Auto Price Reduction Not Working Now?
Auto Price Reduction Not Working Now?
Is this a decision or a glitch? Or just me? Not showing up as an option on Desktop or Mobile either one. Also not showing up via "edit listing", which previously had it enabled for the listings I checked.
Thanks
54 comments
bodacious_burn
·4 months agoI've used the Auto Price Reduction feature on virtually every listing I've created, and I want to be direct about what its removal means for me as a seller.
This wasn't a nice-to-have. For my workflow, it was the closest thing to a "killer app" that eBay has introduced in years. The automation replaced a manual process that would otherwise consume anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours each week — time I now either have to spend myself or hand off to a third-party tool.
That's actually my biggest concern here: I'm not planning to leave eBay, but this feature removal is actively pushing me to evaluate third-party listing and repricing tools that replicate what eBay offered natively. Once I've integrated an external tool into my workflow, my dependency on eBay's native functionality decreases — and that's not a direction I suspect eBay wants its sellers moving in.
I'd encourage the product team to consider what it signals when a feature this useful disappears without explanation. The sellers most likely to use price automation are also among the most active, data-driven, and volume-oriented sellers on the platform — precisely the segment eBay should be working to retain and deepen.
Please restore this feature. The time-savings it provides are real, the seller demand is clearly documented in this thread, and the competitive risk of not having it is that sellers like me build their workflows elsewhere.
silverfieldstoo
·6 months ago@wastingtime101
I appreciate that, and I do understand you’re trying to be helpful.
Third party repricers are definitely an option, but that’s part of the frustration. APR was built directly into the platform, simple to use, and didn’t require additional subscriptions, integrations, or external software managing my listings. It was streamlined and native to eBay.
When a built in tool that works efficiently is restricted, the solution shouldn’t automatically become “go pay for outside software.†Especially when the feature clearly benefited sellers and increased sell through.
For me, this isn’t about not being able to adapt; I can and will adjust if needed. It’s more about questioning why a tool that improved performance and generated more fee revenue would be limited to casual sellers rather than business sellers who operate at scale.
I do appreciate you acknowledging the frustration, though. Anyone who has sold on eBay long enough knows how disruptive sudden changes to workflow can be.
silverfieldstoo
·6 months ago@mr_lincoln
Thank you for your perspective, Mr. Lincoln. I understand you don’t personally use APR and may not see it as a major issue. However, for my business, the removal of this feature will have a meaningful negative impact.
From my point of view, I don’t see why eBay wouldn’t want to keep this option available to sellers who choose to use it. It’s an automated feature, not something that requires manual adjustments to listings each day. When my sales increase, eBay’s revenue from fees increases as well. That seems like a win-win for both sellers and the platform.
I simply believe maintaining flexibility in seller tools benefits everyone involved.
@wastingtime101
Yes, I do have a store subscription, as shown. Over the years I’ve experimented with various types of sales and promotional strategies, but in my experience they haven’t been consistently profitable. The lift in sales volume has typically been minimal.
I previously used the Best Offer option regularly. However, since the APR feature was introduced, I’ve been transitioning my store away from Best Offer. I’ve found when Best Offer is enabled, buyers almost always submit an offer, regardless of how competitively the item is priced, rather than purchasing outright.
The APR feature worked very well for my business model. It increased my sales volume, which in turn increased the fees eBay collected. That made it beneficial for both me and the platform.
Ultimately, I understand eBay will make decisions based on what it believes is best for its business. I just struggle to see how removing a feature that drives additional sales, at least in my case, results in greater revenue if it leads to decreased volume.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoThere are a lot of repricing programs out there @silverfieldstoo and they'll work across platforms. Perhaps you can find one that's right for you. If APR had that significant of an impact on your sales, and eBay may not bring it back to biz sellers, then in my opinion it's at least worth exploring third party tools to see if there's a good match for your needs.
I know all too well how frustrating it is when eBay removes/changes a feature essential to my business so even though I'm not invested in APR, I do feel your pain.
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@silverfieldstoo
You are more than welcome ... I can completely understand wanting to have the option to use APR or not.
silverfieldstoo
·6 months ago@mr_lincoln
Yes, I closely monitored performance both before and after using the feature. I price my items toward the higher end of the market, which typically generates early interest in the form of watchers and occasional sales. After each price reduction, most often using 30-day intervals, with a few 7-day tests, I consistently saw a noticeable increase in watchers, followed by sales shortly after. While sales were spread out across the lifecycle, they almost always occurred after a price reduction, often because a buyer didn’t want to lose the item to someone else.
