July Sales= bad?

[HurricaneHuntr]

Man... sales this month have been downright horrible.... lot's of returns, items selling for 50% what they typically sell for and some just not selling all that fast. Anyone else having a horrible july?

[cherrqell]

Originally Posted by bizzy2010

Man... sales this month have been downright horrible.... lot's of returns, items selling for 50% what they typically sell for and some just not selling all that fast. Anyone else having a horrible july?

Yeah, lots of views, but not alot of watchers, or buys.

[HurricaneHuntr]

I don't rely on my ebay as my only income, i have a full time job, i am almost to the point of putting everything on the backburner until september... That way the accounts are safe and i can rake during the holidays

[jeffweico]

July and August are always bad for sales. Things usually pick up in September, Peak at Christmas, level off in January and start really slowing down in late May or early June.

The economy also hasn't helped.

[forummember]

Yes, over here in the U.K. things are pretty much the same. Although, I have noticed a pick up in sales but nothing like the Winter months.

[TGMT²]

Oh GOOD! A Rant Thread...

Since I have been selling on eBay (almost 6 years), I have NEVER had more than 1 unpaid item dispute per month. Most months I never have them.

Get this: For the month of July 2010, I already have 5 of them.

ALSO

I have had 3 disputes with buyers who hold U.S. Ebay accounts that live in other countries who have expected me to ship their items with the same postage rate as listed for U.S. I have ALL countries blocked, but that does not work if they have a registered U.S. eBay account.

OH GAWD...What a Major HASSLE this month. YUP, July has been a Nightmare!

[pod]

Originally Posted by TheyGotMeToo

I have had 3 disputes with buyers who hold U.S. Ebay accounts that live in other countries who have expected me to ship their items with the same postage rate as listed for U.S. I have ALL countries blocked

Thats total BS. eBay is cool with this? I cant see them letting this fly.

[TGMT²]

@pod, I contacted eBay and explained the situation and they seem to be aware of the problem. Something Noteworthy eBay told me was...when people register in foreign countries for eBay and that country doesn't have eBay, it defaults to ebay.com (U.S. eBay)

My problem with this is, these buyers win the item and expect you to ship to their country and when you say no to international shipping...they have all given me a "unconfirmed PayPal" addresses in the U.S. and expect me to ship there, and I of course refuse.

What's weird is it happened once last month, and 3 times this month. It has never happened before in 6 years.

I have resolved 2 of these dispute with Canceled Transaction Cases, but the 3rd person from the Dominican Republic refused. I contacted eBay and they refunded my final value fee for him. But I am looking for my 1st Negative from this buyer.

[pod]

Originally Posted by TheyGotMeToo

What's weird is it happened once last month, and 3 times this month. It has never happened before in 6 years.

Jesus. Another loop hole bad buyers can try and manipulate I see... There wasn't enough already. You have the option to block countries, good. It seems to be of no effect, not so good. Well, I'll let them shut me down before I ship a $500 item to Uganda if I dont want too.

[rsot]

Summer months in North America tend to spawn less sales in general - back to school and christmas are the key...for now...

[gibsonton]

This is the best month i have ever had in 4 years of selling full time my sales have doubled .... but it is to do with the changing of the ebay store fixed price listings now being viewable in searches asi had 4000 listings and 3500 were in my store now i am selling stuff that had been in my ebay store for years.

[SelfMade17]

i am having the worst time selling on ebay..for any of the categories im in...blah..

[therrol]

well, perhaps ebay is not doing so well but I run an e-commerce site that does 2000$ in gross sales a week and i'm finding that early july was absolutely terrible. 1st to the 15th I did only 40% of what I did last year and I was on an upward trend. But End of july was pretty good about 90% up to 130% of last years sales.

[topseller]

Usually, I go on vacation for the summer because sales are so low. I am selling a few, but they still are coming in spurts. 5-6 one day then nothing for 2-3 days and then another group of 3-4 sales. Like ebay is still screwing with the search listings and items for non powersellers are not even showing up.

On a separate note, ebay is really trying to kill off the small sellers. I had a friend want to list a few things around his house just to clean it out. He had to sign up, provide credit card, open paypal, got a verification call when he listed, got his second payment held for 21 days, and when he went to relist got the phone verification request and finally quit after 10 minutes on hold.

He told me he would have a yard sale or take his chances and sell whats left, on craigslist.

Would love to see ebay new account growth numbers.

[jeffweico]

eBay has been trying to get rid of the small sellers for a long time now. They DESPERATELY want to be Amazon. Problem is, Amazon does a pretty good job of being Amazon.

Through increased fees and financial shenanigans they have been able to post higher profits each quarter. But their user base and traffic is declining. I wouldn't want to own their stock.

eBay was so great back in the day! It was a lot of fun. Lots of unique stuff. Friendly people. Their rules fit on a single web page rather than nearly overflowing a UPS truck. Changes were minor. Sellers were respected. The feedback system worked well.

