PROMOTIONS MANAGER: Sale + Markdown Event NOT Working! Shows ZERO Items!

[bauble-babes]

I've had 5 Sales going on for quite awhile, all ending on same date/time, and I always follow the same procedure when they end: I 'Copy' each ended sale so I don't have to select the items again, set the start/end times and Launch.

Did that this morn with all 5 as per usual, but when they became Active, each showed Zero for the # of Items in the sale. I clicked on the Zero and below is an example of what I saw:

These "Skipped" Items were selected to be in the sale! All 5 Sales are showing ALL my selections as "Skipped!" This has never happened before and I've been launching these sales for at least 6 months. Further, there's no way that I know of to delete these faulty sales. Perhaps @Anonymous can shed some light on this new problem/error.

[dhbookds]

Just for info.......... google "Wish lawsuit", 100 million $ class action settlement..........in which there was a recent finding for consumers in the matter of Original price deceptive practices.....  which concerns how "sales" are structured.......  There are also an Federal Trade Commission examples of deceptive sale practices here:

http://www.lawpublish.com/ftc-decprice.html

My understanding is that there are consumer rules against constant sales, that items have to be sold, or available to be sold, at "regular" prices before a "sale" is instituted.  Otherwise, it is considered deceptive to market a sale when you have just increased the price to be able to do the mark down.  if you've never/only briefly attempted to sell at the base price and are just using it as a basis to convince a customer that the sale price is justified, it's considered deceptive.

I doubt Ebay will ever try to explain the changes in the rules for our "sales" in this context, because it might possibly be admitting guilt and open them up to a lawsuit.......but I think this is the reason for the changes.

[bluemoon-half]

Then they should come out in plain language and say how long you have wait to start a new sale on items that have been in sales in your store for years.  I understand if you list a new item today, you have to wait 14 days, but what about old items that were just in a sale the other day, how many days to you have wait to start a new sale, 1 or 14, who knows.  In meantime, sales continue to decline.  I sold just a few items yesterday, to mostly foreign buyers, doubt sales will be much better today.  

[bauble-babes]

@dhbookds

"There are also an Federal Trade Commission examples of deceptive sale practices here:

 http://www.lawpublish.com/ftc-decprice.html

 My understanding is that there are consumer rules against constant sales, that items have to be sold, or available to be sold, at "regular" prices before a "sale" is instituted.  Otherwise, it is considered deceptive to market a sale when you have just increased the price to be able to do the mark down.  if you've never/only briefly attempted to sell at the base price and are just using it as a basis to convince a customer that the sale price is justified, it's considered deceptive."

Went to the website above, and it is my understanding that these FTC defined Deceptive Pricing issues basically address the LANGUAGE & CLAIMS used in a sale, particulary in Retail Price Comparisons.

In many years of buying on eBay, it is a rare occasion that I have seen a seller utilizing the deceptive pricing practices outlined by the FTC. Most eBay sellers don't make "claims" or use comparative pricing language. We put an item on sale, take it or leave it. Go to the Sold listings, see what similar items have gone for, the informed choice of to buy or not to buy at a given price is yours. I have listed my items at higher prices that many are asking and when they didn't sell, I placed them in a continuous sale with pricing that certainly undercuts the high guys. Further, should a seller violate the FTC rules, then eBay can oust them or the FTC can slap a fine on that particular seller, not the whole group since this is not a widespread issue.

In conclusion, I feel that this FTC business was not the reason for eBay messing with our Promotions and I don't know that there is a logical explanation in light of all the MANY ILLOGICAL DECISIONS recently made that have sent many sellers into a DOWNWARD FINANCIAL SPIRAL.

[bestbuypowerdeals]

**bleep**. I think you're right. Thanks for the info.

[wendyleez]

I too thought the 14 day thing applied to new listings only. I've tweeted a question to "Ask Ebay" on twitter as to how we're supposed to work around this, no response yet...

[dhbookds]

This is one example given.......

One of the most commonly used forms of bargain advertising is to offer a reduction from the advertiser's own former price for an article. If the former price is the actual, bona fide price at which the article was offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time, it provides a legitimate basis for the advertising of a price comparison

To me, this means a price with a strike thru and then a sale price is "the language"........that's what the Wish Case was about..........

[bestbuypowerdeals]

I belive you guys are right. This is the fault of wish. I just went to their site, and every single item is on "sale" for about 95% off the "regular" price. They have items on "sale" for $50, which are actually $50 items, but when you look at the listing, it shows an "original retail" price of $900.

EVERY SINGLE ITEM for sale on wish is like that! So every listing reads

$350, marked down to $4!

$875, makred down to $7!

$1200, marked down to $110!

The FCC stepped in, and wish stands to lose around 100 million because of this unfair deceptive trade practice.

So people on wish have been getting absolutely RINSED, and now, because wish is being sued, eBay got scared (rightly so) and they are basically scrapping the entire idea of allowing ebay sellers to set reasonable 20% discounts across the board.