Purchases occurred at various stages; before any reduction, after the first, second, or third reduction, but reductions clearly triggered buyer action. In fact, 32% of purchases occurred within 12 hours of a price reduction, which strongly suggests the feature pushed hesitant buyers to act.
My strategy was to use auto price reduction on all newly listed inventory, not on existing listings. After adopting this approach in August 2025, my sales increased significantly. From August–December 2025, I saw a 26% increase in overall sales compared to the same period in 2024, when I was not using this feature. While that percentage may not seem large on paper, it has been substantial for my business.
Once the remaining listings with auto price reduction sell through, I expect removing this option will negatively impact my sales performance.
I did not raise prices to offset the reductions. I set the lowest reduction price at the minimum I was willing to accept, typically my cost. If an item reached that level, my view was that it was a poor buy and needed to move.
I primarily sell one-off items rather than large quantities of the same product. I hope that answers your questions.
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@silverfieldstoo
My sincere thanks for explaining your strategy using APR and yes, that answers my question. If memory serves, and to your first paragraphs, Buyer communication settings include notification of a Watched item if the price is reduced. So what you shared there makes perfectly good sense.
"Once the remaining listings with auto price reduction sell through, I expect removing this option will negatively impact my sales performance." I have experienced negative sales impacts over time when a major change (site-wide) is introduced to the platform ... while I personally don't view the APR change as major I do acknowledge that it will definitely negatively impact those who have had success using it.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoYou have a Store subscription @silverfieldstoo . Could you reduce the price with a sale to generate the same buyer urgency with a reduced price?
mwsales05
·6 months agoI'm sure they could but it's so much more work than just doing a set it and forget it auto price reduction. Not to mention that the sales take a certain percentage off and auto price let you do smaller decreases. I'm honestly so disappointed that ebay removed this feature for bigger sellers. It made life so much easier and increased sales. Saying we should "know how to price their items correctly from the start" is ridiculous. Markets change and plenty of sellers on here are selling used goods. Some items I list have no comps on them in the last 3 years and I have to guess at a price.
silverfieldstoo
·6 months agoI absolutely loved the auto price reduction option and have been selling on eBay for over 28 years now. It’s one of the best features they’ve added to the platform over the years, and it will truly be missed. I’ll go back to manually adjusting prices every month, but in my opinion this is a feature that should be available to everyone. Why not, what does it hurt?
The only explanation I can come up with is eBay may not be collecting fees directly from this option, even though it clearly leads to more sales. You gain watchers on an item, and it almost turns into a Dutch auction; waiting for someone to finally pull the trigger. I was honestly shocked, amazed, and very pleased with the increase in my sales after this feature was introduced.
One thing worth noting: items that had auto price reduction enabled are still lowering in price, even though the option is no longer visible in the listing. The only way to stop it appears to be canceling and relisting the item.
In closing, I truly hope eBay rethinks this decision and allows all sellers access to this feature.
@wastingtime101 @mr_lincoln @valueaddedresource
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@silverfieldstoo
That's great that you loved the feature!!!
Did you track it's progress, meaning you kept track of when Buyers would purchase based on the incremental reduction steps compared to items that sold before the first incremental change?
Did customer typically buy on the first reduction? 2nd reduction? 3rd reduction? etc???
Was your strategy to use it on all of your items or just select items?
Did you raise your prices before the reduction steps began so if they sold on the very last price reduction before Selling you would still make your target profit margin?
valueaddedresource
·6 months agoThanks for the update @mr_lincoln !
When we first started seeing this feature being tested last year, I remarked on how similar it was to the old Easy Pricing feature that was only available to new/occasional sellers who used the simple listing tool.
I was honestly somewhat surprised at the time that this iteration didn't have that limitation and am also not terribly surprised now that it appears eBay has decided to make it only available in the simple listing tool again, at least for now.
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@valueaddedresource
You are more than welcome. eBay tests things on a regular basis. I was miffed when they added Best offer to Auctions. I get weary of features that drive prices down or require fees to increase visibility either on or off the venue. All of those things are part of a negative downward spiral.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoThat feature would be awesome if the buyer was prevented from making an offer lower than the auction start price.
The way that feature is supposed to work is seller starts an auction, let's say $100 start and it's expected to sell in the $500-600 range. Before there are bids, buyer can make an offer for say, $450. It's within reason for the seller to consider, they get a quick sale without risking people won't bid and it sells for $100. Buyer gets a slight deal and seller makes a quick sale.
