eBay

bauble-babes · ‎06-26-2018

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.

bluemoon-half · ‎06-30-2018

Yeah, well, that's all and good. How about a warning in mark down magager before this happened so I could extend my sale out? I would prefer NOT to have to run sales, however MY date speaks for itself. Without running sales, I lose sales. I am NOT a big corporation, 2 weeks with low sales hurt. Sales went from over $100 a day to around $50 a day. I put 200 plus items to auction with buy it nows at my old sales prices with a $50 cost to me. Hopefully, that will make up for lost sales, but maybe not. When you are doing things one way for years and then have to change busness model all of a sudden, it is no good for sellers or buyers.

bauble-babes · ‎06-30-2018

*Tried to post this response twice, but it's all messed up so here we go with Take 3:

@reschastor

"'The sales should pick back up when everyone changes their deceptive business models of jacking prices up only to drastically mark them down.' 'Sellers have been lured into this deceptive mark up/sale business model because they see it is working for others. Insider trading works too, but I wouldn't recommend it. Just change your business model, and everything will be ok.'"

Marcus, I see you've been selling here for a bit over a year and that you sell clothing, most of which is under $50. Let's say you acquired a shirt owned by John Lennon and that many of his shirts had sold at eBay, Sotheby's, etc. in the neighborhood of $1000. YOU decide to undercut the going rate and create a 50% off Sales Event with a 45 day duration for the shirt. Well, it's expensive even at the discounted price and doesn't sell so you start the sale again at the end of 45 days. After all, it's a specialty item and is going to take just the right buyer to come along and snag it so you'll wait it out.
Finally, after restarting the sale 4 times, the shirt sells.

1) Your Sale Price was never artificially inflated, and your business model was not deceptive because you were not jacking prices up only to drastically mark them down. Sales may go on awhile because higher priced items often take longer to sell.
The vast majority of sellers here are not guilty of artificially inflating prices to create the illusion of a discount. When we (sellers/buyers) occasionally see this, we laugh at the absurdity and never visit that store again. Those kinds of sellers slice their own throats and the other 95% of sellers wouldn't even think of following suit.

2) DON'T PUNISH EVERYONE because a few are breaking the rules! Clearly establish said rules and go after the ones that break them...it's that simple!

3) Thanks for the Insider Trading recommendation.

wilddonkeybmx · ‎06-30-2018

This is such stupid insane garbage from ebay...what if a competior puts items on sale then you are screwed...What if you have good sales that cover costs for say a month and now you are willing and able to take less profit on remaining inventory...Plus its so much easier to mark down 60 to 100 items in one bulk run than every single listing...this is the dumbest garbage Ebay has pulled yet...markdown manager was highly usefull tool for my sales strategy as my inventory changes constantly and it really helped to drive cash flow if i needed it. Who thinks up this stupid junk...I sellers sell more by putting items on sale then ebay makes more money...This summer sales update garbage is about all i can take...im about ready to get a regular 9 to5 job after this ridiculous new screw job on sellers...now its a holiday and i cant put anything on sale...or i have to go into 65 single listings and change the price way to go ebay...what too a few minutes will not take hrs...brilliant just brilliant. Im not sure how these people who make the decisions even have jobs...imagine if target or walmart management said oh hey we can only items on sale every 14 days but only if the price was the same for those 14 days...............these people are crazy and i think they actually want to run Ebay into the ground..

wilddonkeybmx · ‎06-30-2018

Its till complete garbage and screws the sellers....

wilddonkeybmx · ‎06-30-2018

This exactly what i complained about...What if a competitors put items on sale then you cant use mark down manager to meet prices....these people are morons and have no real working understanding of what sellers do...I often can have a big sale that will covers items purchase prices and then im able to make less profit and mark everything down...nope not any more...gotta wait 14 days or do everything one by one like its 1995 internet...totally **bleep** about this...Ebay sucks

reschastor · ‎06-30-2018

I was going to message you, but... the third time's a charm! I obviously offended you, so I apologize. That was not my intent. I had actually meant to respond to the Ebay rep, but hit the wrong post, lol.

I really created this account to teach my children about business and finance, but it has caught my interest. Yes, I so stated in my post that I have been basically testing and studying Ebay for about a year now, sometimes more than others. Had a death in the family, my mom got a bionic shoulder, etc etc.; so, unfortunately, it's been hit or miss with attention to Ebay. I chose the apparel industry for various reasons - doesn't break, everyone uses, good supply, etc, etc., but that is irrelevant. My business actually provides a service to my customers. I have a lot of knowledge regarding high end professional service business, which is actually what type of business all sellers on here are striving to be; iregardless of whether they understand that or not.

