Not a real big item but interesting change on eBay.
I have been a long time seller and occasional buyer. I have a list of saved sellers, for a couple of reasons. There are certain sellers I like to buy items from. There are also sellers that sell the same type of items as mine. I like to gauge my competition.
I have been selling since 2000 on eBay so my list of saved sellers was near 100. Until a few days ago if a seller did not have any items for sale a purple line would be underneath their handle stating they currently have 0 items for sale. I noticed that as of a couple of weeks ago 75% of my saved sellers did not have any items for sale. Lots of little purple lines.
Many with over 10,000 transactions. My sales have dropped dramatically with a decline last December. Normally my best month for sales. So I decided to check my saved sellers to see how many sales they had. Interestingly, the purple mark has disappeared and it no longer shows that a seller that has no items for sale.
It now appears everyone is selling away. However when clicking on the saved seller over 75% still did not have items for sale. A majority of these were high volume sales numbers. I believe that it was making eBay look bad with a majority of old sellers with stores bailing out.
One of the most interesting facts I noted on one of my favorite sellers. Last month a little over 10,000 listings. The number of transactions showing feedback came in at 299. I realize they may have had more actual sales as feedback does not show all transactions. However selling 3% of inventory is not a good ratio.
I mentioned it to an eBay rep while on a call concerning a different issue. He stated the fees would be more than the saved seller would sell!!!!!!!!!
He also stated it is not up to eBay to make sales for sellers. I have to agree they are doing their best on that.
Many sellers with huge feedback scores do not have any items listed.
Hope you find this interesting.
Paul
Source: https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/letters/blog.pl?/pl/2013/5/1367541158.html