Does promoting your listing really help? Is it best to only promote items over a certain price?
Does promoting your listing really help? Is it best to only promote items over a certain price?
7 comments
Does promoting your listing really help? Is it best to only promote items over a certain price?
mam98031
·1 year ago@anothers_treasure_222
This question is far more complicated that apparently you expect. This is not a simple yes or no answer.
You really should do your own testing on this. There are all kinds of things that can change the outcome of using Promoted listings. Category, item being sold, condition, price, etc. It all plays into it.
Some sellers in certain categories do very well using Promoted listings and in other categories sellers don't do as well. So while there are many sellers that use Promoted Listings, there are many that do not.
You need to test things out for yourself and find what works best for you. This process will likely take you a few months as overnight testing will not work.
reallynicestamps
·1 year agoDoes PL help?
Yes.
Do PL listings sell better than non-promoted listings ?
Not in my experience.
I promote slow moving items - and in my category that can mean the listing has been up for years, even decades.
Stamps don't necessarily take up much space and can be easily filed by an international catalogue number.
Even though that catalogue is now in 12 phone book sized volumes.
What I find is that PL brings eyeballs.
And while those eyeballs may not buy what they first looked at, I get more Views and more sales when there are PL listings rolling around.
Although about 10% of my listings are PL at the 2% minimum, my actual sales of PL items is lower than 10% .
My sales strategy includes both PL which brings in eyeballs -- and is FREE if the eyeballs don't buy that item plus Best Offer on Eligible listings-- which also brings eyeballs .
It's advertising. The Promoted item may not sell, but my Store gets slightly higher placement in Search when I have PL items current.
Cheap advertising.
And occasionally some deadstock item sells.
rugerskick
·1 year agoIt depends.
If they are rare or hard to find items, or items with very high sell thru rates, you may not need to promote.
If there are lots of them available from lots of sellers, and or they have lower selling rates, may be a good strategy just to get more exposure to more eyes.
Promoting won't help much if your items are not priced properly though. Or if they are very low demand items.
stainlessenginecovers
·1 year agoIt does if you have 100's or even Millions of competition; then to get on the 1st page (at least) you usually have to use promotions.
christworks
·1 year agoYour first question seeks an answer that cannot be proven by any seller with direct evidence as nobody can say whether an item would not have sold if it had not been promoted. The fact that it sells after promotion does not prove it sold because it was promoted. This is because there are many factors which impact whether a given item will sell today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or never at all. Promoting an item is a small slice of the pie. There are sellers who do not promote anything, yet have six figure annual sales.
Obviously the more eyeballs you can get in front of your item, the better....to an extent. A bad item that nobody wants isn't going to sell, even if you were to promote it at 100%. (It should go without saying, but don't ever promote something for 100% or anywhere close to that for that matter.) In other words, you can't assume something will move just because you promote it. I have a handful of things that have been listed for two years despite being promoted. This is because nobody wants them. They may in the future, but then again it could be junk that nobody will ever want. I've got plenty of space to store things, so I have the luxury to leave items listed for longer than some, and sometimes something from back then surprises me and gets purchased.
Before evening worrying about promoting items, it is best to simply buy items people want. Make sure your tittle is heavily loaded with keywords buyers will input to find your item. Make sure you have clear pictures, and that buyers can actually see your item in the first picture. One of the things I've learned is to crop photos if needed, so there isn't as much white space. Make sure your total cost (item price + shipping) is not significantly over what the market is currently paying. Equally important is not to undervalue items either. List how a buyer thinks.
The point of all of that is to get you to think about the things you can do to increase the likelihood of a sale before you get into the promotional waters. I am not against promoting. I do think sellers should keep promotional costs reasonable. I promote everything at a flat rate of 3%. Everything I list, automatically gets added to that campaign. I could fine-tune my promotion strategy and do research to see how populated a category is to know whether I need to promote that item more or less. For me, it isn't worth the time investment to get that precise because I promote at such a low rate. Essentially for every $100 in promoted items, I'm paying eBay $3. Can I prove that $3 is a worthy investment? No. I'm I willing to take a chance that it is? Absolutely, as long as I've done what I can on my end to make my listings attractable to buyers.
As far as whether it is best to only promote items over a certain price - again, this goes back to what level of promotion you are talking about and the other factors there at play. There is no one answer to your question. The big picture is that the time investment dealing with promotions should be less than the other things you spend doing that will generate sales.
I treat promotions as an investment. I set it and forget it. I don't rush to raise it when sales are down, and I don't drop them or turn them off when sales are up. I do conduct an annual review that is based on my business goals for the upcoming year.
estate_echoes
·1 year agoYes, like you said, just turning on promoted listings is going to be limited, given that so many people are using it.. You need to follow other practices to get the most benefit. Like including links to your store and similar categories, refreshing listings, using the best SEO keywords, etc. You can see it have an effect, with a tiny % as you did, turned on july 12:
Unavailable member
·1 year agoIn order to be able to promote you would have to qualify.
You must meet certain eligibility requirements to use eBay Advertising, such as having an eBay account in good standing and maintaining high seller performance ratings.
This ID shows zero activity for both selling and buying. So you couldn’t even think about promoting until you are established as a seller.
But to answer you question, promoted listings can help some sellers, some sellers find using promoted advertising doesn’t help at all.
I list with promoted listings general fixed rate at the lowest percentage allowed. Half my sales are from promoted listing.
Are those items you’re selling in your possession or are you drop shipping from BBW and other places?
Drop shipping from other retail venues is not allowed.
If you aren’t drop shipping I suggest you take your own photos of your items. Because using those stock photos suggests you are.