eBay free!!!!

[BootifulLabels]

It's official, I am no longer an eBay seller. The last of my listings expired at the end of February and that's me done and dusted! Started on eBay in 1999, having migrated across from SOLD.com when eBay bought them out and then shut them down. End of an era, but strangely enough I don't think I will miss it at all.

[Artbesico]

Has it been not a good experience? 

[BootifulLabels]

On and off it has been a great experience, but the fact is my sales over there have been steadily declining for the past 3 years and I would prefer to put the effort in here. I closed my shops in favour of general listings 6 months ago, to cut costs, but it made no difference. I have been lucky to make one or two sales a month for quite some time now. 5 years ago I was selling more in a month than I made for the whole of 2018.

[JMOldeVintage]

Keep getting emails from EBay offering a number of free listings but my desire to get involved in another sales site is little to none. The task of regrouping, new photos etc. to relist the stuff we've had in our Shop here is taking more time than I'd have thought. Also as a hobbyist, think it takes more effort to convince myself to get to work instead of having fun in the yard.

But I also realize I have purchased with much greater frequency on EBay in the past year, compared to All the items I've bought here on Etsy. So every once in a while I pause before deleting those EBay emails.

[Artbesico]

eBay offer free listings every now and then, I believe the offers have expiry date.

[StarrFoxDesigns]

Even if you did accept those free listings you have to be careful. I'm not sure where you are, and it may be different in your country but I sell from Australia and if you have fixed price listings, the only format they offer is "Good 'til cancelled" which means they automatically renew every month, which means you can get slugged with a big listing renewal fee. It's a recent change and a sneaky one imo.

[Vbmg152]

That’s too bad. Yes sales are way down over there but I have faith things will pick up again. Lots of changes coming to eBay both good and bad. I joined May 28 1999. I reckon they’ll have to boot me off the site if they want to get rid of me. My selling experiences have been pretty trouble free, it’s the buying experiences that have not been good lately. I pretty much stopped buying because sellers do not know how to pack items for shipping. We will miss you at eBay!

[BigDogLadysJools]

Congrats! :)

I used to buy on eBay all the time, back in the early days, then they closed my account after it was hacked without warning and without giving me a chance to explain.  I don't miss eBay one bit.

Best wishes,

[Pedricks]

I like my EBay store.  I find that a large section of my regular customers have not yet heard of Etsy, so that is where they look for me.  I don't get near as many sales there, but enough to make it worth it to keep it open.  They sure have changed over the years.  They even have social media sharing buttons for each item now.  Something Etsy has suddenly seen fit to dump.  

I know I can still boost my own items here on Etsy via social media buttons, but it is very bad for me that browsing potential customers can no longer save and share my items.

So I have opened an Amazon Handmade shop.  Everyone has heard of Amazon!  They get a big piece of the pie, but at least they only get it when you make a sale.  And each listing has social media sharing buttons.

One of the reasons this is important for me is because I write in a blog promoting other shops called "ArtisansOfAmerica" and then I share my posts all over social media.  But since Etsy took those sharing buttons away, I can't share my prelimanary findings.  I usually share an item from each shop I add to my list of shops I am going to post about, the day I add them.  Now I can't do that.  

Does anyone else here have an Amazon Handmade shop?  How has it gone for you so far?

[StarrFoxDesigns]

I'm still with Ebay and don't have plans to get rid of my shop there, but I have noticed some changes that bother me. They used to have fixed price listings set for one month with 3 free renewals, then it jumped to 8 months of free renewals. Well now, this month when I went to renew, they've changed all the fixed price listings to "Good 'til cancelled"...which makes me hesitate to renew anything over the 40 free listings I'm allotted every month, as I know I'll encur relist fees if I go over that magic number of 40. It's very sneaky, in my opinion and seems a bit of a money grab. :( 

[MiladysSewingBasket]

Yes they have changed every non auction listing to Good Till Cancelled.  I dislike the site intensely.  And also find it very difficult to sell on.  Thats why I came here.  For nickel and diming sellers they are unparalled.  That and the scammers.