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Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay....
 

As the title suggests. My sales were between $400-750 a day. Since Saturday, my sales have been $50-150 a day.

This is extremely scary. That's not enough to even enough to pay half my expenses for the month. No clue what I'm going to do, if this wasn't just a fluke this week and it lasts the month. I'd be finished.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Not enough information even to begin to help you, but a certain degree of fluctuation in sales is to be expected.

Many people find as graduations and summer approach and over holidays things slow down dramatically.

Or maybe you've just reached your velocity limit for the month.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

What other information could I have possibly provided? Nothing at all changed or is different. Sales at $500-700 a day. Now sales $100-200 a day. That's an obscene degree of fluctuation. We aren't talking about day to day. Sales good for long stretch of time. Then sales drop on their ass the next day, and stay that way for days.

Could have done without the condescending attitude attached.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Your selling hot things and complaining about fluctuation when what ur selling is probably against ebay rules anyway so shhhh

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

responder did not say anything condescending......and they gave good info on seasonal blocks...

info on competition/if anyone else sells it, similar cheaper or generic products sales, look at their sales or prices or better feedback, rankings - it might be relevant

if you want condescending, then here you go - relying on ebay for your basic expenses is 'extremely scary'......

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

How many accounts are you using?

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Any defects or bad feedback? Competition? Possibly a newer version of your product released?

Any suspensions or emails from eBay recently?

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Maybe you should consider moving into a $500 a month apt or $1,200 a month townhome.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Diversify my friend, diversify.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

As I said not enough information... for any meaningful analysis of the data we would need information, and lots of it - what you sell, the long term overall pattern of sales over the past several years, competitor items, their sell through rate and sales prices, and lots of other details.

Maybe something has changed, maybe it's a fluke, maybe the EB gods have frowned upon you.

I know sometimes I feel as if I'm the only living person in e-commerce land, and days will go by without any activity, but I know that statistically it well catch back up in a week or two. That's the whole meaning of 'average'. :)

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

It sounds like you're relying on 1 eBay account? That's a recipe for disaster if I ever heard one. It could be that your sales are being throttled.

Your best bet is to spread out your sales over multiple accounts. It will take some time to get going but in a few months you will be in a much better position.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Yes. I have noticed a huge drop on serval accounts.... Started around the 1st of month.

I have read, unconfirmed, there is issue with promoted listings that actual listing disappears only promoted listing shows up, sounds like an ebay thing to do.

Also, they are tweaking search again so this could have affect.

Plus, I have noticed sales stats have not updated on any account since the 1st of month.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

I don't know about all of you but I sell a specialized item (custom made HO Scale Circus Wagons) and in the past if you googled ho scale circus wagons on ebay 85% of displayed items would be mine. I just googled it and less than 5% was mine. So yes there is something going on. Nothing has changed on my end (I keep about 30-40 items up at all times). My listings have just dropped off the earth. Great feedback, never an issue or suspension.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

This exact thing happen to me this month....only my promoted listing were coming up for some items. I found it weird because for the last 4-5 months all my listing came up as best match top listing, and for about the last 2-3 months straight....i didnt have one promoted listing sold only non promoted listings of the same items....

I fixed this by removing all my items from their promotions then re-adding them again. Not only did it fix my active and promoted listing but gave me tons of subsequent promoted listings like i used a higher percentage promotion. Typically i only give 1% for promotions on all products, but it gave me like 4 promoted listings for the same item like i had a 10% listing promotion going.

Maybe that will help you guys fix similar problems

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

No. No I'm not selling hot things. I've been selling normal things. Perfectly along ebay rules. The same things. For years now. I don't know where you got the info you seem to think you have.

So yeah, I sure as hell will complain about 80% drop in sales. Stay off this forum if you have nothing to contribute, except accusations against me.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

I don't sell seasonal products. I can sell just as well during Christmas, as I do any other time of the year. I have found zero correlation between selling seasons and my sales.

People don't buy generic products if they are wanting to buy my product. That's not my market. I sell high end products. When things break, they come to me. There are some sellers selling cheaper products, but I have a wide variety of products in my market, and there would have to be a huge amount of sellers selling a lot of parts, to compete with me. Especially to account for selling 8 items a day on average, to being happy with selling 1 item. And not over a span of weeks or months. But Waking up the next morning, and BAM, sales dead.

And maybe we have a different idea of expenses. I certainty don't have a job. I sell on ebay full time. It pays my rent. It pays my car. Gas. Food. Ebay fees. Debt payments.

If you want to have a condescending war, then tell me what you expect me to do? Get a day job to pay my expenses? Last time I checked, we were all here to make money on ebay. If we need a day job, then something is clearly wrong.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

My main account is my main money maker. So you're mostly right. And yes, it is a recipe for disaster. But I'm **** at organization, and am afraid of spreading myself too thin. I have a couple of other accounts, but even those seem to get me in trouble.

Only issue is, my products aren't generic enough. So that's what's keeping me from expanding out too far. Hoping to get someone to help me with that soon.

Yes, my sales could be throttled. The end of the money was really good.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

I pay about $1400 a month. Bedroom, office, and storage. But I have far more expenses than that.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Don't we all.

I generally find search parameters don't matter so much if you're the only game in town.

Still, given the whole rolling blackout thing, if all your items are located in a single geographic location, and they changed the algorithm that alone could be enough to wipe out most of your visibility.

I'm still thinking probably velocity limit...

Try going to a library or a friends house and using something other than your machine in your ip address to do a search on your items by keyword without logging into EB. See what comes up.

Maybe there's a new player in town and your listings are being bumped down. I saw people and listings and stores in my category I'd never seen before.

