Promoted Listings ebay message

[cristian3_6]

hello
I received a message from ebay, I don't know if it came to me alone or to everyone.

Does that mean that you can't add more promoted lists by paying a few dollars like I do now?

the message says this

Soon you’ll be able to use Promoted Listings Standard for your auction and fixed price items

Starting April 15, 2024, Promoted Listings Express will no longer be available. Instead, you’ll be able to promote auction and fixed price listings using one of our other products, Promoted Listings Standard. This high-performing advertising solution has many great features that will help you create more impactful campaigns.

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Only pay for sales. Instead of paying up front, you’ll only pay when you make a sale on an auction or fixed price item.

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Simple setup. Get started in just a few clicks.

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Reach more buyers. Stand out from the crowd with listings in prominent ad placements.

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Powerful results. Use reports to monitor your performance and optimize your listings.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@gurlcat My understanding is a lot of factors are considered, and it isn't just the ITEM, it is the LISTING....how long has it been listed, # of impressions, views, etc...for multi quantity items, it probably considers sales history as well. But it's not simply a matter of the ITEM itself.

I guess I've never understood the paranoia thing, but maybe that's because I look at this strictly from a business viewpoint. If I'm going to use PLS, I look first at MY business needs: how much am I willing to give up, given my margin on the item, is quick cash flow imperative, or is this a long tail item that I'm willing to wait on?...etc. Many of the same factors go into setting the price, whether to add Best Offer, etc.

That said, if other people use those high recommended rates, fine. Inevitably, some people will use them. Doesn't mean I feel I need to.

[gurlcat]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

That said, if other people use those high recommended rates, fine. Inevitably, some people will use them. Doesn't mean I feel I need to.

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But you say that like them choosing to give up more of their money than you is the only factor in whether it's fine or not.  Like they're just wasting it and that's not your problem.   If we were talking about spending on subtitles, gallery plus photos, etc, I would agree, because those things (if they work at all) only increase the item's likelihood of selling when a buyer sees the listing.  But the more other sellers spend on promotion than you, the more buyers see their listings, and the less they see yours.   Even if they're wasting more money than they need to, it's harming you too.  

The business considerations you listed used to be all that mattered but that is no longer the case, it is no longer enough.  What PLS does is turn things upside down, where being foolish can be advantageous over being wise, because those who foolishly think they "need" to promote as high as the SAR do succeed in getting better visibility, so unless their listings are utterly terrible or their prices too ridiculous, they can succeed in making more sales than someone with the wisest business practices in all other areas. 

It's no longer just commerce; it's a commerce/lottery chimera. 

And it's even more opaque than traditional advertisement purchasing.  Tide doesn't pay 'Days Of Our Lives' according to whether the show's exectutives claim a buyer bought a jug because they saw the commercial during their show.  They pay an agreed-upon rate for the show to run the commercial, they get to know exactly how many times it will be run, watch resulting sales figures, and then decide if it makes enough difference in jug sales to buy as many, less, or more commercial spots in the future .   We don't get ANYTHING LIKE that clarity, only the expectation of trust that paying more will get more visibility, and whether a sale was because of that visibility, with no neutral 3rd parties involved to verify it!

eBay execs understand the paranoia thing very well, and it behooves them that we don't.  Even if you consider it not worth considering, do you not promote at higher rates than you did a year ago, two years ago?   Do you understand why, or has eBay just tricked you into thinking you understand?  

[cristian3_6]

I really do not understand
Will my fees go up with this? Will the flow of people viewing my auctions decrease?
The truth is, last year I sold for 16 thousand dollars the entire year.
but my profit was almost 6 thousand dollars for me
and I have always put my auctions with promoted listed

and I also had to pay the accountant and I had to pay more

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@gurlcat 

1. I assume some sellers use the recommended rates or higher. I do not assume all my competitors do so, or even most of my competitors.

2. I know that ebay's "prediction tool" has shown me time and again that in many cases there is no difference in ebay's prediction between , say, 6% and 14%. Which strongly suggests that a higher rate does not automatically increase views to any great extent.

3. While, generally speaking, more visibility is a good thing, it does not necessarily translate into more sales.

4. ebay makes money on PLS fees when an item sells. If Item A is priced at a reasonable $10 with 2% PLS and identical Item B is priced at an absurdly high $50 with 20% PLS, item A still has a better chance of selling before Item B, in part because its price is more reasonable but also because even at 20%, ebay has said it would probably not give a lot of extra visibility to a way over priced item...remember, ebay doesn't collect that 20% if the item doesn't sell, but ebay does collect the 2% if Item A sells.

I could probably add to this list, but it basically comes down to this: A lot of factors go into whether I make the sale or someone else does, and I deal with those factors I have some control over. If another seller makes the sale because he had a better price, or free shipping, or better photos, or a huge social media following, or a higher PLS, so be it. I am not going to use the recommended PLS just because it is suggested, just as I don't use "bold". LOL

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@gurlcat  Also, I want to stress, I'm talking about MY business. Other sellers with other business models will come to other conclusions. A lot of different approaches can be successful. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@cristian3_6 

You are NOT required to promote any of your auctions.

