eBay Standard Promotions
What’s your biggest frustration with promoting items on eBay? Do you feel confident in your choices, or is it a guessing game?
24 comments
What’s your biggest frustration with promoting items on eBay? Do you feel confident in your choices, or is it a guessing game?
onefootflipper
·5 months agoI stopped promoting entirely at the beginning of this year. However I can give you a very good guideline on where to spend your promotional money and where to save it.
If the item has an exact name and it is easy to search for then your promoted money is wasted.
The harder it is to get a search screen filled with identical items to yours the more promoted listings are effective. They work the best for clothing, antiques, weird vintage items, ephemera and similar categories where items do not have exact names, or in the case of clothing there is just too much variety in any given search string. I could search White Nike Golf hat and probably get 100 different ones.
ten_o_nine
·5 months ago@stereoview-vault
Do you feel confident in your choices, or is it a guessing game?
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I am very confident in my choices but sometimes I think they are not working, so I change my choices but not my confidence, then I realize that another choice would work better, so I change my choice again but still hold on to my confidence, then I see similar items sell for more, then I change my confidence and hold on to my choice, that's the way it's been for me.
hartungcards
·5 months ago"What’s your biggest frustration with promoting items on eBay?"
The annual increase in system activity experienced during this period, which causes processing delays.
krazzykats
·5 months agoI’m running promotions on everything to move inventory, and while it sometimes means making less/no profit, it’s helping clear out more items and free up cash.
With the recent USPS postage increase, I lost money on a couple of promoted items that had free shipping. I only realized my mistake after the items were sold.
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reallynicestamps
·5 months agoAbsolutely.
A good reason for selling is that we have stuff but we need cash.
Don't fall into the "sunk costs fallacy".
If it cost you $10 and you want $20 -- holding onto it in the hope of getting more than $10 can mean Spam sandwiches for dinner instead of fried chicken*.
*Hmm. I just looked at the price of Spam ($5.99 for 350gr) compared to whole chickens ($5.99 a kilo), and realized that Spam is now a luxury food.
bashort
·5 months agomy biggest frustration is all of the sellers who agree with ebay that they are not paying enough fees and volunteer to pay more
krazzykats
·5 months agoIt’s a pay-to-play game, and the title is “Be Seen or Not.”.
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bashort
·5 months agopromoted listings has caused me to just not source things that require promoting to sell.
tobaccocardyahoo
·5 months agoI do not use promoted listings because my buyers tend to be specific in their searches and find only a limited number of relevant offers.
They are not doing broad searches.
IMO promoted listings would be a cost without any benefit for you. But you can certainly conduct your own tests.
12345jamesstamps
·5 months agoI don't see my items promoted under other sellers so I cancel all promoted items yesterday.
I decided the 'sales' route will generate repeat buyers.
Such as 50% off on 3 items within a certain price tag and so on.
Because of the different promoted rates one doesn't really know what might get shown that is theirs.
And then there are those sellers who promoted something very high that is only worth a penny in my category.
I can't justify promoting a promoted item as well...sounds rather silly...
redlinear
·5 months agoWhen I promote across the board (all items) without raising prices, I sell more items and I ship more items.
And I pay more fees (the promotion %).
The higher I promote, the more I sell, The more I ship, and the more it costs me.
At the end of the month, the NET remains close enough to the same $$ that it might as well be the same.
SO....promoting everything means it's just more work for me with no more money in my pocket.
HOWEVER, I think promoting "sacrificial bait" listings does help somewhat.
I'll create a dozen or so high dollar, somewhat polular items and set the prices stupid expensive.
A $500 engine block for $3500.
And then promote those at 25%
The clicks and views go nuts on those items. I guess buyers just want to see WHAT or WHY. But, I do know........everybody looks.
Which sometimes means that they want to check out my other listings just to see what's wrong with me.
And end up buying something else
reallynicestamps
·5 months ago@redlinear
That was my experience too.
I promoted at minimum (1% then 2%) about 10% of my listings, mostly older ones with less interest.
Sales on those did not rise, but Views did.
And as you saw yourself, Views on other items did and sales rose on those noticeabley.
With no PL fees, since they were not PL.
This was confused by Canada Post labour troubles and then the Trump Tariff cutting into US sales, and when the "halo effect" fees came in, I dropped PL entirely.
Currently, I am going commando, and while US sales remain off, overseas sales have picked up. All my new listngs are on dotCA, so I can use the newly introduced eIS for international shipping.
I have, since I started selling on eBay in 1998, used 20% as my default for fees. It's usually lower which gives me an undeserved thrill.
lakefor94
·5 months ago@redlinear wrote:"I'll create a dozen or so high dollar, somewhat polular items and set the prices stupid expensive.
A $500 engine block for $3500.
And then promote those at 25%
The clicks and views go nuts on those items."
Yep, whatever makes eBay the most money goes to the top.
luckythewinner
·5 months agoI have never used promoted listings.
But if I did, I would be comparing my sales and profits from before and after, so I would know how well it was working for me.
Speaking purely anecdotally from what I have read second-hand on this board, some sellers say it works for them, others says it did not change anything, and others say it got worse for them.
bbcardzman
·5 months agoThat eBay pushes promoted listing that do nothing
lakefor94
·5 months agoWhat I find is that ebay is going to push the listings that make ebay the most money to the top or right near the top of Best Match. Always. That is the game.
Though, we already knew that....
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·5 months agoI'd like to see a third party provider use AI to calculate the most effective ad rate for different categories, and even sub categories.
krazzykats
·5 months agoI’ve promoted everything, but sales are still moving slowly, probably because of the higher shipping costs.
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gb58
·5 months agowhen you figure final value fees on the item, shipping and sales tax, and then promotional fees also, what is your % that you are paying on a sale. Have you ever broken it down percentage wise.
I know it can vary, depending on if you are shipping a larger heavier costlier item than if you are shipping a lighter item that costs less to ship.
I'm running between 15%-20% in fees without even promoting anything.
krazzykats
·5 months agoIt can vary, but I have most things promoted at 9% right now, so closer to 23% total...
I need to work on bundles.
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lakefor94
·5 months ago@krazzykats
You are in some of the toughest categories. I can see why promoting is necessary to compete.
Need more kitty hats. Those are cool.
Just saw your avatar. We have one of those. High maintenance, lol.
krazzykats
·5 months agoI love her! She looks like a relative! 🤣
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gb58
·5 months agoI don't use it. I pay ebay final value fees and a monthly fee for my store, I have always felt by paying those fees, it should be ebays job to promote my listings (and everyone else's for that matter) without adding another layer of fees on top of what I'm already paying.
bonanza125
·5 months agoI never use promote listing. The fees are high.