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Jay, right now I’m listing on Etsy, Poshmark and I just started with Mercari so those 3 unless another good app emerges in the meantime. For the past month I’ve been transitioning off of Ebay. My sales are still about the same overall, but split now between other platforms. Etsy is cumbersome to list on in my opinion, but the other 2 are a breeze and the markets are good. It takes a while to build up a Poshmark following but so far I’m finding it to have been a worthwhile investment of time.
What Ebay did to my account scared me into finding other avenues. They still to this day cannot tell me what keyword caused the system to suddenly remove nearly 100 of my listings and then suspend my account. They can only say that it was all automated, it was in error, etc. I’ll still sell on Ebay for sure, but more ephemera/longtail type stuff and less of everything else (clothing, hard goods, vintage, etc.). I’m not sure if I will drop to the lowest level of store or close my store. It just really depends on how much I find myself listing on Ebay overall once my store subscription runs out.
UGH, I am sorry that you went through that. I think we’ve all had Ebay customer service experiences from H@ll at this point. What a huge waste of time. I love when a rep says that they will refund you, that they are finding in your favor, etc. and then there is “no record” of that when you call back. At this point, if it’s not something that is getting resolved while I’m on the phone (closing a case, removing a neg, something I can SEE), I request an email from the rep so that I have that in writing and I stay on the phone until I get it. I explain that this is because I’ve had too many experiences where there is “no record” that a rep has found in my favor.
Ebay needs to get it together. Between the additional fees (promoted listings to even get seen in a decent position), hiding items per this week’s podcast, slow sales overall for a lot of folks, and treating sellers the way you were treated, people will leave for other platforms.
Until last year when I had an experience from h@ll also (account suspended for 30 days for selling I “adult” items…even though that wasn’t the case), I never considered other platforms. While I was able to get my situation resolved with “only” 3 reps and an hour of my time, it was enough to turn me off to Ebay bigtime. At this point, I’m just waiting for my store subscription to expire and then I’ll probably only list my really longtail, esoteric stuff on Ebay. Ebay’s algorithm has issues (that’s how my account got taken down, must have been some keyword but they never could tell me what), the system is set up to encourage dishonest buyers to file fraudulent INAD cases, etc. They really need to work these things out because they are hurting good sellers while encouraging scammers.
Really good points that I didn’t think about…I can totally see how overall fear of the greater economy could lead to a downward trend in sales.
True! My husband is convinced that the shutdown is affecting sales. I’m not so convinced, as I think 800K people (or 800K households) overall probably aren’t making a huge dent in Ebay sales. Marie Kondo is another story though. I can see this trend affecting sales.
In the past month, I’ve found myself listing a lot more on Poshmark, Etsy and now also Mercari, and a lot less on Ebay. I’m not always even cross-posting on Ebay anymore. Like the caller said, Ebay has made listing cumbersome. It’s so easy on both of the other platforms. I don’t see either of these platforms going anywhere. Maybe Ebay can take notes and make listing as simple as Poshmark and Mercari make it.
Don’t get me wrong, I still like Ebay for longtail and more one-off esoteric items. For everything else, I feel myself migrating to other platforms that aren’t as much of a time suck as Ebay though.
Yes for sure. We had a really sad time here when the shuttle program was shuttered. So much talent exited the area too. It hurt to see something as important as space exploration fully abandoned like that. Of course, that opened the door to commercial space, and that is what brought everything back to life. I’m so happy to see things turn around as they have. Space is trendy, but I hope that it’s a trend that’s here to stay. I love that a place in the mountains of WV has a space education program! I really hope your university doesn’t get shuttered.
I did mean COBRA yes. I just couldn’t think of what it was called. I think it’s pretty expensive, but like you said it’s probably worth comparing.
Wow Doubly, that stinks. Thank goodness you have your Ebay business already established. Can you do that thing where you can buy insurance for 18 months on your old plan (sorry, can’t remember what it’s called) before you have to move to the marketplace?
Also, if you are going to look for employment again, I think you might do well to look here on the Space Coast (Brevard County, FL). Here, everything boils down to space. It’s what we live and breathe, especially with the resurgence caused by SpaceX. Space education here is huge. Space everything here is huge. I imagine your skills are quite transferable. The big university here is Florida Institute of Technology if you are looking.
I think you could and that people do, but it would have to be the primary place where you listed your items IMHO. Since Poshmark is just clothes and accessories, I’m not sure that would work for me personally. Etsy and Mercari both allow hard goods. I haven’t tried Mercari yet (although I will soon as I hear good things), but I do sell on Etsy. I think Mercari or possibly Etsy might be closer to Ebay in terms of allowing what you sell. I wish Poshmark would make some categories for hard goods, but I can understand why they just want to stay fashion too.
Honestly my bigger fear is that Ebay will acquire sites like Poshmark and Mercari, thus negating the work many sellers have put into diversification. Hopefully that won’t happen.
Honestly, what you said about people only selling like $100-$150 a week on Poshmark is about right for me, but that’s likely because I only have around 100 items up at any given time and I’m not super into “styling” my photos (which I think helps). I really need to put more items up on there. I only got serious about it in the past 2 months, although I’ve had an account for a couple of years. You can build followers fast on there if you put some time into following large amounts of people. I try to go to large/active accounts to find their most recent followers and follow that way. A lot of the time they follow you back if that makes sense. I tend to do this in the evening when a lot of people are active on the app also.
