Regards,
evry1nositswindy • seller since 2013
Hi @thejesso
You will find that eBay has many options for adding Fees to listings / sales via their promotions programs. Some are paid ahead of time and others only if the item sells. My advice to new Sellers would be to try and make sales naturally instead of increasing the percentage of the total sale that you wind up paying eBay.
I ran Promoted listing campaigns for years but as time progressed it was apparent eBay wanted to make in the neighborhood of 20% - 25% TOTAL fees on sales instead of less than half that with the normal Final Value Fees for a natural non-promoted sale.
By the way, the main picture on your Ugly Christmas Sweater is sideways, you can Edit the listing and rotate the image ...
It is optional. Do a trial run of with and without. Personally, I don't pay eBay anymore than I have to!
@siamjane8 wrote:promoting has proven to be more and more ineffective. Many sellers have seen no improvement in sales with promoting. Some do, but its at the expense of making actual profit. Ebay gives new sellers a boost naturally so i would just go with that and try to get established before "selling your soul to the devil" lol.
Ebay has the ability to show the most relevant listings to buyers when they type words in the search box.... but they choose to show unrelated promoted listings instead to further the cash cow that PL has become. This of course does not translate into sales though because people do not buy items that they do not want just because they are forced to look at them- they get frustrated and move on.
Like anything- it probably helps in oversaturated categories like clothing and shoes and i-phone cases, but overall it has hurt the platform for unique and quality items that by default are just not being shown to buyers anymore. I have documented results that have the exact same keywords in the title but do not show up on ebay when searched- only on google- , then after working and searching in promoted listing carousels on other people's listings- have actually found the item......... makes NO sense- the item should show up in initial search BUT because it was promoted- does NOT---effectively promoting hides your item from people that actually are looking for it and shows it to people who are looking for something else?
Maybe im missing something but that is one of the reasons that sales have been in a steady 3 year decline- you cant buy what you cant see
@siamjane8 Very accurate statement. For those who have used and studied Promoted Listings over several years the results can vary ... some will see good results and others bad. I had good success with PLS (Promoted Listings Standard) up until they fully launched PLA (Promoted Listings Advanced) in early 2022, changed how Views were counted and doubled and tripled the "Suggested rates" for PLS.
Prior to that time I would run a 30 day PLS campaign once a quarter. I would average 2-3 sales per day during the campaign. However, some trends emerged through that process. My BIN (Buy it now - GTC) listings would tank for 7-10 days right after a campaign would end before rebounding to normal sales levels.
In early 2022 things changed. My 30 day quarterly campaigns consistently underperformed to about 1.5 or less sales per day and BIN sales in between campaigns dropped off significantly. I was NOT using the new higher "Suggested rates". This went on for a year and a half and during that time I had to shift inventory elsewhere to sell it. The drop off in sales in 2023 was over $10K.
Just after my 2nd quarter campaign in 2023 I did a test campaign for 17 days and raised ad rates to at or just above the Suggested rates ... sales immediately went back up to the 2-3 per day level during that 17 day campaign but doubling fees paid to the venue was not sustainable but it proved what I suspected ...
On my 3rd quarter campaign I went back to my old rates and sales dropped off again. I made the decision to stop using PLS and in 4th quarter just after my normal campaign time I got the message below, not once but twice. It starts with "We've missed you, tried Promoted Listings Standard again."
I got that message again in 1st quarter this year just past the time I would run my quarterly campaign. I can understand that a venue would learn the selling trends of individual accounts in order to optimize their income from sales. For myself, I just can't justify paying an (approximate) extra 12% on sales during a PLS campaign.
While I LOVE selling on eBay and Supporting The Community the operative word is sell. I am waiting for sales to recover naturally since I will no longer use PLS to boost sales when the result would be a reduction of profit. I applaud those who are having continued success in their categories with PLS or PLA.
