Promoted vs non-promoted being seen / search results

[b86fiero]

So, non-promoted listings may not be seen, as buried in the update.  Is this fair?

Store operators pay a monthly fee which includes a predetermined number of listings.  If a store operator cannot afford to give up more of his profit to pay extra fees for promoting listings that sell,  chooses to charge buyers actual shipping cost instead of possibly overcharging some by offering  free shipping and sells items that can easily be used, abused and returned like jewelry and clothing, their listings will not surface near the top of search and will quite probably not be visible to potential buyers?

I am top rated, offer free shipping, 30 day returns, all the hoops and loops eBay tells me I need to get my items seen.  I have seen my sales dwindle over the past couple of years.  Mondays I would ship over 100 items.  These Mondays I am lucky to ship 12 items.

Not all sellers can offer and absorb extra expenses to get their items better placement.   Perhaps eBay should see that all UNITED STATES resident sellers on the USA eBay.com site have an equal opportunity of having their listings occasionally surface near the top in search results.  If not, what are they paying for?

[nc-daydreamer]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@bigdeals.etc wrote:

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If ebay is going to remove the organic listing and only show the promoted listing in search results... the least they can do is make that listing look no different than any other organic listing (and still give the exposure of a promoted listing). In other words... remove that darn "Sponsored" tag on these promoted listings.

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They have to leave the sponsored tag to comply with Federal laws. Previously it said promoted and they had to change it to sponsored to comply with the law about paid advertising.

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Perhaps they could change the word "Sponsored" to "Promoted".  "Sponsored" sounds like an ad - skip it. "Promoted" sounds like the item is worthy of a 'boost' - worth looking at.  eBay and sellers are loosing money not have the situation worded better. 

[Anonymous]

@nc-daydreamer 

Re-read the second line of my quoted post.

[Anonymous]

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@zamo-zuan wrote:

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It also leaves a mystery to one of the other key variables: Peer rates. They did say this was involved in the determination. Does that mean if you pay *more* for a sponsored listings, you're making your organic results LESS likely to appear? This would make the new changes "shady" rather than fair, as in this case your spending money on eBay would be contributing to your own stores decline in organic statistics.

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@zamo-zuan 

I think peer rates have to be a factor. If seller A's listing is only compared to itself then of course promoted will win search placement over organic search placement. If seller A's listing is compared to seller B's listing - all things being equal as far as listing quality- and seller B chooses a higher ad rate than seller A, my guess is that seller B will get the promoted slot and seller A will get the organic slot???

[bigdeals.etc]

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@Anonymous wrote:

They can't do that with new listings though.

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Or can they?

[nc-daydreamer]

@Anonymous 

I agree, would like to see it totally removed - but - if there must be some word there (as someone pointed out) - then change the word. 🙂 Anyway- that was my thought. 🙂 

I also feel that the listings need to have the revised info removed - I think this hurts  sales too and takes up valuable server space.  A buyer (speaking from my buying persona) does not need to  know such details.  And as a seller, it's no one's business when I update shipping or change the word AND to BUT or whatever. It's senseless IMO.

[Anonymous]

I support removing revision history from the buyer's view - I do think it should remain available for the seller's view though.

[bigdeals.etc]

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@nc-daydreamer wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@bigdeals.etc wrote:

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If ebay is going to remove the organic listing and only show the promoted listing in search results... the least they can do is make that listing look no different than any other organic listing (and still give the exposure of a promoted listing). In other words... remove that darn "Sponsored" tag on these promoted listings.

---

They have to leave the sponsored tag to comply with Federal laws. Previously it said promoted and they had to change it to sponsored to comply with the law about paid advertising.

---

Perhaps they could change the word "Sponsored" to "Promoted".  "Sponsored" sounds like an ad - skip it. "Promoted" sounds like the item is worthy of a 'boost' - worth looking at.  eBay and sellers are loosing money not have the situation worded better. 

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Hey ebay! How's about instead of calling them Sponsored or Promoted Listings, just call it "Featured Listing" and include the word "Featured" instead of "Sponsored". Whaddaya all think?

[bigdeals.etc]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I support removing revision history from the buyer's view - I do think it should remain available for the seller's view though.

