Why People Are Quitting eBay (more than EVER before) 

have you considered quitting?

Ebay's not the problem -- the problem is insane postage costs and interest rates. Almost more often than not, the postage is more expensive than the sale item. And if you try to sell in bulk, that just jacks up the postage even more.

The auspost increase again this month has made me question the side hustle vs not buying and selling on the platform. Some months are great but between eBay fees and fees the charge on top of auspost selling fees is huge.

I am a fairly new eBay seller, being 8 weeks in. I am in that lucky position where I could focus on learning with the knowledge that if I keep plugging away, the financial rewards may come. I mostly list 1 item per day, so that I am not get overwhelmed with the knowledge I am acquiring, and thus far it’s working for me. Much of what I have learn’t have come from you Matt, and Mel from Back from Burn Out. I spent time surfing eBay itself and then hit Google when the information being provided did not make sense. Thanks so much for sharing the knowledge you have gained. Here’s to my next 8 weeks. Loving what I have learn’t thus far 😊😊😊

One thing people never mention if they want to be a full time ebay seller, is ideally living in/near a city or high populated area. Means more and bigger op shops and flea markets and garage sales etc, more and better products and opportunities. Living in a country town or small area, it just would be so tough. Less people = less chances of finding quality stuff to resell. Especially if you want to get these average sale prices high too

I didn’t watched the video but I just wanted to comment to your tittle. I think that eBay’s fees are so high that most of the profits go to eBay, sometimes it feels like we work for eBay instead of feeling like we have our own business. In my case the only way to get any sales is to do the dynamic promotion; recently I had to put a cap on the promotion and my sales also took a dump. So in my case if I quit it will be because of the fees that eBay takes - those are technically my profits.

GREAT VIDEO! I put off watching this video as the title didn't seem relevant, but you covered basically everything that's important to STAY. i'd consider reuploading it exactly how it is with a title WHY YOU SHOULD BEGIN/CONTINUE Selling on eBay. Remember eBay isn't the only way to sell something, Market place and gumtree are still valid for some items and currently has no fees and often no postage (you can offer delivery locally if you don't want them coming to the house, or meet at a safe place like police station etc even) . I Think SALES of used items should be promoted more, and more than ever as a greener alternative to buying new, but not just that as often the older stuff is better quality and built to last. You are a great trainer Matt, and i think training in SALES OF USED ITEMS would be something many people would benefit from especially if it got on TV as a kids pocket money adder by selling your kids old toys to reduce junk new ones being imported.

I left eBay many many years ago when they put in that you had to use pay pal over the last 11 years I have sold on market place gumtree and just by word of mouth I don’t see why people choose to pay to sell items or pay for postage still make good money it pays for my medication and my power bill once your known as a seller in your area people will contact you when they want to buy stuff or get rid of stuff

Love your content..I noticed another seller uincludes many names describing an item in the description box other than she writes in the title.for example the title would be marks & spencer ladies black dress long sleeve medium, then in the desription she would write a list for example flowy witchy elegant halloween ecc.Does this help for when people look for items? does it effect the algarithm?

people who eat all postage costs is just baffling, if you have the in demand items i always get the same sale price or more as someone offering free post. Also explaining in the description how you will post it helps (bubblewrap in a box for protection)

I was not working before deciding to do ebay and without another income you need to have a sink or swim attitude as it makes you have to learn how to play the ebay game rather than a part time person who can put it in the too hard basket as they have another income. I am not quitting as the ebay money pays for my holidays for which I have had 2 overseas holidays in the 2023/2024 financial year (8 weeks away in total- my ebay store had a holiday for 6 weeks also).

Hey Matt, i just had an annoying experience today. Had to do my first international shipment and it made me put all this odd info into the postage label section. Something about license and codes. Couldnt enter the info and couldnt cancel the purchase. Not sure whats gonna happen

You said you do $100k sales a year right? thus it means you have GST in your sales. Do you claim GST credit on your purchases of those second hand items? I heard you can do that. And also no GST on international sales, thus do not record GST on overseas sales.