Instead you have people using auctions inappropriately where buyers make lower offers or sellers start too high because their items should have been fixed price to start.
Programming in a block so offers can't be lower than the auction starting bid would help train buyers/sellers how the feature is supposed to be used.
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@wastingtime101
You hit some excellent points on Auctions and you made a comment up thread I believe that Sellers need better education on setting their starting Auction price. I see it all the time, make that same comment and we read about Sellers cancelling an Auction sale because they did not get the price they wanted.
Below are two screen shots, the first from last year. The first pic (with black and orange outlines) is from last year when eBay was still using the "Median" price for a BIN listing. While creating a listing if one changes the Format eBay will show a different price, like the suggested starting auction price ... in this case 99 cents. In the second pic (blue & red outlines) I created a BIN listing first and was given the Recommended price (no longer Median). In changing the format to Auction eBay now shows their suggested starting bid price of 99 cents plus the recommended price of $ 25.00. That's a definite "duh" and the suggested starting auction price with a $ 25.00 recommended price should be a whole lot higher than 99 cents.
I sell a lot auction format and my starting bid price is high enough to cover cost, eBay fees and most importantly, my target profit margin. THAT is what should be in place of the 99 cent starting price they show.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoI have huge beef with pricing recommendations on listings @mr_lincoln because they are so wildly inaccurate. Price Guidance (I think that's what it's called in the listing tool / seller hub) is wildly different from Product Research. With Price Guidance eBay is often pulling out a random keyword or product category and that's it. So you're looking at price recommendations based on junk from China, or based on different quality/brand/material items, or comparing a designer item to some print on demand stuff.
In my opinion eBay should be linking to Product Research - at least on the business listing tool - and the seller can click through and search for their item.
Your screenshots demonstrate improvement but still major flaws. I thought eBay stopped pushing sellers to start auctions at 99c. I guess not. ðŸ™
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@wastingtime101
Oddly, I actually have had some Auctions created where eBay has suggested higher starting prices than 99 cents. However, that has been rare. Since I use Templates as well as have sold the same things numerous times over the years they could draw from that info ... or if it is a very common item they may have a good history of what it has sold for.
But I agree, any information eBay provides on pricing is subjective, especially in collectible categories.
valueaddedresource
·6 months ago@mcdougle4248 thanks for that info but oh my...that makes things even more complicated.
If it really is discontinued but is still continuing to run in the background on listings that had it enabled with no way for sellers to edit it, that is going to be a big mess.
Really hoping that's not the case and it's just a technical issue that will be fixed asap.
beasteesvintage
·6 months agoHi,
In my account, none of the listings I applied the APR tool to, currently show it. It has been removed. For my account, there is no halfway mess. It is just gone across the board.
mcdougle4248
·6 months agoJust an update. I am seeing the automatic price reductions still happening for the listings that had it set up prior to the disappearance of the feature on the listing form. This listing has had 3 price reductions, the last one occurring yesterday.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoWhat I've been reading the past couple weeks from sellers seeing the feature vanish @mcdougle4248 is:
- It cannot be selected on new listings.
- It will continue to run on active listings until their monthly renewal date, at which point auto price reduction is removed.
Based on that, the example you posted does not make it more complicated as Liz suggested, because that listing's renewal date isn't until Feb 18. (Edit: and you can end the listing and relist if you want to turn off the setting before then, or raise the listing price if you don't want to end it.)
It's not uncommon to see this behavior when eBay makes changes; listing is unaffected until its monthly renewal date at which point changes take effect.
If this feature is truly gone I think it's a good thing. I was disappointed to see the feature when it first launched.
valueaddedresource
·6 months ago@wastingtime101 thanks, that's good to hear it's not as complicated/messy as I thought it might be.
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@wastingtime101 , @valueaddedresource
I have some updated information on the APR (Auto-Price Reduction) feature confirmed by eBay. Since it is beyond the 24 hours editing limit here I can't go and walk back my previous post. So as far as the feature goes and as it relates to specific eBay listing tools here are the facts. My comments after the two bullet points are in parenthesis.
-APR is available on the Quick Listing Tool (I have never used this listing tool)
-APR is not available on the Advanced listing tool accessible through Seller Hub. (This is the listing tool I use so the screen shot provided up thread is accurate)
-The phone app was not mentioned.
So based on this information some sellers may see it as an option and others will not. If additional information from eBay is confirmed to me I will post about it but at this point this is what I can provide as fact confirmed by eBay. My sincere thanks for your patience and understanding.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoThanks @mr_lincoln . Good to have a confirmed answer.
