Are Promotions a Money Grab?

[namtrag1]

What do you think would happen if you do not pay extra to promote your item?

Would pricing your item at a competitive price accomplish the same thing?

I kinda have the feeling that promotions are just a money grab by the Big Guy.

Any thoughts?

[pereirahawk]

The analogies are good ...but not quite accurate.  

The current state of Ebay PL affairs as it relates to buyers searching:

for a shopper, Ebay search is like being in a room of mirrors and seeing the same dookie over and over again...if a seller pays up in blood, then, and only then, Ebay may remove one dookie mirror, so to speak.

[yuzuha]

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@heckofagame wrote:

I can think of a couple of people that will come along shortly and rant about promoted listings.

The usefulness of promoted listings would entirely depend on what categories you are listing in and what the saturation level is in that category.

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Exactly. If you're selling clothing or jewelry or books or CDs, they'd probably be useful as you're competing against hundreds/thousands of other sellers all selling the same or very similar things. But if you're selling OOAK items where there are only a few others of the same type listed, there's literally no point in promoting when your item will already be on the first page of results because there IS only one page of results.

[inhawaii]

I don't use promoted listings.

I'm getting along just fine.

[craft-stash]

If your Not PL'n your Not selling!

[chapeau-noir]

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@craft-stash wrote:

If your Not PL'n your Not selling!

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Perhaps 10% of eBay seller use PLs, so I'm not sure that's entirely accurate.

[reallynicestamps]

All eBay suggestions are good for eBay.

EBay is our landlord, not our friend.

[billythekid16]

I used promoted listings for the last several months.  My last 10 sales, six of them were sold thanks to PL.  But the worst case scenario from using PL is that you will get somewhat more (promoted) views and that's all.  This is based on my experience so far.