What is the percentage of your items that are promoted? Is it half? More than half?

Great advice, we are 3 months into our journey, I've got a set schedule everyday, it works

Hey mate have you done any vids about starting a youtube channel ? As in how would you do it if you were starting it again? What software to use which cameras/technology etc? I don’t see many reseller content creators based in Perth

Vinnies in Warrawong, NSW, is currently selling DVD sets at an average of $14.00. After scanning a few, it's clear they're priced just about double what I can find on eBay (including free postage). Now that's quite encouraging! Also the sticker price is on the top of the bar code!

Been doing ebay since 2001, sales are down 70%, but I still keep listing :)

Can't you just charge the buyer post for your Oz post concern?

As long the op shops i frequent stay dirt cheap, I will keep on paddling.

I'm just a small time seller and have always sent everything free and tracked. Being small time, I only get the tier 1 discount and to top it off, I'm considered regional so it's a much smaller discount. In fact if I send to another regional area, there is no discount at all!! I've now started listing my items with a token $10 freight charge ($15 for express) just to help cover the costs. So far people seem happy to pay it. The other thing I've had to do is focus on higher margin products..

Greta video! Though I don’t think the competition is necessarily growing. Reselling has always been pretty competitive. I think the amount of content is growing. So it may be spiking some new resellers but probably more hobbyists than anything. The RU-vid reseller growth reminds of when the show “American Pickers” was a new fresh show. There was an uptick in people looking for antiques specially, signs, lol. People were saying, “it’s ruined reselling”. Same as they are saying about RU-vid resellers now, lol. Time will sort out the hobbyists from the die hards just like it did then. Idk, just my two cents, lol.

mate, lose the background music......pleeeease, it's doing my head in

Overall I'm doing a good job on average in sales. Plus my average months is pretty consistent. Slow start this month but I know I will get the sales. Not quitting anytime soon. As more quit the easier it'll be for me to increase.

What do you do in cities with such a massive amount of resellers that there is NO good stock? I can only find on average 20-30$ of total profit across 20 or so thrift stores any given day.

I have been selling from my store P/T with only 100 items. My average cog is 8-10$. Sometimes I don’t find anything and don’t list for a week or more. My sales must make me 50$ after cog and fee and postage. I also only sell items that are a small postage value, otherwise it’s pickup only and fb marketplace. Long time fan 👍

Hi ya Mate, just wondering what your Ebay store name is, l would love to see how you list items and the way you present them, thanks for vids, Cheers Paul

I normally sell the odd and unusual finds... But now so many are doing the same.. competition is making it tough to do.

The problem is that because Ebay takes their commission from the postage as well, it is effectively making a small satchel over $1.00 more than the Aus Post price anyway

When calculating sell though if 300 are sold and 200 are listed, the sell through is 60%. Sale/(sales+listings)

i think another thing that could help with aus post price rises for some people is going down the untracked route for games and dvds. its much cheaper and i personally have never had a sale get lost or a customer say they havent received it. even if it did happen thats 1 in however many that gets lost.

Competition from chinese amazon like platforms line temu might also be a reason sales are down

"Fumble your way through it" (when first learning to sell on ebay.) Yeh, that EXACTLY describes the way I felt! Lol.

Buying the right items is absolutely the key. We have to buy what the buyers want, then they will buy it. Like you, we still buy crap 🤷‍♀ Gotta change our brains to only buy the right stuff. Post costs, fees, etc are high, but they are high for everyone and we pay for ebay to bring us customers, so I'm happy to pay those fees for the worldwide market. I think some adjustments are needed at the moment due to the cost of living problems, but if we can work around that we should be ok. Maybe selling more lower priced items for a lower profit, or just offering high ASP high sell thru items (if we can find them) We are choosing a mix of both, as that's what we can source easily.

