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For those of you who think you NEED promoted listings.
I was digging through some financials (ebay is a public company) and discovered that promoted listings only account for 2.1 percent of their revenue, not profit, revenue.
That means that in the big scheme of things the overwhelming amount of listings on ebay are still sold without promoted listings at all.
46 comments
kh-taylarie
·1 year agoPost locked by Request of OP
onefootflipper
OP1 year agoModerators please close this thread at my request, as I am the original poster.
robbie31415
·1 year agoI can't count the many logical fallacies found from your last post.
But your last request is quite smart. Ask eBay to take away your shovel, because its getting deep.
jonathanbrightlight
·1 year agoThe moderators won't see that message most likely, but you can send that request by clicking on the little dropdown menu on your original post and choosing "Report Inappropriate Content" (just because that's the direct line to the moderators) and asking them to close the thread via the next page.
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@onefootflipper also - "74 billion in, only 2.1 percent of that money was promoted listing fees"...this sounds like you think the ad fees are part of that 74 Billion which nope, they absolutely are not.
That 74 Billion is GMV which is the total amount of paid transactions including item price, shipping, and sales tax - period, end of sentence, that's all.
When the CEO talks on the earnings calls about "ad revenue being x % of GMV" that is not in any way saying that ad revenue is counted as part of GMV, it is simply a way to compare two different, completely separate statistics, which as I illustrated above doesn't really tell us much in the way of trying to determine how many items are sold via promoted listings during any given reporting period.
onefootflipper
OP1 year agoWho said that ad revenue is or isn't part of GMV? Ad revenue compared to GMV is so laughably low that it honestly doesn't matter if it is a part of it or not for the point I was trying to make. The point I was trying to make is that promoted listings are an absolutely tiny part of the pie. You don't need to know the AMOUNT of items. You already know the total percentage paid company-wide which is 2.1 percent. I did not count it as GMV, but if I did then the number barely moves, it becomes 2.14. Almost the exact same number.
I sell 120K per year on a good year. Assuming I spent the same ad spend as average per dollar on the site then the annual difference between those two numbers is $48. That is a meaningless differ to a relatively higher end full time seller.
Nothing you are saying changes the core point, which is that promoted listing money is barely more than 2 percent of sales.
That certainly isn't enough information to write a thesis on, but it is way more than enough information to know that promoted listings as a whole are a teeny, tiny percentage of sales. I can't imagine anyone in this thread is crunching any numbers to the point where 2.1 would be any different than 2.14 or even 3.14. Those numbers would tell you the same thing, that the average promoted listing money recieved is very small, thus most sales must not involve promoted listings at all.
Half the people reading this thread probably don't even check solds before setting prices. I saw at least 2 people posting in this thread who think they can sell their items at twice everyone else's prices somehow NOW getting a math degree when it comes to this.
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@onefootflipper "Who said that ad revenue is or isn't part of GMV?" - you did, or at least the way you worded your previous post certainly indicated that you might have some confusion on that topic, which is why I quoted your words when responding to that point.
"You don't need to know the AMOUNT of items" - again, I'm merely going by what you have said in this thread in multiple places, ie in the original post in which you said "the overwhelming amount of listings on ebay are still sold without promoted listings at all."
Amount of listings sold is not the same as total dollar amount of sales - as I pointed out in my example above you could potentially have every single listing on eBay sold via Promoted Listings at an average 2% ad rate and ad revenue would still only be 2% of GMV.
Knowing the dollar value of revenue generated by all of eBay's various Promoted Listings products and how that compares to the total dollar value of paid transactions on the site including tax and shipping does not provide any insights into "the amount of listings" which are sold via ads (what you said in your OP) and therefore may not be particularly helpful in determining whether individual sellers "need" to promote their listings in order to make sales here.
As far as ad fees being a tiny piece of the pie, again I'm not sure what relevance that may or may not have to a seller trying to determine if using ads is necessary for their particular business on the platform.
To put it another way, while eBay doesn't break it out to my knowledge, I'd be willing to bet that store subscription fees are also a very tiny piece of the overall dollar amount revenue pie - but it would be kind of silly to assume that's the main thing sellers should be basing their decision on when thinking about whether or not signing up for a store is necessary/a good choice for their business.
"Those numbers would tell you the same thing, that the average promoted listing money recieved is very small, thus most sales must not involve promoted listings at all. "
And there's where it once again becomes very clear you simply have no idea what you are talking about.
