eBay sellers - its stacked against us
Discussion
Given my recent frustrations I thought I'd start a thread for fellow frustrated ebay business sellers. With any luck we might be able to help each other out a bit...
Back story - I have a small sideline business, started late 2020 and it has been growing well, progressing from 20 units sold in the first month to just over 700 last month. I have taken my time to grow it mostly organically, with the majority of sales coming online via ebay, etsy and more recently our website. The webshop went live towards the end of last year and is doing ok - one strategy now being to use ebay/etsy to direct customers to our website for repeat sales. This has been working and my intention was to continue doing this alongside other things - social media, presence at Christmas Markets, SEO etc. As such I had accepted that some ebay sales wouldn't make much profit, but would help spread the name of the business.
My latest frustration is I have accidently crept into having a transaction defect rate of 2.59% (ebay allow 2%) - a genuine mistake where a particular item sold well over a weekend, more than we had in stock at that moment. Customers were contacted quickly with an explanation and apology and offered a refund or could wait a week for the item to come back into stock. The rest was 19 'cancellations' which has tipped me over the edge. Roll on nearly 2 months and sale drop off a cliff - 1 sale in the last 7 days as opposed to just over 50 sales in the previous week.
I've had one message from ebay saying my account is restricted, and doing some digging I am getting 0 impressions on any of the 250ish listings. eBay support is almost non-existent, I have appealed the defects and they've been refused. Further research seems to suggest I just have to ride out a year until the defects drop off the account, is this the only solution? Or is there something else I can try? I'm close to just chucking the towel into ebay and closing the ebay shop, which would be a shame because I've spent the last couple of years building it to where it is
Back story - I have a small sideline business, started late 2020 and it has been growing well, progressing from 20 units sold in the first month to just over 700 last month. I have taken my time to grow it mostly organically, with the majority of sales coming online via ebay, etsy and more recently our website. The webshop went live towards the end of last year and is doing ok - one strategy now being to use ebay/etsy to direct customers to our website for repeat sales. This has been working and my intention was to continue doing this alongside other things - social media, presence at Christmas Markets, SEO etc. As such I had accepted that some ebay sales wouldn't make much profit, but would help spread the name of the business.
My latest frustration is I have accidently crept into having a transaction defect rate of 2.59% (ebay allow 2%) - a genuine mistake where a particular item sold well over a weekend, more than we had in stock at that moment. Customers were contacted quickly with an explanation and apology and offered a refund or could wait a week for the item to come back into stock. The rest was 19 'cancellations' which has tipped me over the edge. Roll on nearly 2 months and sale drop off a cliff - 1 sale in the last 7 days as opposed to just over 50 sales in the previous week.
I've had one message from ebay saying my account is restricted, and doing some digging I am getting 0 impressions on any of the 250ish listings. eBay support is almost non-existent, I have appealed the defects and they've been refused. Further research seems to suggest I just have to ride out a year until the defects drop off the account, is this the only solution? Or is there something else I can try? I'm close to just chucking the towel into ebay and closing the ebay shop, which would be a shame because I've spent the last couple of years building it to where it is
EBay has been stacked against sellers for years. I sell a small amount on eBay, mainly overstock and b-stock items.
The fact that you cannot leave negative feedback for non paying buyers is barking.
I’ve had people asking to return items using the “not as described” option despite them saying in messages that they just bought the wrong thing. What do eBay do? Say I have to accept the return, at my expense, despite the listing stating no returns. After hours on the phone, they agreed to pay for the return postage so I wasn’t out of pocket.
Then there’s the intensely annoying emails that I’ve had every month since Christmas that say my late delivery rates are very high. They are correct, but it is due to Royal Mail taking 2 weeks to deliver and losing items. What more can a seller do than send the item the same day it is paid for?
Not to mention that they now take their cut on whatever we charge for p&p, and let buyers give us feedback on the price of p&p, which is higher than we’d like as we have to give eBay their slice.
And of course the fact that in certain categories you have to offer free postage.
But aside from that it’s a delightful place to sell.
The fact that you cannot leave negative feedback for non paying buyers is barking.
I’ve had people asking to return items using the “not as described” option despite them saying in messages that they just bought the wrong thing. What do eBay do? Say I have to accept the return, at my expense, despite the listing stating no returns. After hours on the phone, they agreed to pay for the return postage so I wasn’t out of pocket.
Then there’s the intensely annoying emails that I’ve had every month since Christmas that say my late delivery rates are very high. They are correct, but it is due to Royal Mail taking 2 weeks to deliver and losing items. What more can a seller do than send the item the same day it is paid for?