FYI the app also has simple & business listing tool versions (dictated by what the seller uses on the website), so I expect it will be same with the app.
Those newbie/hobby sellers using the simple listing tool can access the feature, and those with more experience using the business listing tool should know how to price their items correctly from the start and not need to lean on Auto Price Reduction.
In the past eBay had "Easy Pricing" - remember that? It was only available on the simple listing tool.
eBay has tools for advanced users such as Product Research to figure out pricing, they have Seller Initiated Offers for sellers wanting to offer discounts to interested buyers, and they have Discounts with a Store subscription where sellers can make use of coupons, order discounts, sales, and more.
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@wastingtime101
I believe you are spot on there. I also agree with a comment you made on a post up thread about this feature, paraphrased, you did not like it when it was brought out. I share that opinion.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoIn an effort to inform sellers that specifically asked about this, but threads are either locked due to age, or they are on the mentor forum, I'm going to tag a few sellers here so they have an update.
@mhughban @state-st.-emporium @jiveguru35 @crivera5518 @westtexasblackgold @cheeseheadpicker @daandsj1 @opie.etc
See above - we got confirmation from eBay on what's going on. The Auto Price Reduction tool has not been discontinued, but its use has been targeted as (in my opinion) it should have been from the start.
The tool is available exclusively through the simple listing tool for newbies/casual sellers; it is not available through the business listing tool. The simple listing tool is very limited and not the right fit for everyone. If you use Seller Hub you cannot access the simple listing tool.
Newbie/hobby sellers using the simple listing tool can access the Auto Price Reduction feature, and those with more experience using the business listing tool should know how to price their items correctly from the start and not need to lean on Auto Price Reduction.
eBay has many tools for advanced users such as Product Research to figure out pricing, they have Seller Initiated Offers for sellers wanting to offer discounts to interested buyers, and they have Discounts with a Store subscription where sellers can make use of coupons, order discounts, sales, and more.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoHere's a screenshot @mr_lincoln of the simple listing tool pricing section that I just took with my posting ID. You are welcome to take this as a "blank slate" and markup as needed for buyers asking questions about the simple listing tool.
Simple listing tool is not accessible when a seller opts in to Seller Hub, and the simple listing tool is much more limited in options than the business listing tool - with the exception of auto price reduction which is a tool for newbies/occasional hobby sellers.
--------------------------
Edit to add @mr_lincoln :
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@wastingtime101
My sincere thanks for the screen shot, already copied and marked up accordingly ... can you tell me what category that particular listing is from?
valueaddedresource
·6 months ago@wastingtime101 I also tagged the blues in this thread yesterday:
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Report-eBay-Technical-Issues/Auto-Price-Reduction-Tool/m-p/35473040#M150015
So hopefully we can get a definitive answer from them on Monday too.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoYeah, I have a major migraine and can't even begin to process this right now so I'm not going to take further action until we have more info. This has become way too confusing.
silverfieldstoo
·7 months agoWhen I contacted eBay on Wednesday night about it they advised me it was a site wide technical issue and they were working to resolve it. They also stated any auctions you have set up with it would be restored and you would'nt have to fix any of them. In the past I've experienced eBay Customer Service just telling me what I wanted to hear only to have something else happen, but we shall see. They gave no timeline on a resolution either. I hope they haven't discontinued it; it's an amazing tool for us sellers and I love it!
mcdougle4248
·6 months ago@silverfieldstoo
I just chatted with eBay on Facebook. They also said the Automatic Price Reduction feature has not been discontinued; instead, it is experiencing technical issues. Hopefully, it will be resolved soon.
FYI...
@mr_lincoln
@wastingtime101
@valueaddedresource
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@mcdougle4248
My sincere thanks for the tag ... not seeing it as a Pricing option on the Advanced listing tool used through Seller hub.
mcdougle4248
·6 months ago@mr_lincoln
Yes, I am missing it on the listing form, too. Also, I cannot see it when I open active listings to revise that I had enabled the feature when listing. The entire feature seems to have gone MIA on the 3rd. Hopefully, it is just a tech issue and will be resolved soon.
