Since the introduction of "Item Promotion" or "Promote Listing", eBay's regular business Overviews remind me our sales have tanked by 55%. Our margins are stripped to the bone and, besides objecting to the "Item promotion" scam-like approach, when eBay already provide for additional pay-for advertising features, we can not afford to pay for additional fees which are appearing day by day to now be essential for survival.
Before the introduction of "Promote Listing", our sales were reasonably healthy. We manufacture a lot of what we sell in Australia and we sell from within Australia. We compiled with all eBay requirements to ensure high rankings, along with achieving eBay Top-Rated Seller accreditation. I thought we were making eBay a lot of money. But, it seems now it wasn't enough and eBay sought to disrupt what they already had.
What's next? Pay for "Super Promoted Listings"?
My take is, listings, whether promoted or not, should already appear in searches etc under a fair fee for trade service which we already pay good money for. Paying more for circumventing this fair principle has severely disrupted any possible level playing field and exacerbated other factors which have never helped in the past e.g. imports from overseas sellers, or those disguised as being Australian based, selling bulky items for less than $3.00 and yet still able to get them delivered here, where the $3.00 includes the cost of the item and the cost of postage.
The eBay marketplace is becoming a very unbalanced place for real Australian based sellers. But the real danger is how sales have tanked following the introduction of "Promote Listing".