Not to mention that they now take their cut on whatever we charge for p&p, and let buyers give us feedback on the price of p&p, which is higher than we’d like as we have to give eBay their slice.
And of course the fact that in certain categories you have to offer free postage.
But aside from that it’s a delightful place to sell.
I am a casual eBay seller and every 2 weeks I get the "Save 80% on variable selling fees" offer which is pretty good. Pity it wasn't this weekend as I have some stuff to shift.
I only sell what I would otherwise have to give away or throw out.
My main complaint with eBay is that I only sell sporadically and every time I try to navigate the selling side of the website it has changed again and I struggle to manage the process.
And why can't eBay list postage services and show prices for different options and calculate the postage cost? I have to pretend to send something to my old house to see what the postage costs are.
I only sell what I would otherwise have to give away or throw out.
My main complaint with eBay is that I only sell sporadically and every time I try to navigate the selling side of the website it has changed again and I struggle to manage the process.
And why can't eBay list postage services and show prices for different options and calculate the postage cost? I have to pretend to send something to my old house to see what the postage costs are.
Few things
If a competitor sees that you’re putting “off platform” info in with orders and then reports it you’ll be finished anyway.
If you need to increase sell through after having your bad weekend look at a small cheap item you can post - I advise “toaster bags” and sell them at a loss - you’re saving your account.
To get your sales back up asap understand you’ll lose margin but use both paid search options eBay give - you’ll get the algorithm back on side much quicker with order throughflow.
If a competitor sees that you’re putting “off platform” info in with orders and then reports it you’ll be finished anyway.
If you need to increase sell through after having your bad weekend look at a small cheap item you can post - I advise “toaster bags” and sell them at a loss - you’re saving your account.
To get your sales back up asap understand you’ll lose margin but use both paid search options eBay give - you’ll get the algorithm back on side much quicker with order throughflow.
DSLiverpool said:
Few things
If a competitor sees that you’re putting “off platform” info in with orders and then reports it you’ll be finished anyway.
If you need to increase sell through after having your bad weekend look at a small cheap item you can post - I advise “toaster bags” and sell them at a loss - you’re saving your account.
To get your sales back up asap understand you’ll lose margin but use both paid search options eBay give - you’ll get the algorithm back on side much quicker with order throughflow.
Why not 'buy' your own product and give yourself feedback via a proxy account or ask mates? All it costs is the fees, but obviously a bad idea if you sell expensive things.If a competitor sees that you’re putting “off platform” info in with orders and then reports it you’ll be finished anyway.
If you need to increase sell through after having your bad weekend look at a small cheap item you can post - I advise “toaster bags” and sell them at a loss - you’re saving your account.
To get your sales back up asap understand you’ll lose margin but use both paid search options eBay give - you’ll get the algorithm back on side much quicker with order throughflow.
Tim Cognito said:
I'm confused, the 2.59% defect rate occurred 2 months ago, but your sales only dropped off last week?
That’s what’s confused me to. I’ve had the occasional few days with no sales and as it coincided with the run up to pay day weekend I thought nothing of it. Then the restriction was applied. Their coms has been poor with just one message saying the account has been restricted but not explaining what those restrictions are. I’ll be trying to call them on Tuesday to get a better understandingDSLiverpool said:
Few things
If a competitor sees that you’re putting “off platform” info in with orders and then reports it you’ll be finished anyway.
If you need to increase sell through after having your bad weekend look at a small cheap item you can post - I advise “toaster bags” and sell them at a loss - you’re saving your account.
To get your sales back up asap understand you’ll lose margin but use both paid search options eBay give - you’ll get the algorithm back on side much quicker with order throughflow.
Interesting - there are two main competitors, both put flyers/info with their orders. I buy lots of stuff regularly from eBay and loads of companies do it, I don’t see how eBay can make that an issue?!If a competitor sees that you’re putting “off platform” info in with orders and then reports it you’ll be finished anyway.
If you need to increase sell through after having your bad weekend look at a small cheap item you can post - I advise “toaster bags” and sell them at a loss - you’re saving your account.
To get your sales back up asap understand you’ll lose margin but use both paid search options eBay give - you’ll get the algorithm back on side much quicker with order throughflow.
The paid search options have been restricted so I can’t use these, so I don’t know how I’m supposed to boost sales when they don’t get any exposure?
