My sales are right down!

[cookiecutter101]

Ebay always wins, it's their platform, their system.

But back to the topic of the thread, if sales are down across the board (average) and they are actively trying to compete with Amazon, who wins?

Ebay, but to a much lesser extent than the potential.
more $ = ebay stockholders happy = ebay happy = sellers happy from sales

Problem is people are broke, times are tough and ebay's "fiddling" with the system just before the holidays sucks for everyone. (this is true for ebay UK, not sure about other sites)
Best match is just crazy, chinese sellers are ranked at the top with their ⊗⊗⊗⊗ "Uk" locations and listings just randomly dropping through the search rankings.

And they don't even have Cassini rolled out on ebay UK yet, so imagine the fun times ahead.

[Zero123]

The Chinese sellers are terrible.

They live on $0.XX profit per item, and can somehow manage to ship for like 2 dollars. If I ever wanted to ship something from the U.S to China, it would cost at least double digits.
The items I sell usually are ok at first, but at some point Chinese sellers come in and cut the item price in half and compete with other chinese sellers.

Then I have to go on and look for another product, which is already infested with chinese sellers or will be soon.

[cookiecutter101]

If you really wanna know:

ELI5: How do China eBay sellers make money selling electronics at $1 including shipping to remote locations? : explainlikeimfive

But you are completely right, they may make 10-20c on a 1$ item and that's good business for them.

Me personally, the lowest cost item I used to sell was 2.59GBP (postage is 90cents already in that price) and I still make 1GBP profit.
But I stopped selling it, because it's simply not worth the time & effort.

A 1GBP profit per sale for the chinese would be pure gold, but they simply don't care. They'd rather try and undercut me. (just an FYI they failed, I was the hottest seller of it by miles - simply because I'm not a Chinese seller).

Point being, they would rather seller thousands upon thousands of items @ 10-20cents profit, than a couple hundered @ 1GBP profit.
Not to mention the postage subsidies they get for shipping in bulk to distribution centers. It costs them pennies, whilst just postage everywhere else is by comparison between 100x - 2000x larger sometimes even more.

It's all fair in business, nothing you can do about it. Other than Exploit your biggest selling points Domestic and Customer service.

Both of which can and do make many sellers bank.

[vogeltron]

I am sorry everyone. But I have to laugh. I know Chinese sellers hurt many sellers on this board with their lower priced products. I do have to ask. If they are selling the same items and you are importing them from overseas aren't you holding them to a double standard. I mean if the items they are selling are phakes etc then I understand the complaints. But if you are importing the exact same things from China then complaining about the Chinese sellers under cutting you prices. All I can do is laugh. I am sorry. But it seems like the old wanting to "have your cake and eat it too".

[cookiecutter101]

Definitely true, but that's not the point I was making. I don't sell phakes, I import original things from my suppliers, only later to be undercut by phake chinese one's or even stolen items. (don't forget a lot of "quick" sales under market value that are for completely original items etc, are usually from stolen shipments).

Not everything made in china is phake, or even poor quality. You must be extremely naiive to think that. They can make any quality or even better quality than the equivalent in another developed country. They do it to the buyer's spec, guidelines and wants (this is true for Reputable factories and manufacturers - not the shady one's who cut corners even on custom orders).

But constantly undercutting even their own Chinese competition is what drives most eBay and other site markets down into the ground.
They live in the moment, they'd rather make a sale right now and make 0.01 cent profit then make a sale in a week and make 0.02 cent profit. They don't look nor plan towards future plans for each product, the end game is to sell as many as possible as quickly as possible. Their product life cycle is also affected and they continually switch between products just because they drive the prices to the ground to the point where it becomes unsustainable even for themselves.

They struggle to make ends meet day to day, especially true for the working class. From their point of view, only the present matters, so long as they can buy dinner for tonight they will go ahead with it. It's a completely different mentality, most sellers on this forum and in general from the Western world look at it differently. It's business, and there is little to no point of working extremely hard for little to no pay, we have different values and expectations. If we were to work under their profit margins, no-one would be in business.

In most cases we do business so that we don't have to work for someone and be dependent on a paycheck for your 9 to 5, but rather be your own boss and reap the benefits. To them it's about surviving the day, the week, the month.

The best advice for sellers constantly fighting with Chinese competition is to exploit your strong points:

1. customer service - something the chinese almost never offer
2. domestic location - for overnight or next day delivery options, etc.
3. possibility of item return/exchange within 1-2weeks, rather than 3-4 weeks shipping back to china
4. In most cases this is true - English and an understanding of your product

Chinese sellers are excellent for eBay, they drive competition between sellers and wage price wars, all of which = more sales from buyer's looking for deals.
Imagine what would happen if they cut off chinese sellers, prices across the board would go up, buyers would definitely purchase a lot less items. Even eBay sellers would regret the prices for the items they want.