Thanks, wish. You jerks.

Bye bye eBay sales.

[bauble-babes]

@dhbookds

"One of the most commonly used forms of bargain advertising is to offer a reduction from the advertiser's own former price for an article. If the former price is the actual, bona fide price at which the article was offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time, it provides a legitimate basis for the advertising of a price comparison"

I find the key phrase here to be for the advertising of a price comparison.  We sellers here are not engaging in advertising per se, we are simply offering items up for sale without making any price comparison claims.

[bauble-babes]

@bestbuypowerdeals

"I belive you guys are right. This is the fault of wish. I just went to their site, and every single item is on "sale" for about 95% off the "regular" price. They have items on "sale" for $50, which are actually $50 items, but when you look at the listing, it shows an "original retail" price of $900.

 The FCC stepped in, and wish stands to lose around 100 million because of this unfair deceptive trade practice."

This was a WIDESPREAD ACROSS THE BOARD intent to deceive. NOT relevant to the practices of eBay sellers AS A WHOLE! No reason to interrupt our promos BECAUSE THAT'S NOT HAPPENING HERE.

[dhbookds]

not trying to argue with you, certainly anyone can read things differently........ you have a regular price that is reduced to sale price, shown by a strike thru..........  that's advertising a sale.  If you always/most of the time offer the item in this way.......the sale price is considered to be the regular price........therefore, it's deceptive to indicate it's on sale.    So ebay is requiring that the item is only able to be put on sale 1/2 the month........to preserve the integrity of the regular price.      

[kylesportscards]

I completely agree with the 14 day rule for NEW listings. 

However, in our situation, we're talking about items that have been listed for 12-48 months at the same price month after month (at a nickel a shot... times 10,000 items... do the math, eBay) that we begin at a  10% discount, then regularly move up 5% in discount percentage until the item sells.  No item hits the sale process until it is a minimum of 12 months old.  With the size of our inventory, using the sale event is the simplest method of clearing out stale inventory - and it was working nicely.  Stale inventory, which, by the way, a year ago eBay hounded us to clear out those stale listings.  Their tactic was to use a deadline to clear the listings, or they would begin deleting those listings for us.

[bauble-babes]

@dhbookds

"you have a regular price that is reduced to sale price, shown by a strike thru..........  that's advertising a sale."

Thanks for posting as you truly got me to thinking about the definition of "Advertisement," so I've done some research and have basically found that:

"Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media."(Bovee, 1992, p. 7) The basic purpose of advertising is to identify and differentiate one product from another in order to persuade the consumer to buy that product in preference to another.”

I don't think that placing an item on sale is a form of advertising, it's a sales tactic. Selling, Advertising, & Marketing have separate and distinct definitions.

The FTC paragraph you quoted earlier has more to it:

"If, on the other hand, the former price being advertised is not bona fide but fictitious -- for example, where an artificial, inflated price was established for the purpose of enabling the subsequent offer of a large reduction -- the ``bargain'' being advertised is a false one; the purchaser is not receiving the unusual value he expects. In such a case, the "reduced" price is, in reality, probably just the seller's regular price."

While some sellers are guilty of having an "artificial, inflated price" on their Sale's items, I don't see that very often as those items don't usually sell. Why, because most buyers and sellers alike laugh at the absurdity and never go to that store again. Eventually, those ding-a-lings either totally fail/go out of business or see the reality of things and get with the program. It's just not the norm here.

Also, perhaps the 14 day rule as it pertains to NEW listings is not so unreasonable, but subjecting non-new listings to a 14 day waiting period between sales is most aggregious and negatively affecting the income of many. If something doesn't change here soon, many will seriously be forced to sell elsewhere in order to make a living.

[bauble-babes]

@wendyleez

"I too thought the 14 day thing applied to new listings only. I've tweeted a question to "Ask Ebay" on twitter as to how we're supposed to work around this, no response yet..."

Wendy, please let us know if and when you get a response. Thanks!

[watkinstreasures10]

Glad I found this thread. Just discovered "skipped" sale items this morning. Unfortunately for me, they aren't really new items, just items that had previously ended, and now getting a chance to put them back up again.

This 14 day waiting period makes no sense to me at all!

How to do send in a complaint? (Sure someone posted the info already, but sorry couldn't read every message)

[ecclecticcollectorj]

I'm an analysts with over a decade of experience in e-commerce and conversion optimization, and this has to be one of the stupidest and most counterintuitive changes that EBAY has made in recent memory! Cutting off promotional pricing like this is going to kill sellers, and in the end it's just going to decrease EBAY's revenue. They say that they want to compete with Amazon, yet they don't have even the most basic understanding of what drives sales and conversions, so they implement poorly thought out changes like this that are goign to screw sellers and EBAY themselves.

I'm getting really close to the point where I'm just going to give up on EBAY as a seller if things continue as they have been. It's taking me more time to list and maintain items, and my sales have been steadily decreasing for at least the last 2 years to where I'm now selling less than half of what I did 2+ years ago.