Shrimper said:
I've had one message from ebay saying my account is restricted, and doing some digging I am getting 0 impressions on any of the 250ish listings.
Have you checked you haven't been shadow banned by Ebay? Use an incognito window in Chrome and do a search for your product without being logged in to Ebay. Shadow banning is a thing as there have been threads on reddit and other places from sellers about the same issue.
Shrimper said:
Tim Cognito said:
I'm confused, the 2.59% defect rate occurred 2 months ago, but your sales only dropped off last week?
That’s what’s confused me to. I’ve had the occasional few days with no sales and as it coincided with the run up to pay day weekend I thought nothing of it. Then the restriction was applied. Their coms has been poor with just one message saying the account has been restricted but not explaining what those restrictions are. I’ll be trying to call them on Tuesday to get a better understandingDSLiverpool said:
Shrimper said:
Tim Cognito said:
I'm confused, the 2.59% defect rate occurred 2 months ago, but your sales only dropped off last week?
That’s what’s confused me to. I’ve had the occasional few days with no sales and as it coincided with the run up to pay day weekend I thought nothing of it. Then the restriction was applied. Their coms has been poor with just one message saying the account has been restricted but not explaining what those restrictions are. I’ll be trying to call them on Tuesday to get a better understandingJust as a seller of random stuff…
I just sold something for £8.50 iirc.
Postage was £3.
They took £3 for postage but I don’t get my £8.50 for some time yet.
eBay must be doing very well on this cash surplus £11.50 (till I get paid) for say a week.
I bet they even owe Evri for delivery and settle after 30/60 days.
As always surprised there isn’t any real competition in the sector given it’s just a framework (quite an old crappy one in eBays case, feels like some parts are legacy from 15 years ago still)
I just sold something for £8.50 iirc.
Postage was £3.
They took £3 for postage but I don’t get my £8.50 for some time yet.
eBay must be doing very well on this cash surplus £11.50 (till I get paid) for say a week.
I bet they even owe Evri for delivery and settle after 30/60 days.
As always surprised there isn’t any real competition in the sector given it’s just a framework (quite an old crappy one in eBays case, feels like some parts are legacy from 15 years ago still)
Mr Whippy said:
Just as a seller of random stuff…
As always surprised there isn’t any real competition in the sector given it’s just a framework (quite an old crappy one in eBays case, feels like some parts are legacy from 15 years ago still)
eBay and Amazon both have pretty shocking back ends, I have a dislike for them both (Amazon MUCH more so) and I will raise a glass when they *eventually* have their downfall...if I live that long.As always surprised there isn’t any real competition in the sector given it’s just a framework (quite an old crappy one in eBays case, feels like some parts are legacy from 15 years ago still)
It's a chicken and egg situation. For business sellers, who is going to go to all the hassle of listing/integrating with a new platform when there's no buyers on there, and how is a new platform going to get any buyers if there's not the products they are looking for.
There have been a few attempts over the years, one which sticks out is Rakuten (remember them? No thought not). They went on a massive sales drive trying to sign up loads of ecommerce businesses, pushy sales guys giving it the big one saying it was going to be the next Amazon. I could see it was obviously s
te and a waste of time but some clients insisted on signing up. Sold fk all and no idea what happened to it.eBid showed promise but I think they killed it with fees before it became a household name and got sufficient traffic to be self-sustaining. For such a site to become a success it needs to be free for a lottttttttttttt of years but then as Tim says, it's the chicken and egg situation where nobody is going to list stuff if it's only going to get seen by 2 people 200 miles away.
Mr Whippy said:
Just as a seller of random stuff…
I just sold something for £8.50 iirc.
Postage was £3.
They took £3 for postage but I don’t get my £8.50 for some time yet.
eBay must be doing very well on this cash surplus £11.50 (till I get paid) for say a week.
I bet they even owe Evri for delivery and settle after 30/60 days.
As always surprised there isn’t any real competition in the sector given it’s just a framework (quite an old crappy one in eBays case, feels like some parts are legacy from 15 years ago still)
Change your payout settings.I just sold something for £8.50 iirc.
Postage was £3.
They took £3 for postage but I don’t get my £8.50 for some time yet.
eBay must be doing very well on this cash surplus £11.50 (till I get paid) for say a week.
I bet they even owe Evri for delivery and settle after 30/60 days.
As always surprised there isn’t any real competition in the sector given it’s just a framework (quite an old crappy one in eBays case, feels like some parts are legacy from 15 years ago still)
I get paid next day.It's your choice,next day, weekly etc
Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff