Ebay Sales Slump, Interested To Hear From Other Sellers How They Are Doing, Sales Up Or Down?

I am a top rated stamps / postal history power seller and I have noticed this week a huge drop in bidders. It seems to be really bad probably the worst selling for December on ebay since I have been selling. In fact this last few months sales are considerably down compared to the same time last year. Maybe there is to much competition? I've got nice old stamps on covers up some at 99 cents starts and yet not many people seem to be looking Is anyone else noticing the same with their ebay sales? I have over 220 followers but they don't seem to actively be checking. Everybody off shopping for Xmas? I'd be interested to hear from sellers and buyers on this. Buyers are you still buying a lot from ebay? Sellers how are you going with selling compared to last year?

I am seeing the opposite. I re-listed 200 auctions last weekend that had failed to sell in the past few months. There was a promotion for 500 free listings, so I figured why not. So far, 18 of the items have bids. These are all items that failed to sell at least twice now. I think I have 4 or 5 different bidders. Not bad for a shot in the dark.

I just finished up an auction of stamp lots - just 63 lots, but 61 sold. All started at 99 cents, but many sold over $20 and some as high as $90. There was a lot of activity. I normally sell covers as well, but really haven't had the time to put up a big cover auction. Next year.

Just winding up my best month ever. So maybe it's what is being sold / how much rather than a drop in buyers. Having said that half of my 300 listed items have not moved in two months.

This week is a little slow, but my sales have been very good in the last couple months and I even had good sales over Thanksgiving. I have much more trouble finding material than I do selling it. I think good material selling at auction with a low starting price will always do OK in the long run.

I get the feeling 99 cent starters are the easiest to sell but not much money in that unless you get several making over $20 like battlestamps did. But I cringe when I see great items go for 99 cents,then find them being sold at high prices by dealers elsewhere. Buy it now at set prices are very slow to sell. 300 items not moving in two months is a worry though I seem to be in the same boat as having 200+ items not selling and having to relist and hope some go. What would you call an average month $5000? Like Krelyea I had a good couple of months but this week suddenly seems slow. I guess sales come in waves. Bidders suddenly drop off and then come back later.

I auction 50 items/week all start at $2.59 average sale price $45 with 99%+ selling.

The most active sales period in 2016 for me was in the spring.
Last two months (October, November) were very slow. This week sales picked up a bit.

Maybe buyers are sticking with certain sellers and not looking at other sellers? I had a regular say he could not see my items and then just now another regular buyer saying the same thing. Somethings funny with Cassini sometimes we seem to be on a blackout?

Have you tried an email newsletter to let folks know about new listings?

Yes my newsletter has gone out every week in fact the guy who said he can't see my listings said he gets my newsletter. In this down time I guess put more buy it now up and hope for buyers.

duncanvr,
ebay has many servers spread across the world. In fact as of last year, they reported they had in excess of 54,000 servers! They have far fewer data centers but keep in mind the logistical nightmares of such a massive network. (Imagine just the headaches of the language translations between the servers.)

I know we all love to hate on ebay, but the fact that you can submit a listing and within seconds (5-15 seconds in my informal testing) and have it propagate cross a network of worldwide servers is pretty amazing. ebay out performs all the biggest network giants in this respect.

But it is not surprising to me that some users might not see a listing. I would inquire about which part of the world they are working from and see if I could spot any trends. For example, it may be that it is mostly ebay CA (Canada) that user have issues. Did you notice if the users who report trouble were from a particular part of the globe?

Keep in mind that it is common for users to be presented with 'regional' search results. Most all search engines will prioritize 'local' results first (local might be by country or continent.)
Don

These guys are in Brazil and Canada I guess it would be good if members on here from those counties could check to see if they can view all my stuff. It could also be a case of the users not cleaning their PCs I suppose. I told one of them to delete history and replace my shop link with a new one. Yes ebay is amazing with the way you can list an item and it can be seen on the other side of the world in minutes. Record for me was a buy it now sold 1 minute after it was listed. But I do worry when regulars start complaining they can't find my ebay listings.

Sometimes it is just a matter of not forgetting to chose a "Worldwide" option during the search.
If one doesn't chose this option, one doesn't see many listings posted in other countries.

I'll ask those guys to make sure they selected "Worldwide", good point