Some Observations about eBay Trends from an eBay Seller’s Perspective

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Trend #1 – Occasional eBay sellers are reluctant to list their items on the “new” eBay

Something interesting has been occurring recently.  All of a sudden, eBay members have begun emailing me to ask if I would be interested in buying their items.  It is not unusual for us to be contacted about once a month through eBay asking if we would be interested in purchasing some items that are just like what we are selling.  We are not listed as Trading Assistants and we do not advertise that we sell on consignment so these emails really do come out of the blue.  What is astonishing is the volume of emails we have recently received, both from people who have never bought from us as well as people who buy from us one week and then email us the next week with an offer to sell to us something different.  Out of curiosity I began asking the people if they had tried selling the item themselves on eBay.  The overwhelming response was that they had been an occasional eBay seller in the past but this year the rules are too difficult to understand and they are afraid that they would never get their money from PayPal even if they did manage to sell their item on eBay.  Many of these occasional sellers stopped selling when the eBay insertion fees got too high and the selling prices got too low.  But now, even when these sellers are faced with tough economic times, so that they really need to sell some of their items, and the insertion fee for fixed price is only 35 cents, they still won’t list their items on eBay.  Many of them think a better plan is to find someone like us, who is still selling on eBay, and hope that we will buy their items outright so that they can avoid the uncertainty of having to navigate through the new eBay and PayPal rules.

Trend #2 – eBay Sellers most often ask for a shipping discount from other eBay sellers

It is really amazing how many eBay sellers (competitors) buy from us now to resell on eBay because we are liquidating some of our product lines right now as we transition more onto alternate channels with higher quality items.  In our eBay listings, we always state what the shipping cost is for one item as well as the shipping costs for additional items.  However, we receive quite a few emails from potential buyers asking us for a further discount in shipping.  As some of them say, “how about I pay the actual postage with no handling fees”?   They tell us they don’t need insurance so we can subtract that out and they actually tell us that they don’t need the items packaged well; they just need cheap shipping.  We conducted an informal survey and found that the vast majority of potential buyers who asked for a shipping discount more than what we currently state are themselves also eBay sellers, most of whom actually charge MORE for shipping the same item than we do.  

I have noticed that the eBay community boards and other public bulletin boards where eBay is discussed have received fewer comment posts and the posts do not seem to be nearly so “passionate”.  eBay sellers simply are not taking the time to try and express their frustration about eBay and/or to eBay.  They seem to have given up on eBay. 

(b) It took 6 days before anyone made a comment on the post titled eBay Launches Mobile App

(c) Just under a week ago, the article titled eBay to Launch Adcommerce Program for Sellers  was posted.  To date, there is just over one page of comments.  Four months ago I would have expected this provocative post to have received many more comments.

(d) On August 19th, the post titled Reduction in Fixed Price Fee and Much Much More received 12 pages of comments.

(e) On May 19th, the post titled Knowing Where You Stand received 25 pages of comments

(f) On May 16th, the post titled titled Feedback on Feedback to Feedback received 49 pages of comments

Sellers were passionately posting on eBayInk Blog four months ago but recent articles rarely get comments.  Most of the articles now are simply public relation pieces and those that could be considered provocative to the seller community receive only a few short comments.