad rate to 15 and dropped all the way down to 5 nothing seems to be working. Almost 900 listings
This video reminds me of the book "Who moved the Cheese". It provides an enlightened view of how to adapt to changes.
The biggest problem in reselling general is perceptions of both buyers and sellers.What use to work may not be working now? Buyers are not as quick to embrace higher fees. Seller’s don’t have a choice? The truth is buying and selling on or off line not as much fun as it was. Offline could be winning except for the fact that there aren’t as many stores anymore? The challenge for the reseller now is keeping the attention of past buyers with good service and great stuff that buyers want? That’s where it get tricky these days? You have to love what you do enough to change and can pay expenses then you have the answer?
Beau, when you say some day you only sold ten items a day. I am just curious how many items were listed.
Now you have to pay MORE FEES with promoted listings or your stuff doesn't get seen! Also you can get paid same day on debit card BUT they get ya there too with fees! I hate that they NEVER side with sellers.. THAT REALLY SUCKS.
eBay some how ‘relisted’ and item I sold last year. They were great about it though. They looked it up. Saw I was right. Called it a glitch and I didn’t get any negative impacts to my account. My sales dropped during the same period as yours. Good thing we aren’t in business for one day (or week)
The problem with crosslinting ebay items are the same ebay offers you sent to buyers, if the item get sold on other platform, is still on ebay several days up to the offer ends. That is very dangerous.
"Don't let eBay plan your change" so true!
Why don’t Ebay creates a branch for that they could call Ebay luxury or I don’t know …. and keep the actual platform for more «basic » day to day
ABSOLUTELY 👍
I'm a numbers guy but there are some huge but subtle issues. I know a couple of sellers in the over $20,000/ category who lost their stores but they still don't know why. We had one 18-year-old eBay store shut down erroneously that never recover and had to replace. For my last penalty, they changed the description and the listing and penalized me for Their definition. To insulate we are now on 8 digital platforms - one is our own website that eBay can not control but has its own inherent problem stet
eBay doesn’t “change” the titles and descriptions. Honesty is commodity that you need to embrace.
Ok so what is ur platform bud , surely u wanna share it with us ??
eBay needs a whole new marketing system. They need to come out of hiding get some fresh faces some fresh ideas and come out with marketing strategies and get back at one time like they were because what they’re doing is not working.😢
Beau this subject is very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Ebay is too expensive, i've started to use other sites, but they all start becoming like ebay, Greed takes over.
Didn't watch this live but wanted to say how much I appreciate your positivity. I've had to stop watching some people I followed. I'm a realist but there is no need to be doom and gloom. So many folks have a problem for every solution. Look for solutions, try different approaches.
Thank you I appreciate that
Yep!! I'm going fulltime with reselling (I'm on 3 platforms and adding a couple others with different selling points) and also added in two other forms of income to hold that reselling drop. Cause I am not wanting to work my 9-5 office job anymore.
Interesting that they have such high cost associated with innovation but none of that innovation directly benefits the seller. So if they think they’re going to get more of my money for useless innovation - the answer is NO. We are already stretched SO thin, for them to increase suggested promotion %s - feels abusive. Like extortion.
Very encouraging message from Ecclesiastes. Great video, Beau!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you so much for this video! 💯 spot on!
Mindset is key! We can make ourselves sick with negative thoughts/emotions
Yep I used sell headphones and related stuff after I stopped using them. Usually once I year I purge. This go around the scammers are worse.
They -claim- it doesn’t work but their narrative changes while talking to them.
Then they expect their money back and then they don’t ship the stuff AND they give a bad review.
eBay is in bad shape.
My thrify store didn't tag a pair of lululemon plain blue cropped leggings, when I asked how much they said $19.99
It all comes down to what you source and accepting offers. Everything has to be high sell through and profit $30 +. Why sell 10 items for $50 when you can sell one and make the same amount. Less work higher profit.
I feel like this is false information, especially for those who are okay with part-time income from ebay, as my wife and I are. In an ideal world you can sell a $50 item you bought for a dollar every day and not bother with anything else, but I think that's probably not the reality for most folks out there.
You can sell lower-profit stuff especially if:
a. you have the space to devote to it
b. you can work in quantity (multiples of a single item)
c. you commit to listing less profitable items *fast* so that they don't consume all your time, because time = money. Do the math on the hourly take-home for an item that makes you $10 that take 5-10 minutes to list and sort into your storage.
d. related to the above-- you use items that have a UPC associated with them so that listing is fast (avoiding lots of time doing price comps)
@@baddaysbasil5376 where do u live?
@@michz6864 Small town South Louisiana.
@@baddaysbasil5376 ok yea i live in south fl. Its expensive here. Getting a storage unit to sell stuff that sits for months and to only make $8-10 profit is not gonna do it for me. Just the storage unit alone is gonna cost me too. Cleaning, washing, dealing with stains etc for $10 items? No thanks. Id rather focus on high sell through items that will make me more money for my time etc. actually looking into other stuff besides clothing too. Clothing sits and has a longer tail too.
@@michz6864 And that's all to the good. But making blanket statements (I think you meant to speak of yourself, but you came across as attempting to inform in response to an instructive video) that no one can make money on anything less $50 items is misleading is all I'm saying. Here we are talking about innovating to stay afloat, and you kinda implied that there's only one narrow way to do ebay.
You do probably have better sourcing as a result of living in an area that's higher cost of living, so yeah, it's gonna be way different depending on where you are, and whether or not you resell full time, and storage space, and a number of other factors.
Like you, I love the positive attitude of crazy lamp lady has. We buy from people we like. Good selling
She works SO hard! Love her energy, positivity and personality 🧡
Just found your channel - much appreciated- God bless,
Love that you were quoting scripture! Made my day!
ebay made less sales than before and more money than before this last Q2. They’re not complaining about people leaving. Still plenty of people left to squeeze for more money while providing fewer services.
People making UA-cam videos bragging they bought something for a dollar and sold it for 50.. buyers watch . I think that plays a big part. Oh, and temu spamming everything.
Exactly!!!! All these resellers glamorizing it has destroyed it. Sold yalls selves out.
My Poshmark is doing great right now! July has been my best month ever.. Odd, but I'm not complaining about it.
Right after you said that sellers don't respond I got a message on eBay asking "Is this store active? Can I buy stuff?" LOL
Well, whenever I try to use Ebay’s lens to find out the cost, it brings me results that look nothing like the item. This has been happening over and over and over again. Have you guys experience this?
Yeah its not always correct. I like to use Google lens
I quit selling a while ago. The $ they owe me is fogged out, un-available with some excuse to rip. me off again. I don't have time to play their games anymore. It's easier to sell on Mercari but I stopped them both. I have no desire to go back.
One issue I've has recently is where I posted a paintball mask. It would not show up in search or even when I searched my own inventory. It would show up when I scrolled through my inventory but would not show up if I typed in the words in the title of my listing. .
2 days went by and it still wouldn't show up. No views no watchers. And it was an expensive mask that I put up for cheap. So I posted it on Mercari for the same price and it sold overnight. Then on ebay the next day a lot of views on the mask but had to take it down because it sold on Mercari.
12:00 Ebay's summer 15% off sale coupon ruined the entire site. It ran from the 18th-24th of july and never worked and I am pretty sure it re-indexed the entire site incorrectly for those days.
100% Agree
This is why ebay always rising their seller fees. Ebay charge sellers for everything.
Nope, not buying it. It's not a glitch or mistake.. it's beyond that at this point. It's intentional and being masked as a oopsie.
A glitch I am dealing with is that I am unable to cancel an item that was never paid for. Called ebay a number of times and they can't figure out how to fix it. So I am unable to relist my item. Unable to send an invoice or even contact the customer because of the glitch. Very frustrating.
If you cross list and the item sells on another platform does Ebay ding your account when you remove an item from Ebay
I can survive selling part time from my local bins. If the regulars aren't there I can score enough to sell for a week or more.
I have been experimenting with cancel / sell similar lately ...
Over all sales still the same .. but most of the sales are from listings that were not cancelled and relisted
strange because many of my listings were stale listings from items that haven't sold for years
I was expecting at least a small surge in sales ......... but nothing
Go figure
As a Buyer/Seller.....
Ebay's buying experience is awful because Ebay is Promoting junk from India to the point that traditional seller's items end up on so many back pages that Buyer's never view the good items....
When I sell I do Not pay Ebay extra money to Promote... & Again - if I'm selling Smartphones - Ebay Promotes unknown Phone Brands from India before I see any that is the Brand I'm selling in.... & There are times I don't even see my phone's anywhere... Sometimes I'm able to get it sold on Craigslist instead...