Heads up: changes to Seller Initiated Offers (SIO)
Recent & upcoming changes to SIO.
eBay recently launched an offers management page. Currently only automated offers are included. Find it by navigating to:
Seller Hub > Marketing > Offers
Here's a screenshot from last week's Seller Check In showing the new options to manage automated offers in bulk.
The expansion to include all seller initiated offers on offers management, not just automated, is currently anticipated for June. There will also be some visibility to performance stats. Another screenshot from the Seller Check In.
There will eventually be more controls for automated offers including the ability to set duration for automation: 1 week to 1 year or custom duration. Another screenshot from the Seller Check In.
Watch the video (link) from last week's Seller Check In, cued up to the right spot to hear the product team talk about the new and upcoming changes.
I asked the moderator to lock the thread I created last week since it was long and taken over by a temporary tech issue. This way we have a fresh space to discuss the new SIO features.
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@wastingtime101 I'm seeing message #2 cut off like you show when looking in FireFox, but it shows the full thing when I view the same account in Chrome.
I've used the question mark on the page to report it, just confirming here as well and sharing what #2 says.
wastingtime101
OP1 year agoThanks, Liz. It was cut off for me in both Firefox and Safari. Looks like not only was the message cut off, but the arrow was pointing to the wrong column.
wastingtime101
OP1 year agoeBay rolled out more changes to the offers management page.
Seller Hub > Marketing > Offers
There was an instructional walk through with 2 messages, but I could only see the first message because the second was cut off. It was layered underneath the header. Anybody catch what message #2 says or is it cut off for all of you?
We already had Automated and Not Automated filters, both of which apply to active vs ended automated offers.
Now there is a filter called New Offers - best I can guess is that filter shows when you have new buyer initiated offers or buyer counter offers awaiting response.
The default All Offers now includes all expired SIO and performance history.
But what I'm not seeing is a filter for all active SIO. You still have to go to your Active listings page and use the filter (link) to see those.
Hey @kyle@ebay - can you check on that bold portion on Monday to find out if a filter for active/open SIO will be added to the Offers Management page at some point in the near future?
Can you also let the product team know:
- The menu is not sticky to the page, so when you scroll down the list you lose the menu.
- There is no search bar or category filter or any way to narrow down the results.
- The filter menu titles (specifically 'not automated' and 'new offers') are not at all clear.
liawri-75
·1 year agoEB keeps piling on piling on. And throwing stuff at the wall hoping it sticks.
I much prefer Posh & Merc way of sellers sending offers.
wastingtime101
OP1 year agoI expect everybody's seen this by now, but in case you haven't ...
When you send SIO you can now select a duration window for automated offers.
To be clear, offers still remain active for 96 hours (or less if your item sells sooner). The duration window lets you decide how long eBay will continue sending automated offers on those listings - anywhere from 7 days to a year.
I don't see the custom end date that was previewed at the Seller Check In. I guess that hasn't rolled out yet.
adamcartwright
·1 year ago@wastingtime101
Thanks for the update. The ability to limit the automation is good news.
jonathanbrightlight
·1 year ago@wastingtime101 That might get me to use automated offers, at least as a test. I was running into problems when we would put items on sale but it was trying to send offers based on the old price, which made some customers angry. If I can send automated offers for a two week period that doesn’t cross over the dates I’ll be renewing those sales events (which is when items would change prices because they’re newly added to our discounts or age into a higher discount percentage), then they might well be useful.
wastingtime101
OP1 year agoHow long ago was that @jonathanbrightlight ? eBay cleaned up some of the SIO / sale interaction a year or so ago.
There was discussion about this at eBay Open 2024.
Seller: With automatic SIO, what happens when you put an item in a sale event and there's a new interested buyer? If original price was $30 and it's temporarily on sale for $24, will the SIO % discount come off $30 or $24?
eBay: SIO discount will be on $24. Sale event is the only Discount tool where an SIO or Best Offer will stack on an existing sale. All other discount tools (coupons, volume pricing, shipping discount) the discounts will not stack. Hope this helps answer your question.