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There some benefits to having your revision history shown to buyers. You can use it as proof of a revision (or lack of revision) with a timestamp. I only used it once when a buyer accused me of raising the price on him between the time of our messages and him purchasing the item (so he had to pay more). I referred him to the revision history log and showed him during that time range there was no revision of price. But he still disagreed and said that price revisions are not logged and don't count as revisions. I wonder if he noticed he even used the word "revision" to describe his price revision. But I guess as it turned out I never really benefited from buyers being able to see my revision history, haha.

Ultimately though, I think it's a double-edged sword.

[dasarock]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
You are misunderstanding what ebay is saying. Currently, if I have a listing and also choose to promote it, BOTH the promoted listing and the regular listing appear in search results, which clutters up the search results page, something buyers and sellers have been complaining about since PL began.

This change means that ebay will show only one of those , could be the PL, could be the non-PL, depending on a variety of factors. This change will REMOVE the duplication that has been cluttering up search results pages.

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I don't think they are misunderstanding at all.  it means either the promoted listing gets dumped (which they are paying additional for the promotional visibility) or the original listing gets dumped (which they are still paying for in fees and store costs etc.).  either way the seller loses something that is bought and paid for without ebay holding up their end of the agreement.  ebay created this mess in greed and continues to abuse the seller in "their" resolution of it... that is it cut and dried … just has to finish dying...

[dasarock]

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@gwent22 wrote:

Thanks for your question!

Ad rate is one factor that is considered for Promoted Listings placement, but is not the only factor. Other factors include listing quality, relevancy, and more. Optimizing your listings for Best Match remains an important best practice. High quality listings have a higher potential to get more clicks and ultimately more sales.

With this change, if your organic listing naturally ranks higher, your Promoted Listing won’t appear in search, but can still be shown across other promoted placements onsite. Conversely, if your promoted listing ranks higher, your organic listing will no longer appear in the same set of search results.

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the above sounds like a grossly 'Public' answer to a negligent practice.  aka political style

[dasarock]

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@bigdeals.etc wrote:

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@gwent22 wrote:

Thanks for your question!

Ad rate is one factor that is considered for Promoted Listings placement, but is not the only factor. Other factors include listing quality, relevancy, and more. Optimizing your listings for Best Match remains an important best practice. High quality listings have a higher potential to get more clicks and ultimately more sales.

With this change, if your organic listing naturally ranks higher, your Promoted Listing won’t appear in search, but can still be shown across other promoted placements onsite. Conversely, if your promoted listing ranks higher, your organic listing will no longer appear in the same set of search results.

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One problem with this implementation is that many buyers intentionally skip thru the Promoted Listing because it shows up as "Sponsored". As a reflex, I even skip the "Ad" results in Google searches.

If ebay is going to remove the organic listing and only show the promoted listing in search results... the least they can do is make that listing look no different than any other organic listing (and still give the exposure of a promoted listing). In other words... remove that darn "Sponsored" tag on these promoted listings.

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if ebay is only going to show one of the two listings … WHY BOTHER PROMOTING, SAVE THE ADDITIONAL FEES AND LET THE NATURAL LISTING RIDE ...

[bigdeals.etc]

I was thinking the same thing. But I guess this is a disguised nickel and dime charge to get more revenue by not having to simply raise fees across the board.

[threshold.sales.group]

Since the actual contents of promoted listing vs. the regular listing are exactly the same, the seller is simply agreeing to a higher FVF on *every* sale made from that listing.  

[b86fiero]

Thank you, yes, I understand that.  I have been using Promotions since eBay launched that ability.  With mixed results.

My point in starting this thread and in my original post is that sellers who cannot offer all the bells and whistles eBay says will get your listings higher ranking (free shipping, 30 day returns, same day or next day shipping, lowest price, pay to promote, etc) will quite possibly suffer even less visibility than they currently do. 

The update throws promoted ad rate into the mix.  

Sellers will be forced to raise prices in order to pay-to-play in the Promoted arena. 

[myjunqueyourtreasure]

Wouldn't have been a LOT easier in the first place to only show ONE listing (the original) and just slap a sponsored banner on it?

I don't see the reason for having a separate PL anyway.