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@mcdougle4248
When eBay discontinues a feature then it disappears. Maybe they will bring it back in the future.
mcdougle4248
·6 months agoOr, maybe it's a tech issue like the FB rep said, and it will be resolved. A girl can hope 🤣
valueaddedresource
·6 months ago@mr_lincoln it would be helpful to know if your responses explicitly stating it has been discontinued are based on actual knowledge/information from eBay to that effect or if that's simply your assumption because it is currently not showing as an option on the listing form.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoNo kidding. In about half a dozen posts on this forum I've been telling everybody it was discontinued because Mr Lincoln stated it definitively on an ask a mentor thread. Since mentors often get answers like this direct from eBay, and he didn't say he was guessing, I thought his info was confirmed with eBay.
I guess I need to go on an apology tour on all the posts where I told people it was discontinued based on the post linked in the first reply above. I'll start here with an apology to @treasure_hollow & the other sellers on this discussion for the bad info.
----------
For context @valueaddedresource : I saw a couple people posting about it last week, asking where to find the feature. I went to grab a screenshot from one of my accounts, but the feature wasn't there. So I checked a different account and the feature was there. Since the account missing the feature used to have access, I assumed it was a tech error affecting some accounts and I reported it to eBay.
That was circa Jan 25-ish. Then by Feb 3 it was missing from the other account, too, just as everybody else noticed it missing. Then I read mr lincoln's post confirming it was discontinued. Since it now appears that post was not correct, my guess, after seeing mcdougle's chat with CS, is back to it being a tech issue eBay's working on as I originally believed. It's possible eBay had to remove it from all accounts temporarily to fix the issue, but that's just a guess.
Thank you for continuing to dig on this @mcdougle4248 . I should have done the same, considering how surprising I found the news about discontinuation based on the newness of the feature and eBay's constant push for sellers to lower prices. 😖
patternsnpeace2012
·6 months agoI see one of my APRs came back today -- AWESOME!!!
mr_lincoln
·6 months ago@patternsnpeace2012
Do you happen to know what listing tool you are using?
mcdougle4248
·6 months agoCan you explain further? Where do you see it?
I am still seeing the feature reduce prices on listings that I enabled the feature on before it disappeared from the listing form around February 3rd.
Here is an example of a listing that auto price reduced on February 5th and then again today.
mcdougle4248
·6 months ago@patternsnpeace2012
I just noticed that when I go into revise one of my listings that has the APR feature enabled, the field is now visible again. This is a new change. The field was not visible when I was working on my listings early today.
On my account, the field is not visible when creating a new listing or revising a listing that did not have the APR feature enabled before February 3rd.
@wastingtime101
FYI, this listing rolled over today and appears to have retained the APR feature.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoThanks @mcdougle4248 . Happy to see it. I submitted FB to eBay using the ? and linked to this thread and said if APR is active on a listing, the seller should not be cut off from changing their settings just because they're using the biz tool. Looks like eBay listened. 🙂
mcdougle4248
·6 months ago@wastingtime101
Thank you for doing that 😊
cmnkb8
·7 months agoWhat an absolutely moronic decision by Ebay to remove this. Like others, I've spent hours setting up listings new and old with this feature, and yes it has helped move stuff with lots of watchers as many often sell within a day or two when the price gets auto reduced. IMO it worked better than sales as those require a minimum 5% off, and in some cases I don't want to reduce that much. Also it was less effort as a "set it and forget it" feature vs the promoted sales that required manual refresh
Really don't feel like spending an hour plus every week adjusting prices manually anymore. Less sales for me, but less fees for ebay too...
patternsnpeace2012
·7 months agoREALLY unhappy this is gone as it was incredibly beneficial -- can someone explain the reasoning behind why it's gone please? I am so bummed about it that this is the first time I have ever even posted in the forums smh. Now I have to waste huge amounts of time going through individual listings one-by-one every few days and dropping manually again -- why give us something so useful and then remove it???
wastingtime101
·7 months agoRead the link I posted above.
seven_7s
·7 months agoDang. I liked this feature too.
cheech2021
·7 months agoI thought it was just me, thanks for posting. I loved it, I would set it as...."I didn't take much off " and "not to often(30days)", ....but I knew the item would sell and out the door it goes one day and without any energy on my part. O Well. Maybe it will be back......
mcdougle4248
·7 months agoBummer. I had a good response using this feature. Oh well 😞
crivera5518
·7 months agoLess than a month ago I spent a few hours enabling this on all my listings. Im so upset it's gone now. I really liked that feature once I figured out it was there.
wastingtime101
·7 months agoHi @treasure_hollow . I just saw a post (link) by one of the eBay Mentors that confirmed this feature was discontinued.
You have an eBay Store. Make use of discounts manager and run sales instead.
treasure_hollow
OP7 months agothank you for the information