Again follow me here - while it's obviously not ever going to happen, if 100% of listings on the platform were sold through Promoted Listings ads and if they all used the average 2% minimum, that would still equate to a dollar amount that would be 2% of GMV.
In that scenario would you still try to claim that 100% of listings sold is a "very small amount" just because the total dollar value only equaled 2% of GMV? That's a rhetorical question by the way because from the way this thread is going, I think you absolutely would argue that no matter how obviously wrong it would be.
Again, I'm going to suggest now would be a good time to stop digging.
an-57470
·1 year agoI used promoted listings for a while… now don’t… I notice no real difference.
valueaddedresource
·1 year agoAlso just to make sure we're not still talking apples to oranges here - comparing total dollar amount of GMV to total dollar amount of ad revenue doesn't really tell us much about how many items are or are not sold via promoted listings during any given reporting period.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's highly unlikely most sellers are using an ad rate of 100% for General cost per sale ads, so since the ad rate will always be some much smaller percentage of each individual sale where it applies, then of course naturally total ad revenue generated will always be a much smaller percentage of total GMV.
Just as a thought experiment - if 100% of listings on eBay were sold via Promoted Listings set at an average ad rate of the minimum 2%, then ad revenue on those sales would still be reported as ~2% of GMV.
Obviously that's not what is really happening on the site, but that illustrates how looking at total ad revenue as a percentage of total GMV doesn't actually give us much real insight into how many listings were sold via promoted listings ad and/or the average ad rate applied to those sales - not to mention the fact that 1st party ad revenue figure also includes Priority Cost Per Click, Offsite Ads, and Store Display ads which all may contribute to revenue without ever actually having any sales involved.
So while it's still interesting information to have, it's value for determining how many listings are being sold via promoted listings or not is questionable.
stainlessenginecovers
·1 year agoPromotions has no cost for ebay, 2.1% IS PROFIT (as well as revenue).
Because promotions are as low as 2%, and probably 90% of those using them, use that figure as well as many do NOT use them, 2% is a far cry from a steady 13.25% (for 99% of items sold).
Typically, revenue might be $100 for someone, but they only 'profit' $40, because there is $60 worth of 'costs', which could include 'original price' 'fees' 'shipping costs' etc.
Using simple numbers for clarity of example:
If 13.25% were the normal average, say it generates $1,000,000 revenue, then after paying for the building, employees etc, they might profit $100,000.
If 2.1% were 'additional' revenue, but there is NO additional cost for that 'additional revenue' since the building, employees etc. are already coming out of the original $1,000,000 revenue anyway,
this 2.1% (21,000) would be 'revenue' AND additional 'profit.
So now they 'profit' $121,000 after costs, which is really a 20% increase in profits.
gator08041971
·1 year agoI always keep coming back to a line from the movie - The Incredibles.
"And when everyone's super, ..... no one will be."
I myself only use promotions on a few items, mostly those that are not as popular or desired. And I use the lowest % as well.
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoAlthough the use of these numbers makes for an interesting discussion on a forum, it does not change the fact that many sellers need to promote their listings because there are more offers for their items than there are buyers, they may or may not have the best price, and they offer no value added to their sales.
I do not promote because I have few direct competitors, the promoted listings shown on my listings are often irrelevant, and my business strategy and financial situation take into account slow inventory turns.
Many Ebay sellers have poor merchandise selections, are not dealing in volumes which get them the best prices on what they inventory and need cash flow. Often they are not even aware of why they need to promote, but the discover that if they do not aggressively promote, the have no cash flow.
It would be useful to sellers if Ebay provided sell through rates and similar data for promoted and not promoted listings in different categories, but that is never going to happen.
gurlcat
·1 year agoIf comparing the whole of eBay's earnings history to one's own personal needs isn't questionable enough, you're not even comparing the same metrics within eBay's history.
If a seller had 100 sales last month and only 15 of them were sold via promotion, but those 15 item totaled $700 out of the $1000 they earned ... do they "need" promotion?
onefootflipper
OP1 year agoI specifically went back over it in the first post at the top of this page. 2.1 percent is indeed the total percentage of ad money compared to sales made in 2024. There were a lot of people doing totally different math that came up with much higher numbers.