Clicked off an older video to be early to this one! I honestly do think Ebay is harder than ever, but I'm not giving up. Ebay is an important part of my business but it's not my entire business model. Gonna ride it out and hopefully things will improve.

I'd love to be a full time reseller, but the constant increases in costs through postage and op shops definitely kills the motivation!!

I think all the information in this video is valid but depending on your lifestyle eBay should not be your sole or even primary source of income. It’s a hustle and it’s hard work for all the reasons mentioned. I think a lot of people quitting are those that got into this during COVID where you could sell basically anything for top dollar and there was free money floating around. People don’t buy this kind of stuff when there is a cost of living crisis and most are struggling to pay rent and keep food on the table.

Years gone by, you only had to scan your barcode into the ebay app with your phone, all the ISBN, upc, Artist, title, Region Code item specifics were automatically populated. You then just had to put the condition, photos and list it. Now the listing process is so arduous with most sellers choosing to sell similar rather than start the listing from scratch. The item specifics should go back to how they were - self populated from a barcode scan. It's no wonder why more sellers are choosing to sell on Amazon and that site has lifted higher than ebay in online searches

A lot of People don’t have spare money to buy things they don’t need anymore and it’s going to get worse before it gets better, just gotta weather the storm till better days come.

For the books category I think a STR of ~10% is decent and one would need to build their business model around that expectation... in reality that becomes ~25% STR when you do good quality listings and fair price. Not a category I would recommend however the point is there are different rules of thumb for different categories.

Australia must be a gold mine of sourcing, find $60+ 80% sell through rate and only list items like that? I've been reselling for 5 years, im extremely lucky if I find a single item at those numbers once per month

Honestly I don’t think eBay is the root cause for the fall off most markets are struggling the car market isn’t moving anything as well these are just the after affects of the world pandemic

I wouldnt quit, i have over 4000 items to move hahaha. Australia Post is my biggest bug bearer. Lots of price hikes. And people messaging me a lot saying their item hasnt arrived (usually they do arrive, just not in the right time frame so people get worried and message me)

places are cleaned out everywhere - too many ppl in the game and market is saturated in a race to the bottom - postage costs complete joke - nothing can change these facts

My listings aren't getting views it seems or views aren't showing.

Australia Post is out of control. With inflation ebay prices will go up but still be better than most RRP.

Only good for a part time hustle. To much effort involved for such little return. Keep it casual, lots of jobs out there that pay well. The resell game is a hobby.

Doing ebay business is for stupid, labor intensive people while Amazon business is for smart, efficient, less labor intensive people. I have been ebay seller for 8 years and that was biggest mistake to stick with ebay instead with Amazon. Ebay is dying breed and what ebay has done is accelerate it by 10 fold

I think a lot of people started ebay during the plandemic and many of those would be the ones quitting as other options have opened up again since the start of 2022.

eBay is a failure. I have to quit after eBay robbed me .

Don't start or even expand your ebay business instead expand your Amazon business. Right now, expanding your ebay business is so stupid b/c ebay can't seem to fix their own website. If you have slow sales than normal and you tried everything and nothing works, it is not seller fault, it is ebay fault for having endless glitch problem. I have been doing ebay for 8 years as full time seller, and I know what I'm doing and to simply say sell high sell through item is so stupid. It is common sense that most seller want to sell high through item but it is not available all the time so where are you going to get it? If you want to sell high through item, you have to source more than ever but it is worth it when ebay hide your listing from buyer? The more work you put into ebay, the worst it gets. Don't be thickheaded b/c you will get screwed in the end. Doing same thing over to get different result, that is psycho thinking. You have to cross list or even do Amazon

We are heading into recession, it’s going to be very hard over next three years. I predict interest rates will rise over 10%. Equities and housing prices will and need to fall. Unemployment will rise and cost of living with inflation will mean a lot less sales. Sad but true, better off getting a stable government job now. I for one am not even bothering with eBay for now.

Stop buying junk 🫡