Are eBay Sales Down? (How We Fixed Ours For 2023)

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Everyone I know that sells on eBay ultimately does it for the same reason – to make money.  Even if you’re trying to get rid of some of your stuff, you want to walk that line between getting rid of it quickly and getting as much money for it as possible.

But what about when things just aren’t selling?

I’ve literally talked to dozens of sellers this year that tells me that eBay just isn’t what it used to be. I’ve heard this sentiment ever since I started my eBay store in 2015 but I never really put much stock into it before now.

Many people (including myself) have noticed drops of 50% or more in their stores.

So what’s wrong? Is eBay just down overall? Did something change that we all missed?

Well, I won’t claim that our store is doing better than every but there are a few things that we’ve done that have moved the needle upward.

How We Increased Our Slow eBay Sales

1. Daily Listing

Whether or not things sell is largely dictated by Cassini, eBay’s search engine.  Cassini decides what page things are on when people search for them.  Obviously, you’re going to have many more sales if you show up on page 1 or 2 instead of page 19.

eBay heavily favors active sellers, and listing new items is one of the best ways to show that you’re active!

Our personal goal when we’re just maintaining consistent sales is to list 30 items per day.  We often list something early in the morning and then spread out the rest throughout the day.

If we have an incredibly productive eBay day where we’re able to get 50 items’ listings ready to post, we will never list them all in one day. We’ll save them in drafts and use them for a boost during the week for the days we aren’t able to list as much.  So whether it’s a lot or a little, list on eBay daily!

2. Diversified Sourcing

eBay is an ever-changing landscape. If you’ve been on eBay for any amount of time you’ve probably noticed that the types of things that sell change by the month. If you don’t change with the times you can expect your sales to dwindle.

One of the best ways to change things up is to source in different places. Leave your traditional haunts behind and strike out someplace new. Try sourcing online, at public auctions, via liquidation sites, or on Facebook Marketplace. Each place offers a different type of good and each one offers different deals.

If you are willing to adapt and follow what’s hot you’ll rarely be stuck with old inventory!

3. Longer Return Window

If you want to get a discount for being a TRS (Top Rated Seller) on eBay, they require you to offer a 30-day return window. It stands to reason that that is their minimum recommendation and anything less could hurt your results in the search.

The fact of the matter is, you accept returns whether you want to or not.  Under eBay’s money-back guarantee, if a person is not content with their item, they can return it – and eBay can force you to refund them.

You will have much better results long-term if you simply offer great customer service and take returns for any reason (even if you think it’s unfair or it doesn’t make sense, which will, unfortunately, happen more often than you might like).  We accept returns for 30 days for any reason and our return rate is 1-2% depending on the season.  Dealing with returns is just a fact of life when it comes to running an eBay business.

Contrary to popular belief, offering a longer return window usually decreases the number of returns you get.  If someone is going to return something (either honestly or dishonestly), they’ll do it right when they receive the item.

Most of our customers who return their items message us and request a return within an hour of their receiving the package.  We have tons of return requests that the customer never bothers to follow through with.  So remember, you’re running a business, and customer satisfaction is your goal!  If they don’t like it, take it back and sell it again!  

If you’re scared of scammers, write a careful return policy and remember that eBay protects your right to refuse to refund if they return an item in damaged condition, worn condition, etc.

4. Free Shipping

Free shipping is another great way to get a boost in search results.  eBay loves it when you offer free shipping just as much as your customers do!  Now we don’t recommend providing free shipping on everything or your profit margins will be razor-thin.  We usually offer free shipping on anything that we know can be shipped either media mail or first class.  A small decrease in sale-to-sale profits increases our profits over time as we have more sales and happier customers!

5. Timely Shipping

If you ship something late, it will hurt your sales for days, possibly even until the late item is delivered.  Many times, we have dropped packages off at the post office and sold multiple items within minutes of our packages being scanned through, after a day-long drought of sales.

Offer the shortest handling time you can realistically maintain and then make it a priority!

