Comments for Remember EBay? Traffic at Auction Site Keeps Falling

Remember EBay? Traffic at Auction Site Keeps Falling

2009-07-10T18:53:49Z

According to Ina Steiner from AuctionBytes, eBay experienced a major drop in traffic over the last few months. Based on data from Nielsen, Steiner concludes that eBay's page views in May 2009 dropped 32% compared to May 2008, and compared to May 2005, page views were down by 40%. With a 7% drop from May 2008 to May 2009, the unique visitor numbers show a slightly less dramatic decline, but things are clearly not going too well for eBay right now.

]]> Identity Crisis

As Saul Hansell points out on the New York Times Bits blog, eBay is currently suffering from a major identity crisis. As we reported earlier this year, eBay's attempt to drive users away from auctions and towards fixed-price transactions ('Buy-it-Now') drove a lot of users away from the service, which, after all, used to be all about auctions. As Hansell rightly points out, a lot of this is meant to make users feel more secure about shopping at eBay, but at the same time, the company has also managed to annoy its traditional base of smaller sellers by focusing more on large retailers, while confusing users about what eBay really wants to be (auctions or Amazon competitor?).

Of course, it is also important to note that the current state of the economy also doesn't do eBay any favors. Consumer spending in general is down, and a lot of the items purchased on eBay were often collectibles and other items that were not necessities.

Comment from Modern Guitars on 2010-08-09

2010-08-09T22:26:12Z

I quit Ebay some time ago and opened my own website. Traffic was slow but began to rise. I shuffled off all my low value through classified and concentrated on high value items. According to my Google Analytics to date traffic in the last two quarters has been a total of 682% although stickiness could be better!

My point is this...I was spending £250 per month in Ebay fees. My site cost me £1500 and by concentrating on higher value items I have made that back. All I have to do now is sit back and drive traffic to my site which is fun....hey posting on forums and chatting to other guitar fanatics online and F2F is a nice way to do business. Sort of takes me back to when I use to work in a musical instrument retailer in the 1980's!

BUT a few questions for Ebay/Paypal users

Would you cede control of your business to someone else in the way you have to Ebay/Paypal? No?

Can Paypal close you down after one customer has complained? Yes? Now imagine that in the real world. Customer goes into store with real or vexacious complaint and "City Hall" closes that store down overnight and holds all cash in the till for 14, 21 or 90 days? Would you tolerate that in the "real" world!

Does Paypal hold any operating funds or liquid cash in the way that a real business would be expected to? No!

Could Paypal refund you if they made a mistake and refunded a buyer erroneously? No staff are not able to make any refunds nor does Paypal allow funds to flow back from reserves in order to expedite this. Paypal will see any claim against them by EITHER of you as fraud and close you down withholding both your funds rather than refund you.

Imagine your bank owned all of the retail world and would only let your store operate if you bank them. Try to bank with someone else and they will close you down.

This is a far cry from some gentle GenXers in sunny California swapping Pez dispensers (which incidently was a lie cooked by an over active PR guy!)

Now someone out there tell me that there is a better alternative than the Ebay/Paypal - its called run your own website and trade Face 2 face. If you are operating within a specific community of collectors people are always genuine when they are nt hiding behind their computer screens and a bogus hokey "feedback" system.

We managed to trade this way for 10,000 years dont let Ebay/Paypal tell you it is somehow "unsafe" its far safer than trading with them!

Comment from Steven on 2010-07-18

2010-07-18T10:40:15Z

By the way im now selling on Ebid

Comment from Steven on 2010-07-18

2010-07-18T10:38:25Z

ebay sales should be up not down.

People are searching for bargains and ebay should be the
place.

ebay have abused the small sellers who offered the bargains,now the small sellers are deserting ebay big time.

Comment from Not_Very_Smart on 2009-08-19

2009-08-19T17:27:35Z

my sales re down by 65~70% in August 09 from the previous month of July and all my items are under $15.00US what the @$%& is going on here its starting to freak me out and I have gone all out with the first page of search results.. I am starting to think some one has their hand deep in my pocket… and it's time to close up shop..

Regards
Not_Very_Smart

Comment from Amber on 2009-08-13

2009-08-13T12:26:31Z

Yea, go eBay! I hope you fall really, really hard. My last sale was in April. Instead of inviting me back. I got a letter telling me I failed as a Powerseller and if I want to re-earn my powerseller priveledges (what priveledges?) I must return. Right, that's not gonna happen. Then, I got another email (8 pages long!) of rule changes. Ridiculous!

I'm giving eBay negative feedback. Judging from what I see, their own Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) should be pretty low and they should kick themselves off their own site.

Ebay... Donny-boy... I'm enjoying eBay's slow destruction very much.

Comment from carlos on 2009-08-09

2009-08-09T22:47:47Z

Ebay is a disaster. I usually sell at least one item a day on my many auctions. About 60 days ago sales suddenly stopped. I have never seen anything like it people everywhere just instantly quit buying. Still I had to pay listing fes so I had no choice but to stop listing. I sold maybe 5 items over a period of 45 days compared to 40-50 items in that same period.