Sorry for the long rant.

[GreenBean]

Double whammy.

Have your own niche.

Sell as best as possible.

[RustyShackelford]

Everything is changing in the eCommerce game, not just bay. Look at a google search, before people used to dump money and time into organic results via SEO, but now google is favoring its adword PPC platform. You get hit with 5-10 paid ads before seeing organic results. Click through rates dropped significantly, so now you have to pay to play.

Aspkin has the right idea with his new book. Create your own website, be in control of your own domain. Pay for clicks, find other ways to draw traffic to your site. You will not have to worry about waking up to a closed account, or negative feedback.
Use e bay to fund you while you build your site, but do not rely on it long term.

E bay is like a franchise, yes, its great because you have instant sales, but a franchise can pull your location because they do not like they way your employees shirts are ironed (its literally in the contract), you can lose it for anything for little to no compensation. So many have learned and shy away from it, build their own brands, do the same.

[joesshooze]

At least not on US EB website.

[cookiecutter101]

At least we'll soon all be multi-billionaires like some African countries, due to all of the inflation and new paper being printed.

[ronin]

Ever since ebay crashed its been nothing but a headache.. I noticed my sales slump a week before... I went from 15 items a day to 2 items a day... I think it was more then just the summer slump... In the forums buyer have not been able to check out.. I was unable to view orders or print shipping labels... I believe its Cassini.. Also they have their new policy were they can hide your listing if your under performing... Ebay is a sinking ship.. Dont fix was isnt broken.. they broke that rule 10 times over

[beatingebay]

I have to say my sales are way up!!!!! I am so grateful to even have found this form and have sales period!!!!!!!!! Since I was the one got my sell kicked off for selling vero. Lesson learned!!! I found the book Think and Grow Rich! Its changed my life forever! I now wake up and say Thank you for even one sale. Cause without that book and this forum, and all the wonderful help on here, I would never be back on to even have one sale, let alone many! And many accounts! Once you change your views and the negative mindset the world opens up in ways you can not even imagine! Thank you aspkin, for being so great and helping all of us! EVEN IF YOU WON"T WEAR A SUIT IN A VIDEO! lol!

[beatingebay]

Read the book!! More millionaires were created in The Great Depression! For many this was the time when more money was made. During this slump, more people made more money than before! Stop complaining, stop being negative! The world goes round and so does the money! Anything is possible!~ Impossible means I'M POSSIBLE!

[tmastermind]

Think and grow rich? Sounds like another MLM style book along with others like Rich dad poor dad... there not bad books to be fair but they do hype themselves over too much...

Positive thinking is good, nowt wrong with a positive mindset but at the same time if your not realistic of the cold hard facts your only setting yourself up for a hard fall. Its all about balance at the end of the day, dont berate yourself too much, but dont congratulate yourself too much either. Its great to see your enjoying good sales but dont rest on your laurels. Many here have felt the cold shoulder and impending doom finger of Amazon and eBay. That's why were all here in the first place.

[SaiJin]

Well, it's October now, so I'm assuming the holiday sales is starting and we should be having better sales

[rsot]

Originally Posted by SaiJin

Well, it's October now, so I'm assuming the holiday sales is starting and we should be having better sales

Should be - as people gear up for holiday shopping...

[Sandy D]

That is one reason I do well in my niche of antiques and collectibles.

Smaller competition and the Chinese cannot sell their items for 0.01 and steal my business like they do so many others.

My sales have been a record this year for me and continue to see more increases for some reason.

I am seeing less older people buying at auctions and younger people just cannot buy enough stuff to compete at antique auctions so the competition is shrinking.

[newjerseymax]

I just boosted all my prices by 30% and sales are same.... Not too shabby...

I will be testing some new markets if I can make time....

[Sandy D]

Originally Posted by newjerseymax

I just boosted all my prices by 30% and sales are same.... Not too shabby...

I will be testing some new markets if I can make time....

That is awesome Max.

Any time you can raise prices and still get sales is nice.

[yotano211]

I am getting into new markets to find things to sell. I am finding my sales increase vs last year. But my sales with normal things are back to normal and increasing by the week.

[SaiJin]

Last year and this year has been pretty good. I'm just hoping that This last 3 months will be as good or better.

So far not tho

[unclejohnny]

You all think this government shut down might slow down things too?

[unclejohnny]

I have two new niche websites I'm building as I speak. I was profiting off music and dvds until folks was getting it for free. Like beatingebay say build your on brand and legacy. Came back to ebay for a cup of tea and found out it want for me long term.