We offer 1-day-handling on all of our packages and ship first thing every morning.  It’s worth losing a half-hour of sleep in the morning to keep the sales coming in all day.

6. Treat Your eBay Store Like a Business

If you don’t treat your eBay store like a serious business, how in the world could you expect your customers to?  If you treat eBay like a mysterious part-time income that is beyond your understanding, then that’s all it will ever be.  eBay rewards solid business practices with solid sales.  If you want to grow your business:

• Communicate Well – Answer every message even if it doesn’t result in a sale!  Delay in someone’s order? Message them.  Problem with the item?  Message them.  Anything at all?  Message them.  They may not even respond, but they’ll be happy to be kept in the loop.  Or, worst-case scenario, you’ll have evidence of your excellent business practices to show eBay if you have a grumpy customer.
• Leave Feedback Promptly – A couple of times a week, you should be leaving glowing feedback for all of your customers you’ve had no problems with.  If we have problem customers, we simply leave no feedback whatsoever, as we don’t want to prompt them to leave hateful feedback for us.  Leaving feedback prompts good customers to do the same for you, and eBay loves sellers with great feedback!
• Pay Fees – Keep your fees paid, and in a timely manner.  This keeps them from building up and can possibly give you a small boost in eBay’s mind.  It’s our way of saying “Hey we’re still here!  Have some of our money!”
• Undersell and Overpicture – A lot of our eBay feedback says something along the lines of, “Item was in much better condition than I expected!” This makes for happy customers!  We avoid phrases that could mean different things to different people and try to objectively describe exactly what we see in an item.  Never hide or minimize a flaw.  Whatever the condition, someone will want it.
• Ship Professionally – The responsibility for a package is yours even after you drop it off at the post office. Until it is in the customer’s hands, it is your responsibility.  Something breaks during shipping?  Your fault.  The Post Office lost your package?  Your fault.  So, package things well and provide tracking.  Your customers and your bank account with thank you for it.

7. Sales and Promoted Listings

When I was younger my neighbors had a business making jams and jellies. Every couple of months they would offer a 25% off coupon and have a huge increase in sales. After several years of doing this they sat down and figured out that, even though they had way more sales, the increase didn’t actually make them any more profit. It reduced their profit margins significantly and required them to step up their operations to get everything sent out. What did I learn from that?

You have to be very careful when using sales.

I wouldn’t recommend using sales consistently as a patch for choosing poor inventory, but to get things moving again it can be a great option. I typically do a sale of 5-10% that lasts for a week. A percent-off that small doesn’t lose much money but gives my listings a bump in search results.

You can also play around with sending offers to likers and promoted listings to gain some additional exposure. The more people see your listings the higher your chances of having a sale are!

8. Have Fun!

Some of the worst eBay sales I’ve ever had is when I first went full-time as a reseller and was working on it 12-14 hours a day. I was listing like crazy, sending out offers, putting things on sale, and pretty much begging people to buy.

It turns out that it was just a slow time of the year. I burnt myself out with almost no results. If I had been more moderate I would have reduced my stress load (which probably would have helped me sleep/work better) and not really affected my sales.

Take a break if you need to!

What we don’t enjoy, we either won’t do long or we won’t do well.  These days, when I find myself hating eBay, I take a break.  If I am ornery or bitter, I get out of it exactly what I’m putting into it.  Whatever it takes to get you in the mood to work is worth the time spent.  So if you need to wake up and go for a run, or read for 2 hours in order to be in a productive head-space…DO IT!  You won’t regret the time lost, and the time you do spend on eBay will be far more efficient and satisfying.

Remember, keep working hard but find joy in the journey!  The reason for money is to give us life and opportunity…but don’t let it control your life and opportunity.

Conclusion:

Many people consider eBay to be a money printer, and at one time it was. But, these days, most full-time eBay sellers feel like they’re just working another job. If you employ some of these tips and learn how to increase your eBay sales on demand you’ll be in much better shape as eBay continues to grow and change.