You bring up a rather interesting point. In my experience the more expensive an item is in the first place, the less it needs promoting. I usually would not promote a $46 item at all (average of your example). However the entire trading card portion of my store is indeed based on promoted listings in order to sell basically worthless cards to browsers for $2.99.
You seemed to be incredibly niched down and only sell a single type of item. It would seem to me that it is indeed a browsing type of item which can definitely be helped by promoted listings. Brooches as a whole seem to have a 30 month sell through rate, which would be bad if it were not for the fact that they are very compact. I could probably fit your entire store in one of my smaller boxes. You only have a 5.3 month sell through rate which is incredible for your niche. So whatever you are doing is obviously working. I am sure it is likely a combination of you knowing what to acquire in the first place and then knowing exactly what to do with it.
However for every expert like you there are a whole bunch of people running a blanket promotion on an everything store at the same percent, and since ultimately promoted listing fees on ebay end up averaging 2.1 percent per transaction, I feel that using them widely is questionable.
gurlcat
·1 year agoLOL actually that's pretty much what I do: run blanket promotion on everything at the same percent. Or close anyway (5.7 - 6.3% -the variance depending on what the current suggested ad rate is for a new listing of whatever item; I set my rate to 'exactly' or '0.1 over' HALF of the current SAR). There's a reason I do that, but I no longer feel "safe" blabbing about certain kinds of observations here, based on past experiences.
Anyway, how to promote or whether it's needed at all is not really the hill I would die on. I strongly suspect my sell-through rate has more to do with how often I end/sell similar my listings, along with all the usual best practices; pricing by comps research, trying to get the best possible photos, aggressive offer-making, etc.
But just recently (last few weeks) I'm seeing a couple of pretty disturbing things I'm not quite ready to bring up, will instead keep waiting and watching to see if the patterns are just hallucinations or what. Running a very small store has certain advantages, but a definite disadvantage is having too small of sample sizes to distinguish coincidences from real trends.
onefootflipper
OP1 year agoIt is really hard to ever be sure you handled any one-off item specifically correctly. If you have 1000 of the same thing, that can be tuned to perfection, but like you, most of my real items are 1 offs. I can never be sure I handled any specific one right, I can just try to improve my overall handling of them.
gurlcat
·1 year agoYes, that's the other thing (in addition to my tiny size) that makes me feel very blonde when trying to understand what people are saying here, sometimes. I always forget there are lots of sellers dealing in new items, and mutli-quantities available of them. So some of the things that work well for me would be disastrous for them, and vice-versa.
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoThat is because it is not just really hard, it is usually impossible if the item is rarely available.
Over the years I have seen many "rare" items which have sold at auction for astronomical sums. And I have seen that sale motivate the discovery of other examples of that "rare" item. That rare item will never yield the price the first sale generated.
I have also seen truly "rare" items sell for a pittance on Ebay because they were listed for auction during the wrong week. And no other examples have appears for years. And because Worthpoint has a 20 year old Ebay price cannot be sold online for anywhere near what they should. Fortunately, there are still human beings doing business in person.
Ebay and the other Internet marketplaces are built to sell widgets - usually in production readily available widgets. Ebay differs from other Internet marketplaces in it offers fewer obstacles to selling the old and rare, but it must offer and does offer the tools for selling widgets. If a seller chooses to use those tools, it is voluntary and may help them or not.
The skills sets for successfully selling mass market widgets and rare one of a kind items differ. Knowing what business you are in should help you decide what tools you should be using.
onefootflipper
OP1 year agoYep, I have a few item's of Elton John's clothing at the moment. Now a lot of his clothing has sold over the years, but each one is still unique and I am too chicken to auction either piece, have it go at the wrong time and sell for nothing.
gurlcat
·1 year ago14" X 9" X 2.75 with room to spare, Baby!
Actually I do also have a mixed lot currently listed, in a half-gallon ziploc bag.
kabilab
·1 year agoMy primary product for sale is DVDs, which is a very crowded category. I did not promote when the minimum was 1%, but decided to test the waters at 2%. I have been quite pleasantly surprised at the results.
As has been stated, it depends upon what one is selling.
isaiah53-57
·1 year agoCome on REALLY? Nothing written here is even close to accurate information - Why would you post this without verifying your source or accuracy? Just another reason to NEVER believe anything you find posted on the web due to agenda's, bias, slackers, hackers, corruption, like-addiction, serial-reproduction, echo-chamber, lack of critical thinking and emotional susceptibility, etc, etc, etc, - you name it - The web is a breeding ground for misinformation and disinformation - No telling how many people will believe this and/or pass it along without considering its veracity - what a crock...
inhawaii
·1 year ago@isaiah53-57
Haven't seen you around in a while.