Comment from Nofornothing2 on 2009-08-07

2009-08-07T13:26:25Z

And why is it necessary for Ebay to employ so many people? They probably have to hire them to answer calls from people complaining about their high seller fees and Paypal's high fees. Their mismanagement of everything is a farce.

Comment from SamiO555 on 2009-08-07

2009-08-07T13:17:57Z

Here here, everything about ebay now sucks. The original ebay was great. Now there's high seller fees and one has to scroll forever to find an item that's not from a seller that sells multiple stock items. Ebay's greed makes me sick.

Comment from Primeonly27.com on 2009-08-05

2009-08-06T02:34:06Z

Site traffic is at an all time low while ebay fee's are at an all time high. Ebay is selling out to big box retailers. The fall of the lil man is coming. www.primeonly27.com

Comment from Paul on 2009-07-19

2009-07-19T08:27:16Z

Ebay traffic is definetly falling fast. My own store has suffered a huge drop in traffic and sales. I know by the complaints on the ebay forums from shop owners that I'm not alone.

Ebay is a classic example of a monopoly being destroyed by an incompetent management. The ever rising fees, the constant changes the bullying of sellers are all combining to destroy the ebay concept.

Most ebay sellers are just waiting for an alternative and they'll jump ship leaving ebay a floating wreck.

Comment from Jo on 2009-07-14

2009-07-15T00:21:44Z

The day Michael Jackson died is the last day that I made any sales on Ebay - not that my products have anything to do with Michael Jackson, just a coincidence.
It's not just that I haven't had any buyers, I have also not had any visitors - and that is unheard of for me.

So I guess Ebay is dying a sudden death. Probably because of their intense greed.

Comment from joseph on 2009-07-13

2009-07-13T15:02:01Z

On the plus side, buyers can get some incredible deals right now.

Comment from online games for kids on 2009-07-12

2009-07-13T03:03:16Z

The fall in traffic could be a reflection of the bad economy.

Comment from Jason Barone on 2009-07-11

2009-07-12T06:27:35Z

eBay has been going downhill. They used be the place to get a good deal on things, now it's just an ecommerce retailer with poor categorization, overpriced products and newbie sellers. I still prefer Amazon over eBay. I don't think I'd sell on eBay now either with all the fees they're charging for everything.

Comment from jason on 2009-07-11

2009-07-11T14:01:16Z

It has got to be craigslist thats taking away the traffic. I have personally switched over to craigslist from ebay, because its local, and more convenient. Just like Yasser said "I can go see it and not pay shipping."

Comment from Trav on 2009-07-10

2009-07-11T05:46:16Z

I wonder if websites like www.etsy.com are taking eBay's market share?

Comment from ChikaBebe on 2009-07-10

2009-07-11T05:22:06Z

I'm not surprised, i know that ebay will have this kind of problem

Comment from alliantce on 2009-07-10

2009-07-10T23:32:47Z

Ebay made too many mistakes, from a long-term strategy perspective, and only focused on short-term.

Comment from John on 2009-07-10

2009-07-10T21:53:03Z

I would expect a down economy to result in more Ebay traffic, not less.

I'm surprised that more people aren't selling more items & that there are more shoppers trying to get the best deals.

This has more to do with alienating smaller sellers, which won't help Ebay when the economy recovers.

Comment from Caleb Elston on 2009-07-10

2009-07-10T21:40:50Z

Ebay really should focus on what people think of them for...Auctions. Focus on making the experience of participating in an auction fun and exciting again. I remember the first time I bought things on Ebay the adrenaline rush was so powerful, waiting to see if I got outbid. I hardly ever consider ebay, because I don't feel like there are good deals there since it is all "Buy it Now". If I want to buy retail I will use Amazon. Ebay should be proud to "Own" auctions.

Comment from RD on 2009-07-10

2009-07-10T19:34:28Z

Good... I hope this trend continues.

Comment from Internet Strategist @GrowMap on 2009-07-10

2009-07-10T19:21:36Z

This is a good lesson for all businesses to remember. No matter how big you get it is NOT a good idea to treat your users poorly. Even if there are a lot of non-essential items on eBay they would certainly still be "the" place to get bargains on necessary items IF they had stayed faithful to the "little people".

I hope individuals start paying attention and patronizing small business and big companies learn that chasing Corporate dollars at the expense of the multitudes is not always the best way to go. Perhaps eBay and the huge Corporations deserve each other.

Comment from Yasser on 2009-07-10

2009-07-10T19:07:01Z

Not much of a surprise really. The economy isn't great which means people won't buy much. eBay did become a bid of a risk for a while because of so many scams that happen to several people I know. Maybe they should re consider there business plan and what get auctioned.

If I want something used and cheap CraigsList is usually a better option because I can go see it and not pay shipping (if it's not something huge).