The decline of eBay: drastic drop in sales thanks to sponsorship ad campaigns and the new (incompetent) chat support
Summary: ricambimalta1981 expresses concern about the drop in sales on eBay, attributing it to the sponsorship system and the poor quality of the new chat support. patchlandiastore and storespeterpan agree, reporting similar experiences of declining sales and inadequate support. Several participants suggest that the high fees and new policies are making it unsustainable to sell on the platform, pushing them to consider alternatives. storespeterpan mentions another platform with lower shipping costs and no direct fees charged to sellers. The discussion ends with a shared desire to find better solutions to support online sales.
Good morning
A greeting to the whole community.
IN THIS PERIOD WE ARE ACTIVE BECAUSE WE SELL LITTLE.....
I’m starting this discussion to share a strong concern about the trend the platform has been taking lately and to understand whether this is now a widespread situation.
For several months we’ve been seeing a steady and worrying drop in sales. The strong feeling is that this collapse is closely tied to the mechanism of sponsored advertising campaigns. Organic visibility now seems to be gone: if you don’t constantly pay to sponsor your items, sales stop. But the worst part is that even when paying the requested advertising fees, the results are no longer showing up, turning it all into an unsustainable cost that eats into sellers’ margins without generating any real return.
With fees getting higher and higher and this system penalizing those who work honestly, the support services for us users are getting drastically worse.
The recent introduction of chat support – which seems to have almost completely replaced direct phone contact with trained operators – is turning out to be a disaster. You end up dealing with operators who are often incompetent, who respond with canned copy-and-paste phrases, show that they don’t know the rules, and don’t resolve the concrete problems related to blocks, site bugs, or listing disputes.
In the past, phone support was eBay’s pride and joy for solving problems in real time. Today it seems the platform is cutting costs on the backs of those who work there every day, leaving us alone in the face of a visibility collapse that isn’t supported in the slightest by those responsible.
What has your recent experience been with sponsored listings and the new support? Are you also seeing the same drop in sales because of this advertising system?
A calm comparison based on each of our real data would be very useful. Thanks to anyone who wants to contribute.
storespeterpan
·yesterday at 2:04 PM · Editedwe sell used books, postcards, and vinyl records, also used or vintage as the case may be... if I name the platform they’ll block me, anyway green logo in the shape of a V. Warning: not everything that glitters is gold, there too the support is "zero", absurd rules so you can’t upload en masse or your account gets blocked, but no commission (the buyer pays it) and tracked shipping costs that are definitely competitive, from under two Euros to no more than three depending on the weight. Also, for tax-return purposes the revenue corresponds only to the cost of the item (shipping and commissions borne by the buyer), whereas on Ebay and Amazon and the others if you sell for ten euros with 5 for shipping, you have to calculate the taxes on the full amount paid by the customer, namely 15.00...
ricambimalta1981
OPyesterday at 2:16 PMGot it, thanks a lot......we were thinking the same thing too....
storespeterpan
·yesterday at 1:38 PMHonestly, this is an issue we already dealt with a few months ago: we sat down together, thought it through, and then made our decisions: it's unsustainable to pay high commissions and sky-high subscriptions and then receive nothing in return. In fact, the situation is getting worse.
Other platforms offer zero costs and shipping that is extremely affordable and trackable.
It's clear that our decision was a direct consequence of that, even if it means a pretty heavy workload and saying goodbye to most of our catalog on Ebay.
The feeling is that the bigwigs at Ebay have lost touch with reality; they'll go through the same bloodbath they did a few years ago: back then, the arrival of excellent managers raised the bar again and we all saw the improvements....but hoping for a second miracle in the future......difficult
ricambimalta1981
OPyesterday at 1:46 PMI'm sorry to see longtime sellers forced to leave because of eBay corporate policies that are shortsighted about these situations...
I wish you all the best for your business.
Just out of curiosity, can I ask which platform you're moving toward for your sales
storespeterpan
·yesterday at 1:00 PMWe agree too, we've been in business since 2004 and we only see such a noticeable drop around 2014, but it was justified by other internal factors.
As for Ebay support, it's a significant step backward; they're adapting to the other platforms where things are run more by bots than by real support. And to think that until not long ago Ebay support was one of the few things that justified the high fees....it's clear that in such a situation looking around is legitimate and necessary, as well as an obligation...
ricambimalta1981
OPyesterday at 1:19 PMYou hit the key point: cost/benefit ratio.
If the direct support and assistance services go down, the entire Ebay system falters,
It’s the biggest damage for those who have been investing on the platform for twenty years.
They don’t understand what kind of situation they’re creating for all of us.....
Support becomes a wall of bots, we sellers are left on our own!
Moreover, the icing on the cake is the arrival of advertising campaigns, where I’ve seen people throw away quite a lot of money without getting anything in return....
patchlandiastore
·Aug 5, 2026 at 3:06 PMI agree with everything! I've been selling on eBay since 2004. Never like this! Sales have dropped to zero! I have over 1200 items of all kinds for sale and there are consecutive days with ZERO sales. Currently I'm recording -30% compared to the last 90 days.
ricambimalta1981
OPAug 5, 2026 at 3:20 PMWe’re in the same boat....we have almost 5000 listings and, looking back at previous years, the decline started with the arrival of advertising campaigns and the introduction of additional fees and the addition of unsustainable costs.
The final price just doesn’t hold up and on the eBay platform nothing makes sense......many people I know are leaving because it’s not worth it.....support is zero....WE DON’T UNDERSTAND THESE CHOICES....
in the past eBay was the best ecommerce in the world....but they’re destroying it...
patchlandiastore
·Aug 5, 2026 at 3:37 PMI completely agree!