Recently the policy of not allowing a listing to be promoted if it has been listed OR edited within the laast 14 days was put into effect. I am writing because I have spent 4 hours over 3 days on the phone w/ Customer Service. Not only were they unhelpful, including supervisors, they were also ill-equipped to remedy this ridiculous policy. The support members and supervisors I spoke to stated that countless sellers aare upset by this and stated that I was "not the only seller whose business has been negatively effected by this policy change." Each support member seemed to just read off a script and stated that this change was made so there is more transparency in pricing for eBay shoppers.
This policy neither creates more transparency nor is helpful in the long run to the eBay shopper. eBay is, in effect, overregulating the marketplace and hurting competition. To tell me that I cannot promote/mark down an item because I edited the quantity in a listing due to receipt of a new shipment of said item is ridiculous. It's literally punishing me for doing regular business! eBay supervisor offered the OUSTANDING advice (sarcasm noted) of physically changing the listing price, if I wanted to mark an item down. I then let them know how much of a circular logic idea that is because if I edit the listing to mark the price down, I cannot promote the item for 14 days. When the 14 days is up and I can mark down the item through the Promotions feature of the Marketing tab, right? Incorrect because the listing price, let's call it MSRP, is already changed. Example: Item is $20. If I normally run a promotion of 20% off, that's $4 off total. eBay support suggests just changing the price to $16 if that's the end result I desire, hoewever, once my punishment period of 14 days is up, I'd essentially be marking down a $16 item with a 20% promotion which is not the desired price. If I change the price physically from $16 back to $20, I have to wait another 14 days.
I think it should be noted that this severely hurts sellers and hinders sales at a time that Amazon Prime Day is around the corner and eBay should want its sellers to be able to compete price-wise and steer traffic to eBay. And a final note that should be obvious: without sellers, you don't have items for eBay shoppers to buy, so why drive us away?