So, when this change happens on April 15th, you can just list your auctions without ANY promotion, and see how well they sell. If you do OK without promotions, you can probably just stick with no promotions.

Or, you can test Promotions Listing Standard. Before doing that, however, you really need to understand HOW it works. PLS will give you more visibility than the now discontinued PL Express (which is what you've been using)

You pay no up front fees with PLS.

However, you pay a percentage for every sale you make which can be attributed to PLS . You choose the percentage, with a minimum of 2% and a maximum of whatever you choose. This is applied to your TOTAL selling price (not just the item price, but the item price plus shipping plus any sales tax)

Let's say you've been paying $1.99 up front for a seven day listing that sold for $100.00 on auction. ebay got a $1.99 in PLE fees for that sale. So, without considering other fees and costs, that's $100.00 minus $1.99, you end up with 98.01 before the FVF etc are deducted. If your item got no bids at all, you were out the 1.99 regardless. 

Now, let's say you choose to go with (just making up a number) 10% as a PLS fee Your auction gets no bids? You aren't out a PL fee.

BUT if your item sells on auction for $100.00 plus $5.00 shipping plus $5.00 sales tax, ebay will take 10% of that TOTAL : so, 10% of $110.00, which is $11.00. So, deduct the $11.00 from the $100.00 item sale price, you are left with $89.00. And that's before ebay deducts the FVF, also from the total, which further reduces what you are left with.

You might find PLS is not a good fit, period

You might find it works for you, but only at, say, 2%, not at, say, 20%. 

Only you can decide ... but yes, you could easily end up paying more....possibly much more...to ebay depending on your choice.

Choose wisely.

[cristian3_6]

this is all mental
When I put a lot up for sale I think if I don't put promoted list less people will come to see my lists also when I don't put promoted list the count of people stays at 3 for a long time
So I think other people put the same thing and promote it. The priority in the search engine is for those who pay for the promoted lists and those who do not pay are last or are not very visible in the search engine.
that's why I put promotion on all my lists

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Fine.  promote them if you wish. But understand the huge difference between "Promoted Listings Express" which will be gone as of Monday or Tuesday, and "Promoted Listings Standard".

They are VERY different things, and if you do not take the time to fully understand , you MIGHT end up paying a LOT more money to ebay than you have in the past. 

[gurlcat]

I'm not sure you understand how the promotion called 'Standard' works.  The one you've been using for auctions ('Express) is a binary thing, where either you use it or you don't. But that's not what the Standard one will be like.  It's not just yes or no.  If yes, it's HOW MUCH.   The higher the number (percent) you set it for, the more people will see it, but also the more you will pay after the item sells.   
Do you get what we're saying?  

[cristian3_6]

Hello, thanks for answering
I put many auctions and in the auctions I put payment for promoted list
more or less 1.99 dollars per list

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques · Accepted solution]

@cristian3_6  not anymore. That is what we are telling you. What you have been doing... Paying the $1.99 or whatever is ENDING on April 15. You will not be able to do that anymore. Do you understand that? eBay is ending that program. Period. That's the announcement they sent you. 

[filatcostamps]

Has anyone been able to use promoted standard for auction listings since this change? I have multiple accounts & I can't seem figure out the new method for promoting auctions. It doesn't give sellers an incentive to start high end material cheap if they can't ensure it gets adequate exposure. 

[valueaddedresource]

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@filatcostamps wrote:

Has anyone been able to use promoted standard for auction listings since this change? I have multiple accounts & I can't seem figure out the new method for promoting auctions. It doesn't give sellers an incentive to start high end material cheap if they can't ensure it gets adequate exposure. 

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@filatcostamps  per the announcement on the eBay Ads Blog, the ability to add auctions to Promoted Standard will not be available until April 29.

https://www.ebayads.com/2024/04/04/grow-your-business-with-promoted-listings-standard-now-in-place-o... 

Until then, you will not have any option to promote auction listings.

[gurlcat]

Kind of goofy to plan a 2-week gap in any kind of promotion like that, I mean it's lost revenue for them too.  My only guess would be it's to avoid any confusion from overlap between auctions running on the two different kinds of promotion. 

Whatever.  I'm still pretty bummed about this.  More to the point I'm at a loss for how to approach it.  I'll still want to use the auction format for the specific type of item listing I've traditionally used it for, but I can't figure out what % rate I should use -the same, more, or less, than what I apply to my BIN listings.    I can't even suss whether the difference in number of days listed is a factor or not.  And it feels like it might be one of those things where it should be fairly obvious but not to me because I'm blonde and I don't math good.  

Do you have any thoughts on that?  

[valueaddedresource]

@gurlcat I can definitely understand why the gap would be frustrating and yeah, I assumed it was to avoid confusion/complaints of possible overlapping fees (auctions started on 4/14 may have had the Express fee, could potentially run for up to 10 days and then maybe they built in a couple extra days just for good measure?)

Wish I had suggestions for you on a strategy for how to best use PL Standard for auctions but I don't....if nothing else, don't feel bad because it's not entirely obvious to me either. 😂

Unfortunately, it's probably just going to require testing and tweaking once the option is available.