I did this in a Sam's Club Warehouse and some other places once, and it was a real eye opener. I got entirely different search results every different place I tried.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

I'll take you up on that.

And while I'm not the only game in town, no one sells the variety I do. So if there is a new game in town, it would only knock out maybe 10% of my product line. My stuff not coming up at all in searches, would be the only way this would happen.

I also buy 95% of my inventory on ebay, so I'm constantly searching for items, so I can see if someone else is selling something that I am. There are certainly some people, selling some things, but not all people selling all things.

But there are times that I've looked in completed listings, and there were sold listings that I never saw in my searches. Which is BS!!!

Velocity limiting might be the ticket in all of this...

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Don't rely on 1 source of income. Look for a job if you cannot make it.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

I was making it just fine for many months, with maybe a slight bump every now and then. It would take weeks to find an even slightly decent job and weeks before I get the slightly ****ty paycheck. You might as well tell anyone with a job, to not rely on 1 source of income, and look for a second job.

All I came here for, was to find out if there was something going on with ebay. That's all. It's in my title even. "anyone else?". Because that's the one thing I can't figure out on my own. I need to know if anyone else if having the same issue. If not, THEN I know it's me, and there's something I could do about it. Otherwise, all the effort in the world isn't going to help

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Look into your competitor.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

No kidding, when you look from your computer your listings are shown in an entirely differently order and prominence than they are on another machine from a different location.

They game the system so you think you're getting value for your listing fees.

In the old days we used to call this different search result a 'rolling blackout'. The servers can't handle or begin to show all the possibilities, so they trim them down to size and show what they think you want to see.

Many of us have observed all of our sales in one day come from California, or Florida, or some other improbable statistical oddity.

Ebay has what, around 180 MILLION listings now, they can't begin to show them all.

Some searches would literally bring back a million possibilities. Nobody is going to look through that mess.

So they bust them up into smaller groups and spread them out across the country by region or state or some such.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

I would like to add that I have pretty much all my international sales in the beginning week of every month. Then only a couple here and there

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

That's probably an example of velocity limits.

You probably find that your international sales are about the same each month no matter what you do.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

in case anyone is interested, my sales have rebounded again. Seems like my possible velocity limit is set at around $10k for this account.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

180 million listings!? Lol, this is why I'm transitioning to passive income,etc. It's 2017, there's tons of other ways to make money than eBay/Amazon.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

You have become an official bot, right? I see you, I know what you are doing.:rolleyes:

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

What does that mean? A "Velocity limit"... ive seen that term before but dont know what it means

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

I am interested, and that's a pretty good limit, I wish all my accounts had a 10K limit each.

I'd try to spread out into other accounts if I were you to get that number up and provide redundancy.

Kirkland: 'velocity limit' is the idea that EB, AZ, and other sites throttle ( ie secretly limit ) your sales to a certain number. james13v is saying his secret limit is around 10K.

Usually this means no matter what you do, you cannot exceed that threshold by very much, if anything.

In other words, if by some freak of chance he sells 10K on the first day of the month, nothing will sell the rest of the month, they'll do that by limiting visibility and promoting other sellers instead of him.

EB has a lot of sellers, and a limited amount of buyers. If you never sell anything, you give up and go away, right?

EB is trying to give everybody a slice of an ever-shrinking pie so that there isn't a mass exodus of sellers from the site.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

I wish that scenario happened to me. Then, I can say " SEEEEE, my account is clearly being throttled." But so far, in ebays eyes, all my scenarios are in the rhelm of possibility.

I want to expand to other accounts. SO far, my anxiety has stopped me.

Also, to add to what you said, it appears that the limit is about 5% higher than previous months. So, it would take you about a year, to double your limit. Assuming your sales continue going up.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Assuming, which, as you said, is impossible with EB...

I've had many accounts that all hit within 5-10% of the previous month's total, for years at a time.

As I said, if I sell a lot in the first week of the month and hit that total I'll hardly sell anything the rest of the month.

I've never had much luck expanding that top end velocity limit, unless it was by opening another account, which in turn seems to have it's own velocity limit in turn.

You've been on here forever, you should be able to handle some small expansion. :)

I also am a bit high-anxiety about upsetting the apple cart, but the bitter truth is we're all one day away from our prize cow being pulled down and eaten by the EB wolf, it's not an 'if' but a 'when'.

You really need some redundancy or when the time comes you'll truly be sorry... :)

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

My sales for two weeks fell by 71.2% according to statistics ebay.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

my sales have hit record numbers the past few days. I can't even keep up. Someone at ebay decided that they punished me enough, I guess....

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Thanks for the explanation on velocity limits.

I tried to do some searching, and it seems to be experienced a lot by medium sized sellers (10k+). Does it also apply to small time sellers? (<10k)

Is it per category? Per account? And when does it reset?

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

AAAAAND, back to punishing me.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Interesting thread james13v. Did your velocity limit reset at the beginning of the month?
Also, do you feel velocity limit increase this month?

I think I've hit something like this, only it's been about £150...

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

My sales went down before the end of the month, and only started up again a week into the month. So I'm not really sure. I feel like I have to try VERY hard to get past the limit, and when I don't, my next month doesn't have an increase either. They gave me a selling limit 10X higher than I wanted, for no reason, over night, but they don't want me to sell. NO idea.

Re: Sales dropped 80% since Saturday. Anyone else? Or is there a problem with my ebay
 

Very annoying..literally no point of showing or granting us selling limits if they have further restrictions hidden away. Guess the best bet is to invest and grow more stealth accounts