I've been on eBay for a number of years and, for the past year, I've been able to gross between $4,000 and $5,000 per month.  Within the last 6 months my business has gradually and steadily declined from that amount to about $500 per month.  I've tried everything from changing my ads, headlines, etc.  Nothing is working.  Pretty soon I'll lose my PowerSeller status (not that I care much) and I'll just close the doors on my eBay business altogether.

Is anyone else experiencing this?  I've done some research online and many other sellers have been complaining that there is less exposure/traffic on eBay.  Are not that many people shopping on eBay anymore?  What's going on?

I have a theory.

A good friend of mine was selling on eBay for about 4 years then, suddenly without any kind of notice, eBay terminated her account.  She was a Gold PowerSeller, had about 5 negative feedbacks TOTAL out of 1,700 feedbacks and was making about $5,000 per month (after expenses, fees, etc.) on eBay.  Apparently someone filed a bogus complaint against her stating she was selling bootlegged videos.  However, everything she sold she owned the copyright to.  Thus, eBay took the word of a buyer (who probably barely had a 10 feedback and was a newbie) over a seller who had been selling for 4 years, paying exuberant fees (making eBay rich), and had an excellent feedback rating.

I think this has been happening to a lot of honest and hardworking eBay sellers.  Now, after so many thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of good sellers have been unfairly kicked off of eBay, there isn't that much "stuff" to look at for potential buyers.  Therefore, there are now less people looking at eBay to buy things there.

I was recently looking for a gift for a friend of mine.  It used to be that eBay offered a way to get a great deal on a product.  Now you can get better deals on like items by going into a search engine, typing the product name, and getting pricing there.  Many eBay sellers continue their shipping rate rip-off plan and want to charge, say, $20 to send something that would cost $3 to mail.  Other (non-eBay) online sellers can beat out the shipping, the price, and the quality of the product.  So, why bother with eBay anymore?

(After all, on eBay, do you really know what you're getting?  Is the item "new in box" as they claim?  When you send your money, will you get anything at all?  I was just ripped off by an eBay seller for $110.00 for a software program.  I sent the money and GOT NOTHING.  It's been 2 months.  He's since been kicked off eBay but since he didn't take PayPal, I got screwed for sending a check.  Now even I refuse to ever purchase anything from eBay ever again.)

There is just less exposure and eBay traffic.  I'm not selling nearly as much as I used to.  Some eBayers blame the change of eBay CEOs in the past few months.  I just think that eBay is NOT the only game in town anymore, people are tired of getting ripped off on eBay, the good sellers are gone because eBay kicked them all off, and eBay just isn't what it used to be anymore.

I wouldn't be surprised if eBay wasn't the next "dot bomb" and end up having to file for bankruptcy within the next 2 years.  They got too greedy, they didn't treat their sellers right, their fees got too high, and now they're still trying to operate a website while offering their sellers NOTHING (little traffic/exposure, high rip-off fees, and the constant threat of losing your account over some bogus complaint with no merit).

Does anyone else have any insight as to why I'm losing so much business?  Is this happening to anyone else??