notification delay from price drop

[robbie31415]

If you have watchers they get a notification of a price drop 5%+.

How long is the delay before they can get another price drop notification?

Been testing, been 2 days no notification.

Anyone know the delay ?

[mam98031]

Are you talking about sending an offer to a Watcher?

While it isn't in the policy, SURPRISE, I believe you are correct.  It seems to me that the offers are good for two days.  If the buyer doesn't accept, you will see that it will appear now on your Available list again if there were other watchers.  The offers are never sent to more buyers than you have inventory in the listing.

Sending offers to interested buyers

If a buyer watches your item or adds it to their cart, you can send them special offers. Here's how:

1. Go to My eBay Selling or Seller Hub Active.
2. Select Send offer beside the eligible item (or Eligible to send offers, if you're using Seller Hub).
   • Not all listings are eligible. Eligibility is determined by a number of factors, including age of listing, listing format, and rules that manage the number of offers buyers receive
   • Items must be in the buyer's cart for at least 2 days to send an offer
3. Select an offer price.
   • The amount must be at least 5% less than the Buy It Now price for items under $200, 3% for items between $200 and $1,000, and 2% for items over $1,000
   • Shipping will not be included in this price
4. In Seller Hub, if you don't want to let buyers counter your offer, select Don't allow counteroffers.
5. Add a message to buyers.
6. Select Send offer to buyers.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/selling-buy-now/adding-best-offer-listing?id=4144

[robbie31415]

Not offers 5%+ price drops. Watchers get notifications outside of offer.

I been lowering price every day for last 3. First day got notification, last 2 no.

I'm trying to figure out what the delay is before system will allow another notification.

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2022/8/1661476045.html

The % to trigger is at least 5% based on my tests.

[mam98031]

I wish you success with your sale, I wouldn't recommend doing it that way, but if it works for you it is hard to argue that.  Good luck.

Ebay has always notified buyers that are watching your items of any price drops.  However it only get to the buyer if they have their account preferences set to allow them.

You might consider a Markdown Manager sale instead.  A lot less work and easier to manage.

[robbie31415]

Im only marking down to try and figure out the delay.

Was hoping someone on the forums might know.

Obviously eBay has a delay or you could spam people. Mark down 5% every couple minutes. I'm just trying to figure out what that delay is.

[mam98031]

What "delay" are you talking about?  Ebay re-indexes the site once a day.  Unknown when that time is.  Which is why sometimes it takes that long for a new listing to show up in the search returns.

You are just putting your listings into a race to the bottom.  I don't see how that is helpful to you at all.

[wastingtime101]

From what we've been told by eBay reps in the past @robbie31415 , buyer will only be notified once per listing.

[robbie31415]

I feel like I explained it really clearly.

If you don't know the delays in notifications that is okay.

Almost every service has a delay to prevent retriggering notifications to prevent spam.

I'm just trying to figure out the frequency to ensure every price drop will have a notification.

It's not about racing to the bottom, it's about min/maxing automated communication from automated repricing from scripts I've created.

[robbie31415]

Well that changes things if it's true.

Thanks for letting me know.

Currently testing a high priced marked up item on 5% every 24 hours, and what you say seems consistent. Only 1 notification. Will let it run for ateast a week to see if any new notifications trigger.

Appreciate your insight @wastingtime101 

[mam98031]

@robbie31415  as @wastingtime101  stated.  Ebay will only notify the potential buyer once.  So your test to drop pricing multiple times wouldn't continue to notify the buyer since they aren't notified past the first one.

[robbie31415]

That's possible, not sure if that answer is accurate.

EBay's discontinued feature 'Easy pricing' indicated it will notify every price drop. It was on 5 day interval, I'm curious to see if there is potential to retrigger notification.

[mam98031]

It likely annoyed buyers.  Kind of the same ballpark as spamming.  

[wastingtime101]

You got the short direct answer because I had something on the stove. Was cooking a late breakfast. Here's the longer answer. This is based on memory from several years ago so bear in mind I may be off with a couple of small details.

Price drop notifications were in place a year or two (maybe 3?) before SIOs (seller initiated offers) came in to play. When SIO was launched, eBay applied very similar logic to that feature. So everything below is pretty consistent across how both price drops and SIO notifications are handled.

eBay only sends notifications to recent interested buyers. I forget the exact criteria for 'recent' but I think it's within the last 30 days?

Sometimes sellers ask why they can't send offers on an item that has watchers when they never sent an offer before. The answer is usually the watchers are "old."

eBay sends only one notification of a price drop or SIO on an item to the same buyer. If you plan to lower price 5% today, then drop it 20% in 2 weeks, buyer will only see the 5% drop, not the subsequent 20%. Make the first drop count, or if using SIO and you have room then allow counter-offers. eBay said if the buyer is not interested the first time around, then they assume the buyer is not interested, period. In line with what you said above about not spamming buyers.

Price drops and SIO both can be sent to 'interested' buyers. That means not just buyers with the item on their watch list, but also buyers with the item in their shopping cart and buyers that viewed a listing 3 or more times.

And all that said, for a buyer to receive this kind of notification they have to have that communication preference turned on in account settings. On this posting ID I do not have those email notifications turned on (that would be chaos because I look at so many listings to help buyers and sellers around here I'd be inundated). But I do still see the notification bell on the eBay home page when a seller sends an offer, despite not getting the emails. I do not get a notification bell alert when a price drops.

Based on your level of interest on this topic, you may be wondering if a buyer removes an item from their watch list, then 2-3 month later adds it back, does that qualify them as a new, recent, interested buyer eligible to receive offers and price drops. I have no idea what the answer is. Since it's probably not a common scenario I never cared to ask eBay about it.

Hope that helps, @robbie31415 .

[robbie31415]

Thanks for your reply.

I can confirm that eBay does send more than 1 email for watched price drops. Also more than one notification.

It appears eBay has it set for 7 day delay before you can retrigger.

 

 The first email was on the 14th. Second on the 21st.

[robbie31415]

I know you love providing info, but you are wrong.