Be sure and check your cancelled orders for ad fees

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

I have had to have eBay manually credit me back for three sales that were cancelled for the almighty "AD FEE STANDARD" from promoted listings. Buyer requests cancellation, no problem, other than it's probably because they saw the item cheaper from the ads that are displayed on listing's pages and during checkout.

I notice that eBay can take hours after the sale to implement the "AD FEE STANDARD" to the final transaction. I have been checking my sales from the previous day to watch the EDITS that eBay makes. Basically making all sales "SOLD VIA PROMOTED LISTINGS". I am finding that when a sale is cancelled and refunded, the ad fee is not. YOU MUST CONTACT EBAY TO HAVE THE AD FEE RETURNED TO YOU. This screams desperation on eBay's part.

There are other things going on as well. Such as the timing of changing ad rates. I suggest you keep a constant eye on your transaction reports. Good Luck, you're going to need it.

[heckofagame]

Whatever. It's all a deduction at the end of the year. 

[wastingtime101]

Yeah, I feel that frustration. I've noticed that sometimes those ad fees are credited almost immediately along with the FVF, and other times they are credited weeks after the fact. No idea why there's a lag sometimes.

In an effort to reduce amount of time wasted contacting CS, I've adopted a method of reviewing cancelled transactions every week for anything cancelled 3 weeks prior. By then everything is usually reconciled and if it's not, I'll flag it. That strategy won't work for everyone but maybe it'll help someone reading this.

I've also seen the lag in charging ad rates. Every now and then there's a hang up and I'll suddenly see a group of ad fees from sales that happened weeks prior. It can get problematic around year end and quarter end when working on financials.

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

Yes, it can take time for someone to go back on millions of sales and insert "SOLD VIA PROMOTED LISTINGS"

[wastingtime101]

So for you the discrepancy is the "sold via promoted listings" text is added after the fact? That's interesting (and not good).

For me, that "sold via promoted listings" text is there at the time of sale - it's only the fee that's delayed.

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

Yeah, you will be deducting your whole profit margin.

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

This is just one example

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

This buyer made the purchase at 10:53 am on Oct 3.  It looked like it was going to be an organic sale until over 2 hours later when eBays "auditor" got back from lunch and marked it "SOLD VIA PROMOTED LISTINGS" at 1:04pm.

[wastingtime101]

Thanks for the additional info - I haven't seen that before. Not a great experience for sellers.

I don't know if adsteam@ebay checks this forum regularly, but would love to get a response from them on this. Adding elizabeth@ebay to see if she can get someone from the ads team to visit this discussion.

[heckofagame]

That's the secret to getting free health insurance.

[teklifestyle]

I have never seen this happen.. There is no way its manually done by someone sitting behind a computer its all automatic if a buyer buys something through a promoted listing the fee is taken out when the transaction is complete. you can click on the order number and see the ad fee breakdown now I have never seen any ad fee be charged to my account hours or days later after its showed in my awaiting shipment screen. Do you have a screen shot of it before it said SOLD VIA PROMOTED LISTINGS ? As You can see in the photo the AD FEE should show up right away not later on if this is happening something else is going on have you reached out to eBay about it ?