Then they added a million or so new categories. And started banning items left and right. Listing items became an abrasive process. Sellers were discouraged from talking to each other. Fees increased - every 14 days or so. Changes were made on a weekly basis. Good sellers were NARU'd for silly reasons.

They took the world's biggest and BEST swap meet and turned it into a low rent version of Kmart. In fact, if Kmart and a Flea Market got together and had a love-child, eBay today is what it would look like.

Now this Donahoe guy is running it and he actually said he was embarrassed to run it because eBay looked like a flea market. When a reporter asked him about seller complaints, he said we were just "noise". He expects small sellers to meet unrealistic customer service goals and have the return policies of Wal-Mart. Even if what they sell is antiques. If eBay had to live by the same standards they hold us to, they would have to NARU their whole f******g company.

They claim they had to take steps to root out fraud. But there is more fraud now than ever before. They are positively overrun with counterfeits.

Many good sellers have left, and they are not likely to come back.

One day, eBay will realize that they will never be Amazon, and that they have lost what made them great. But by then it will be too late. Amazon will still be Amazon but eBay will be lucky to have 50% of Amazon's sales and traffic. When that day comes, you will see eBay trying to win back sellers with better treatment and lower fees. But it won't work. It will never be the same. The damage is too extensive.

eBay wasn't just a website, or even just a company. It was a phenomenon, probably the most popular internet destination in history. Had they managed it properly, it still could be. It's really a shame. I miss the old eBay.

[Stigger]

Originally Posted by jeffweico

eBay has been trying to get rid of the small sellers for a long time now. They DESPERATELY want to be Amazon. Problem is, Amazon does a pretty good job of being Amazon.

Through increased fees and financial shenanigans they have been able to post higher profits each quarter. But their user base and traffic is declining. I wouldn't want to own their stock.

eBay was so great back in the day! It was a lot of fun. Lots of unique stuff. Friendly people. Their rules fit on a single web page rather than nearly overflowing a UPS truck. Changes were minor. Sellers were respected. The feedback system worked well.

Then they added a million or so new categories. And started banning items left and right. Listing items became an abrasive process. Sellers were discouraged from talking to each other. Fees increased - every 14 days or so. Changes were made on a weekly basis. Good sellers were NARU'd for silly reasons.

They took the world's biggest and BEST swap meet and turned it into a low rent version of Kmart. In fact, if Kmart and a Flea Market got together and had a love-child, eBay today is what it would look like.

Now this Donahoe guy is running it and he actually said he was embarrassed to run it because eBay looked like a flea market. When a reporter asked him about seller complaints, he said we were just "noise". He expects small sellers to meet unrealistic customer service goals and have the return policies of Wal-Mart. Even if what they sell is antiques. If eBay had to live by the same standards they hold us to, they would have to NARU their whole f******g company.

They claim they had to take steps to root out fraud. But there is more fraud now than ever before. They are positively overrun with counterfeits.

Many good sellers have left, and they are not likely to come back.

One day, eBay will realize that they will never be Amazon, and that they have lost what made them great. But by then it will be too late. Amazon will still be Amazon but eBay will be lucky to have 50% of Amazon's sales and traffic. When that day comes, you will see eBay trying to win back sellers with better treatment and lower fees. But it won't work. It will never be the same. The damage is too extensive.

eBay wasn't just a website, or even just a company. It was a phenomenon, probably the most popular internet destination in history. Had they managed it properly, it still could be. It's really a shame. I miss the old eBay.

Good Write up and very true .

[gibsonton]

Originally Posted by jeffweico

eBay has been trying to get rid of the small sellers for a long time now. They DESPERATELY want to be Amazon. Problem is, Amazon does a pretty good job of being Amazon.

Through increased fees and financial shenanigans they have been able to post higher profits each quarter. But their user base and traffic is declining. I wouldn't want to own their stock.

eBay was so great back in the day! It was a lot of fun. Lots of unique stuff. Friendly people. Their rules fit on a single web page rather than nearly overflowing a UPS truck. Changes were minor. Sellers were respected. The feedback system worked well.

Then they added a million or so new categories. And started banning items left and right. Listing items became an abrasive process. Sellers were discouraged from talking to each other. Fees increased - every 14 days or so. Changes were made on a weekly basis. Good sellers were NARU'd for silly reasons.

They took the world's biggest and BEST swap meet and turned it into a low rent version of Kmart. In fact, if Kmart and a Flea Market got together and had a love-child, eBay today is what it would look like.

Now this Donahoe guy is running it and he actually said he was embarrassed to run it because eBay looked like a flea market. When a reporter asked him about seller complaints, he said we were just "noise". He expects small sellers to meet unrealistic customer service goals and have the return policies of Wal-Mart. Even if what they sell is antiques. If eBay had to live by the same standards they hold us to, they would have to NARU their whole f******g company.