The issue I had with my Ebay account was from selling vintage undergarments and bathing suits. There was nothing remotely adult about the listings, but yet the bot took them down for “adult content”. No way was I relisting those unless the Ebay rep could tell me exactly what triggered the takedown and suspension. The suspension was removed within an hour of my discovering it but I’m still super wary. I did have a VERO for using the word “Velcro” in an item title and a VERO for a random hat (Nissan I think?) that was taken down in a mass takedown of that brand’s items at one point so I’m sure that didn’t help. I think like 2 years ago I had a VERO for selling a pair of what I thought were cute rainbow tube socks from the 70’s. I didn’t think I had an excessive # of VEROs, but maybe I did. Whatever it was that triggered it I’ll never know, it made me really wary of having all of my eggs in one basket.
One thing that worries me is seeing a huge seller like Craigslist hunter going through random suspensions. In the past year I’ve seen at least a couple of videos from him that Ebay suspended his account. One time it was for something really random where he was trying to do the right thing and NOT sell off Ebay, and yet he was suspended for a week I think and they refused to lift the suspension. He generates a lot more money for Ebay than I do, and yet he runs into these suspensions. He seems to be a very honest, rule-following seller. I guess I’m saying it could happen to any of us regardless of how good of a seller we are so being established and diversified on other platforms is of benefit even if it doesn’t net us more money in the short run.
Sounds like you guys found some epic trash in NYC 🙂
I wanted to comment about Poshmark. I don’t sell on there because I make more money than I would if I just focused on Ebay. I sell on there to diversify. Between the Ebay glitches in the recent past and and the fact that Ebay suspended my account in error for 30 days, I feel the need to sell on multiple platforms now. Even though I was able to get my account fully restored within an hour, the experience made me very wary of focusing solely on Ebay. The rep who restored my account told me that I should relist all the items (they had taken down and deleted nearly 100), but that I’d have to start from scratch as the listings were no longer on the site. I wasn’t game since they couldn’t tell me what in the listings triggered their bot to flag them and take them down.
That is when I got serious about diversifying. I relisted the items, but on Etsy and Poshmark instead of on Ebay. Every day since, I’ve built up my Poshmark following by following the followers of big accounts and by sharing. I’m up to almost 20K followers. Follower count helps with item placement in searches apparently. Yes, it takes time away from Ebay, but I’m OK with that since I now have a backup in the event that Ebay decides to delete a bunch of my listings again in the future. It doesn’t take a ton of time, and listing on there is way easier than listing on Ebay.
No, he never messaged me. Maybe he did watch it via clicking on the promoted listing, but he definitely didn’t buy it via the promoted listing link. He bought it via my offer. It seems likely that if a buyer ever clicked on the promoted listing link, they charge you that fee regardless of how the item ultimately sells.
ITA about measurement questions Mark. Rarely do I get a sale after I find the item and measure it. The only time I even bother to respond is if I want to try to send the potential buyer an offer. Even that rarely works out though…not sure why I bother.
I was wondering if you rented a car. Downtown Orlando isn’t very close to Disney, but luckily you were going opposite traffic on I4 during rush hour at least. You got lucky with the weather! This week it was cold (for us) up until yesterday. My 4th grader actually had indoor PE one day this week because the PE teacher said it was too cold out lol!
You probably broke even using Lyft. Parking fees at the Dolphin are really high.
We live in Indialantic (Brevard County), so about an hour from Orlando. We used to live in Celebration (Orlando) before we had the kids though. We actually live on the barrier island off the Atlantic coast. We are in Orlando every few weeks and all summer (I trade scavenged free/cheap timeshares so we stay mainly at Marriott timeshares lol). Orlando has way better camps in the summer for the kids, and I can go sourcing at the bins while they are in camp.
Yep, love that area. That’s the same general area I was thinking of…college park/Ivanhoe. The Lake Eola neighborhood is an absolutely adorable walking neighborhood too, lots of midcentury homes, just too cute. I’d love to live there/Winter Park but hubby says no way. It would be a nice area for retirement…so much to do.
Were you guys at the convention center last week? Hubby was there too…he has to man that show every year. Wish I’d known you were there, I would have had him say hello! FWIW, I’ve never heard anything good about taking the train (or the “car train”) here. Everyone I’ve met who took it complained that it was lousy.
It sounds like you guys were maybe in WP or Lake Eola (midcentury, super cute)? BTW, the good scavenging in Central FL is in apartment dumpsters. Curbside trash in Winter Park can be good too, but it requires looking inside residential trash cans which rather skeeves me out (unless it’s propped open and I can see what’s in it already). I’ve never scanned the curbs in Lake Eola, but it seems like a relatively wealthy area so I imagine it’s good if you’re adventurous enough to open curbside cans lol.
I can relate to the guy at the dying company who is just waiting it out. Years ago that was me. I put my name on a “voluntary layoff” list and waited. And waited. Finally I gave up and left on my own, and didn’t the layoffs finally happen a little over 2 months later! Ugh. Gaining control over my own time was worth it though. I didn’t know how long that would take and I wasn’t willing to wait forever while I worked for the phone company version of Lomberg from Office Space lol. I don’t feel defined by selling on Ebay, but I do love it and it certainly pays the bills.