Welcome back. 😃
meme6253
·1 year agoThis forum at certain times can also be the same breeding ground, such as the OP's info.
onefootflipper
OP1 year agoThe original source I was reading used the word revenue in the sense that most of it would have understood, which was total money coming in. 74 billion in, only 2.1 percent of that money was promoted listing fees.
However ebay as a company has different bookkeeping than normal since their total money coming in isn't really their total money coming in since Ayden is extremely involved and a most of that revenue actually ends up being Ayden revenue.
I absolutely should have stated it as "Only 2.1 percent of ebay sales dollars are paid to the company in ad revenue" That puts it in a way that can't be argued into something completely misleading.
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@onefootflipper there's just so much here that I think you're confused about that honestly, respectfully I think you might want to just quit while you're ahead.
A.) eBay's reporting of GMV and Revenue isn't really all that different from other similar marketplace businesses.
B.) The massive difference in GMV vs Revenue has absolutely nothing to do with Adyen, it's primarily because the vast majority of what is counted as GMV (item price plus shipping and tax) is not ultimately paid to eBay, but to someone else, ie. the seller and/or a shipping carrier and/or government sales tax agency.
eBay's revenue is what actually gets paid to them - whether that's final value or ad fees on the sale, cost per click ad fees, listing insertion or upgrade fees, store subscriptions, etc.
Edit to add: C.) nobody here is taking your words and trying to argue them into something misleading - in fact the majority of posts in this thread with misleading information have been yours.
robbie31415
·1 year agoIdk about them being ahead.
The original claims were not logically sound and the numbers to justify it are used incorrectly.
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@robbie31415 fair point, I was just trying to be tactful but perhaps I should have said quit before digging the hole any deeper. 😂
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@onefootflipper Also curious where you get "the overwhelming amount of listings on ebay are still sold without promoted listings at all."
Per CEO Jamie Iannone on the Q2 2025 earnings call: "active promoted listings made up nearly 1.2 Billion of the close to 2.4 Billion listings on eBay."
I wouldn't call a near 50/50 split an "overwhelming amount." 🤷â€
slippinjimmy
·1 year agoJamie is careful with his words, "active listings" does not directly correlate with "sold listings". It does provide a more impressive number while still being truthful (but maybe a tad misleading).
slippinjimmy
·1 year agoI believe you misunderstand the reporting
eBay reported 19.5 Billion in GMV in Q2
eBay reported 2.73 Billion in REVENUE in Q2
eBay reported 455 Million for 1P Ad Revenue in Q2
455 Million is 16.6% of total Revenue in Q2
This means that 16.6% of the money eBay collects in fees from sellers originates from PL fees.
You are still correct that the thinking that one MUST use promotions is erroneous if you apply it to all sellers. I have no doubt that for some sellers promoting is essential while for others it's simply flushing money.
One of the most interesting stats to me that eBay reports is the Take Rate, it currently stands at 14 points (of which 2.5 points come from PL), I recall that in the late 00's the take rate was around 7%, it gradually moved higher until promotions really kicked in during the post Covid days. Increasing the take rate is how eBay has continued to be highly profitable in spite of stagnant growth of GMV.
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·1 year agoGoogle's AI supplied this:
AI Overview
eBay's revenue breakdown indicates that
advertising revenue is a significant contributor to the company's overall financial performance. More specifically, first-party advertising products (such as Promoted Listings) are the driving force within the advertising segment.
Here's what the data suggests about the percentage of eBay's revenue coming from first-party ads:
Advertising revenue as a segment: Advertising revenue represents a smaller, though growing, portion of eBay's overall revenue, making up approximately 15.9% in 2024.
First-party ads within the advertising segment: While the exact percentage of total revenue derived solely from first-party ads may fluctuate, recent financial reports highlight their importance. For instance, in Q4 2024, eBay's first-party advertising products generated $434 million in revenue, and in Q1 2025, they delivered $418 million.
In essence, while first-party ads don't account for the majority of eBay's total revenue, they represent a significant and growing portion of the company's advertising business, playing a crucial role in its overall financial performance.