Ok, so I have a specialty item (John Lennon shirt) with fans who would want to buy it. This specialty item would be one of high demand and low supply with inelastic pricing (the price would not affect demand), so I would price the item at the average price of $1000 and put it on sale for 10% making my item $100 cheaper than the competition. Anyone who wants that specialty item is willing to pay for it but will buy mine over the others because they save $100. Going much lower on the price may erode the price of that particular specialty item causing myself and others to lose more money over time in this and similar specialty items that are now all priced lower. That is how flipping items for a quick return would hurt myself and the industry. Also, a specialty item priced at half the other sellers' items would get less attention because buyers may think something is wrong with it or it's fake. Items priced too low do not sell well. If the item was originally listed at $1800 and then put immediately on sale at 50%, this would be deceptive. I have seen this on various platforms (of course I'm not studying just Ebay). This is what the FTC says is illegal. I would hope Ebay does prevent that cost. Imagine our fees if a billion dollar class action fine hit Ebay...

In regards to my reference of just change your business model, and everything will be ok. I have developed a bad habit of being overly concise throughout the years, sorry. How much would it cost to rent a great location retail space for customers to wander through. Now you have to have a nice looking store with helpful staff. How much is that initial expense and monthly nut going to be? Now the hard part is getting a nationwide customer base to come through the door. Good luck on that one... I am convinced that the online market is just being discovered with all the press that online sales is getting lately not to mention the decline in retail brick and mortar sales coverage. I think any smart, hard working go-getter that's in now will be set; as long as they can adapt as needed. The sellers will ultimately peak in number and then shrink by consolidation or otherwise, if the peak hasn't already occured.

Hang on loosely, but don't let go.

bauble-babes · ‎07-01-2018

@reschastor

No offense taken, just friendly sparring!

In reading your example of how you would sell the John Lennon Shirt, the first thing that that strikes me is that you, the owner of the shirt, should have the choice of marking it down to whatever percentage providing you are not violating defined FTC deceptive pricing laws.

We can argue pricing strategies till the cows come home, but the point here is that Ebay should not remove this choice because a few are breaking the rules. The rule breakers will hang themselves and the rest of us will be fine. Don't punish the whole for the sins of the few because that's bad business and doesn't facilitate selling. I don't exclaim Kudos to eBay as you do, I say Boo Hiss for taking our choices away.

Curious to see where eBay's stock prices will be in a year after all these recent changes because the current price is terrible and getting worse. So many sellers are losing money, seasoned sellers who've never had sales plummet like this before. Time will tell the story.

mysterycardzinc · ‎07-01-2018

You are dead wrong and have zero understanding of how any of this works.

They will roll back this "feature", for fact, or their sales will plummet. There is nothing that can fix it.

mysterycardzinc · ‎07-01-2018

Yep. We price an exact multiple over cost so we know exactly what % we clear with a sale at whatever level. If a competitor reduces their price we cannot go through ads one at a time or even in chunks and reprice them because it throws off our overall pricing system. Within a month everything would be a huge mess and running blanket sales would lose money on any items previously discounted.

With sales you can see a competitor got cheaper, run a sale and relook when it ends to see if it's even needed. You can add more items to your sale at any time, etc.

All of that is gone. My only fear is what silly **bleep** will get put in to "address this issue" because eBay does not like admitting that a decision was wrong. They'll try to fix it with something else instead of an immediate rollback which is the only thing that would work.

watkinstreasures10 · ‎07-01-2018

New glitch this morning for me-- even my older items (listed over 14+ days ago) are ALSO being "skipped" from the sale!

And why do the error messages keep saying "skipped: price" if that's not actualy the reason why items are skipped? Shouldn't it say "Skipped: days on site" or something similar? That would at least be more helpful, even if still incredibly annoying.

Aaarrrgggghhhh!

This also makes it impossible to run a sale for, say, holidays. What if someone just wants to do a generic 20% off everything for 4th of July? Can't do this anymore, I guess.

Come on eBay! This new Promotions manager thing was supposed to be better than the old Markdown Manager. New promotions hasn't worked right from the beginning! THe old version (markdown manager) might not have been very fancy, but at least it was reliable & always worked (at least for us)

*frustrated seller*

heffernantj · ‎07-01-2018

Same issues here. Anyone know where I can get the eBay Customer Service music CD? "Please hold for the next available agent" = best lyrics of all time.

It seems like one problem after another the past several months with eBay.

diannlonerga-0 · ‎07-01-2018

I am very disappointed in Ebay new policy. It keeps me from buying items WHEN I want to buy. How dare you tell me I have to wait 14 days in-between purchases. I am your customer and the customer is always right. Who ever came up with this outregeous new idea should go back to the drawing board. It will limit how much I buy and when. Maybe I'll NOT use ebay at all!!!! I buy whenI see it and I can do 3-4 transactions with same buyer and now YOU won't let me. Completely WRONG

bluemoon-half · ‎07-01-2018

If you had any of those items in a sale within last 14 days, you can put them back on say for 14 more days no matter when they were originally listed. I had items listed years ago and can't put them on sale because I just had my whole store in a sale a few days ago. My sales went from over $100 a day down to $50 or less, at $30 today, that's great, hope I can pay bills by end of month!! Only thing to do is list those at auction with a buy it now price at old sale price, which will cost you fees, of course!

bluechipvideogames · ‎07-01-2018

This just in. If you use the "Order discount", located in "Create A Promotion". The percentage is now showing at the top of the page, instead of the bottom. There is no 14 day limit to this.