They claim they had to take steps to root out fraud. But there is more fraud now than ever before. They are positively overrun with counterfeits.

Many good sellers have left, and they are not likely to come back.

One day, eBay will realize that they will never be Amazon, and that they have lost what made them great. But by then it will be too late. Amazon will still be Amazon but eBay will be lucky to have 50% of Amazon's sales and traffic. When that day comes, you will see eBay trying to win back sellers with better treatment and lower fees. But it won't work. It will never be the same. The damage is too extensive.

eBay wasn't just a website, or even just a company. It was a phenomenon, probably the most popular internet destination in history. Had they managed it properly, it still could be. It's really a shame. I miss the old eBay.

JMO, Why did Ebay change ??? they changed because they were spending so much time defending themselfs from lawsuits from people selling %^&* items ... look at the TIFANNYS lawsuit WHICH ebay finally won .. and The whole OPERATION BULLPEN fiasco ..sorry bad sellers were the root of the problem for Ebay not Ebay trying to be Amazon even though i agree now they are trying to copy them-but it was not the root ..and there is far less %#&* items than there was years back .. i used to buy my stuff in LOTS right off of ebay 10 of this 50 of this and sell at the local flea market .. you cant even get 1 item listed without being a high chance of vero let alone try and sell a 30 count lot of handbags - jerseys- designer clothes - new release dvds -Software etc ......if your selling bad stuff what do you expect ? just be lucky your not in jail as ive seen in the last 4 years 5 local flea market vendors and 1 ebay seller selling handbags- shoes -jerseys- golf clubs-dvds hit the slammer and one they even took their house as that is where they had the stuff stored and thats why i quit years back ... on the other hand if your selling legit items and get vero'ed which i have -and had to fight tooth and nail with interns for a law firm or the president of a fan club that gets vero right from a artist ..i understand the frustration .. i had one Bands vero watcher finally admit over a year later they were wrong on pulling one of my items and when i contacted ebay i was told it was over a year and they couldnt even pull it up anymore .....either way good luck , b-carefull and have a backup plan .

[waterproof]

I have no idea what you sell, but things can be bad for me if I don't sell with the appropriate season.
In my field, I sell sports. So there is no need for me to sell NBA when it the MLB(Baseball) season. I have found that I sell the NBA, but will sell for little to nothing and the same goes for every other sport for me.
In about 4-6 weeks I will be selling NFL Memorabilia and Autographs like crazy and making a good dollar at it. If I sold now, my rookies would be worthless because they haven't played a game yet.
I also sell other collectibles that I know not to sell until the Holidays like November thru January. If I sell "outside" that box, I risk losing hundreds on each sale.

Food for thought...

Good Luck!

waterproof

[jeffweico]

Originally Posted by gibsonton

JMO, Why did Ebay change ??? they changed because they were spending so much time defending themselfs from lawsuits from people selling %^&* items ... look at the TIFANNYS lawsuit WHICH ebay finally won .. and The whole OPERATION BULLPEN fiasco ..sorry bad sellers were the root of the problem for Ebay not Ebay trying to be Amazon even though i agree now they are trying to copy them-but it was not the root ..and there is far less %#&* items than there was years back .. i used to buy my stuff in LOTS right off of ebay 10 of this 50 of this and sell at the local flea market .. you cant even get 1 item listed without being a high chance of vero let alone try and sell a 30 count lot of handbags - jerseys- designer clothes - new release dvds -Software etc ......if your selling bad stuff what do you expect ? just be lucky your not in jail as ive seen in the last 4 years 5 local flea market vendors and 1 ebay seller selling handbags- shoes -jerseys- golf clubs-dvds hit the slammer and one they even took their house as that is where they had the stuff stored and thats why i quit years back ... on the other hand if your selling legit items and get vero'ed which i have -and had to fight tooth and nail with interns for a law firm or the president of a fan club that gets vero right from a artist ..i understand the frustration .. i had one Bands vero watcher finally admit over a year later they were wrong on pulling one of my items and when i contacted ebay i was told it was over a year and they couldnt even pull it up anymore .....either way good luck , b-carefull and have a backup plan .

I wasn't referring to VERO, that is just one part of it. I knew a lady years ago - very nice woman - who owned an antiques store. She started on eBay and after 2 years decided she was doing so well, she closed her store. Six months later eBay NARU'd her. She had 100% positive feedback and zero complaints. Of course, eBay never gave a reason, just a canned email. That is the type of thing I'm referring to, not VERO.

Sure, if you sell new release DVD's, p90x, your baby can whatever, then you take your chances. That is a different thing.

And as you seem to understand, just because your items are legitimate does not mean you will not have problems. You can have problems even with GENERIC non-branded, non-trademarked items.

I don't know when you started with eBay, but back in 1995 or so, they were totally different. And fraud was very rare. Sure, it happened, but bad sellers were weeded out pretty quickly.