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@onefootflipper curious what numbers you are using and where did you get them from?
Per eBay's investors page for Q2 2025: $2.7B in total revenue, $455 Million in 1st Party Ads Revenue (which would be all of the various Promoted Listings options.)
https://investors.ebayinc.com/fast-facts/default.aspx
Math hasn't always been my strong suit, but that works out to about ~17% as far as I can tell.
12345jamesstamps
·1 year agoI notice that '49% International'...and thus started putting 'Free International Shipping' in some of my titles.
Plus International Buyers can now buy multiple items without a hassle.
We have to wonder how many International buyers get put off without being able to add items in a shopping cart and ask for the combined shipping quote.
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@12345jamesstamps it's a good thought and might still be worth doing for other reasons, but just FYI that 49% International Revenue number is measured by the country where the seller is registered.
So no matter where you ship to, the revenue from your sales will be counted in the US stats and that figure probably doesn't really give you much helpful info about what the potential international market might be for the items you sell.
slippinjimmy
·1 year agoI was under the impression that eBay calculates "international" as any cross border transaction where the buyer ship to address is in a different country that the seller. This would include a seller in Germany shipping to a buyer in Japan or a US seller shipping to a buyer in Thailand.
I don't recall ever seeing a breakout of GMV by country (other than the often stated Germany is eBay second largest market after the US).
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@slippinjimmy we're talking about Revenue, which they do break out by country, not GMV. In eBay's 10-Q reports historically it has said:
Net Revenues by Geography
Net revenues, inclusive of the effects of foreign exchange during each period, are attributed to the United States and international geographies primarily based upon the country in which the seller is located.
onefootflipper
OP1 year agoI think everyone who is arguing this is false is doing the wrong math.
74.7 Billion dollars worth of merchandise was sold on ebay last year. 1.64 Billion in ad money was recieved on that 74.7 billion.
That means they took in 2.1 percent of the sales total from ads.
I should not have used the word revenue in the original post, as that led people down the wrong research roads. Yes advertising is a much large chunk of ebay's revenue than 2 percent, but the money received by Ayden and then doled back to the seller is not revenue for ebay. Only the part given to them is revenue. That is why they have 10 billion in revenue on 74 billion dollars in sales on the platform. Instead of 74 billion dollars in revenue on 74 billion dollars in sales.
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@onefootflipper - we're not doing the math wrong, we're doing it exactly as you described in your OP, based on REVENUE.
That 74.7 Billion number you are throwing out is GMV, which as you say in this post is the total amount of sales made through the site, including shipping and tax.
But that is NOT REVENUE, and since your OP took such pains to say you were basing it on REVENUE, then maybe we should actually do that? 🤷â€
Full year 2024 figures:
Total Revenue - $10.3 Billion
Ad Revenue - ~$1.58 Billion
And that still works out to about ~15%
If you want to do it based on completely different numbers now that you've been called out on it, that's fine, but don't act like that means we all got it wrong.
12345jamesstamps
·1 year agoThe promoted thing does not work like it should.
Sellers will promote something worth a .01 penny at 50 % per selling the item at $500.00.
A lot of junk has been promoted highly so sellers can get notice of their store but not to sell promoted items.
Too much garbage(worthless) is being promoted by sellers.
'sold without promoted listings'...we know...sellers promote useless junk.
This is why the platform is so over saturated with useless worthless junk.
bashort
·1 year agoabsolutely, if you have something that you are ready to scrap anyway, why not promote it at 50% and see what happens?
redlinear
·1 year agoI promote expensive stuff instead of cheap stuff.
Somewhat "in demand" engine block normally listed at $1000 (gets lots of views).
I'll make it $3500 and promote at 30%. (it'll get a ton of views that way. It's seen AND everybody wants to know what's so special about it, or what's the matter with me). From there, they'll look at my other items just to see how insane I really am....and instead, see good deals on hopefully something they need
Actually sold engine blocks that way.
jdbelt1960
·1 year agoI am learning that lesson. I began promoting everything but now am going to promote only my expensive, nicer items for the purpose of drawing traffic to my overall site of non promoted less expensive items.
stuff4divas
·1 year agothanx for the info @onefootflipper
i promote mine at the minimum 2% just in case
b4 that, 1% when we were allowed
if the minimum continues to rise, i may just end any promotions