Seller: If the SIO is set up before the item is marked down - when the price is $30 - for a % off, then automatic offers are enabled, and later the item is on sale for $24 and the automatic system detects a new interested buyer, you're saying the automatic system will discount the $24 sale price and not the original $30 price when the SIO was initially created?
eBay: SIO is always on the sale price. There is 1 nuance on the automation to avoid the situation you are referring to. When your price is $30 and you set a 20% SIO offer: $24 will be sent to buyers. We will never send an offer lower than $24. So in your example we will not send an offer to the buyer.
But if you had run a sale event and reduced price to $27, then the buyer would get an offer of $24. This offer will only be sent if SIO is at least 5% below the sale price.
jonathanbrightlight
·1 year agoAh, good to know, @wastingtime101 , this was quite a while ago so before that I'm sure (I didn't keep track of when it was, but my gut says two years or more).
jonathanbrightlight
·1 year agoI just tested setting up an item for Automated Offers, and I saw the same thing as your screenshots, @wastingtime101 , a dropdown with a list of choices, but not completely custom durations.
Then, after I added the automated offers, I went to go see how it would appear in the new Offers tab under Marketing in the Seller Hub. When I selected Edit Offer from the three dots button, I discovered I could then set a specific date for the automated offers to end, instead of just picking from preset durations:
Annoying that you can't just do that initially, but promising that the functionality does exist currently.
wastingtime101
OP1 year agoGreat info, thanks.
wastingtime101
OP1 year agoBumping this as I'm seeing some sellers report they have access to expansions mentioned in the original post, like setting the duration of your automated offer campaigns.
wirkaholic
·1 year ago@wastingtime101 Yes, I meant ending in bulk but glad you cleared up the fact that an SIO can't be ended on this
.
I already use the bulk edit now for ending automated offers. I was hoping to be able to adjust SIO's. As it stands now, if you forget and send one before a vaccation setting, health emergency, or weather related store closing, It still leaves those out there to come in during down time.
I would like to see them add Sio ending to those times. I hope they put a sort catagory for Sio's so you know what offers you have floating out there. Worst case senario you could at least end those listing if need be in an emergency.
It just looks like there will be more functionality to it. I guess well wait and see.
wastingtime101
OP1 year agoAll SIO will be added to that management page so you will have more visibility to open offers, but bulk end is only for automation.
My preference for SIO is for eBay to extend handling time if seller enables Time Away, just like they do for fixed price listings, not to end the offers. I hope one day they will improve the Time Away exceptions.
wirkaholic
·1 year agoThank you @wastingtime101 ! Your time was not wasted on this one.
I'll take what I can get. At least we will be able to sort offers much easier. It's a win just knowing we will be able to end them also.
I've been using what they put up now, but I still keep forgetting to check the buttons when I send an offer out. At least I'm not getting tons of super low ball offers. Maybe one a week when I forget to check the buttons.
Thank you for updating us. Ebay should hire you or at least give you something for your time keeping sellers informed.
wastingtime101
OP1 year agoNot sure what you mean by that @wirkaholic .
Automation can be ended, yes. You could do that even before the change except now sellers can finally do it in bulk instead of going in to each listing one at a time.
SIO cannot be retracted though. Once an offer is sent you have to wait out the 4 days (or end the listing).
adamcartwright
·1 year ago@wastingtime101
Thank you for always taking the time to keep us updated.
gurlcat
·1 year agoThank you. I have my doubts about how useful the "understand performance" part will be, just based on eBay's track record with that kind of thing (like what they did to the Impressions/Views chart a while back). But maybe they'll surprise me.
wastingtime101
OP1 year agoThey're not going to provide stats like whether offer conversion is from watchers, viewers, or buyers with item in cart. But they will show conversion rates which will be good. For every 100 offers sent, how many convert to sales? I believe that first stat box says "acceptance rate."
Not to get too off topic, but eBay kinda destroyed the performance data on Discounts Manager. We used to see the % boost in sales so we could compare effectiveness of sales vs coupons vs order discounts. Not any more - now they just show # of sales and $ of sales.
In addition, the data expires after 90 days. Previously the info stuck forever so I could compare the performance of discounts last 2 holidays when setting up discounts for upcoming holiday. Not any more. We get so much less performance data than we used to with Discounts manager, and what we do get isn't really useful.