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.

tyler@ebay · ‎07-04-2018

Hi everyone - I wanted to update you that the 14 day between markdown event requirement has been removed effective today. More detail here.

This removal is effective for sales created from today forward. If you have items on a markdown sale created before today you can either let the sale run its course, or end it and recreate it in order to take advantage of the new change.

Thanks for your input and feedback on this!

Tyler,

bauble-babes · ‎07-04-2018

@violetsoup

"It's "fixed"! Omg! So happy!"

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Markdown-Manager-Update/m-p/28694630

OMG is right! MAKE MY DAY/week/month/year/FUTURE!!!

I'll go ahead and post the new update:

"In the 2018 Summer Seller Update, we announced new changes to requirements for creating a markdown sale event that went into effect on June 25, 2018. We listened to your feedback and have made a change to these markdown sale requirements. Sellers can now add items to a markdown sale event even if the listing was previously in another sale event within the past 14 days as long as the listing price has not been changed."

bauble-babes · ‎07-04-2018

tyler@ebay

Thank YOU, Tyler!!!

violetsoup · ‎07-04-2018

@violetsoup

"It's "fixed"! Omg! So happy!"

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Markdown-Manager-Update/m-p/28694630

OMG is right! MAKE MY DAY/week/month/year/FUTURE!!!

I'll go ahead and post the new update:

"In the 2018 Summer Seller Update, we announced new changes to requirements for creating a markdown sale event that went into effect on June 25, 2018. We listened to your feedback and have made a change to these markdown sale requirements. Sellers can now add items to a markdown sale event even if the listing was previously in another sale event within the past 14 days as long as the listing price has not been changed."

Hey Bauble! Cheers! And thank you for extensively posting comments on this thread- You were heard ( and we, as our rep 😉

i'm still in shock..

chloeandcoco · ‎07-04-2018

While I haven't read all of these sellers' posts, I agree that eBay has made things more and more difficult for sellers as time goes by...I have had the same issues trying to create promotions and put items on sale...I don't know if this is because of the "14-day rule" or not, but I was upset when I saw that my sale was "Active" with "0" items included! Really??? So I called eBay last Sunday, literally spent ONE HOUR on hold, hung up figuring I had been lost somewhere in the queue, called again, held for another HALF HOUR, hung up, tried again, and finally gave up...called again yesterday on Tuesday when I though maybe it wouldn't be as busy...wrong again...held for another HALF HOUR and quit...I think they are aswering calls, putting you on hold, and then never coming back to you! I was so irritated with the new "policy" about letting buyers return anything for any reason at any time is the worst thing they have done to us...I have a no returns policy, and even though the eBay guarantee says that a buyer can return an item if it doens't match the photo or description, they are now allowing buyers to return an item and force me to refund them even WHEN IT DOES MATCH THE LISTING! I think all of us sellers who continue to be hurt by eBay "improvements" should band together and form our own site for selling becuase this certainly is not working the way it should anymore...for the fees we pay, we seem to be the least important members to them...it's all about the buyers!!!

mysterycardzinc · ‎07-04-2018

That's nice an all but how about a reset of the price deal? When we found that things had changed we edited all of our prices down. This did not bring our sales back and now we are stuck waiting 14 days because of the implementation after changing them back. I'm sure many are in the same boat. 😞

hellgirl13 · ‎07-04-2018

Markdown sales are not happening for me also. What a waste of time spent on this.....bad business!

mpc123 · ‎07-04-2018

still don't work

techwiese · ‎07-04-2018

Tyler

Thanks to EBAY for trying to fix this, but it is not working. I ended several items a little while ago that would not go on sale due to the new policy, and relisted them. This is apparently what EBAY says has to be done to reset the items and allow them to be included in a sale. As I read it, if an item had been relisted after June 25 until this morning it would still be subject to the 14 day waithing period. I did not change my standard Listing price at all in months. I just ended some items and relisted them. I then tried adding them to existing propmotions and they come up skipped just like they were before this policy was partially recinded.

I almost got desperate enough yesterday to simply change all my regular prices since nothing could be put on sale, but I didn't do that! I hoped EBAY would get this fixed. However It appears others did and are now messed up and stuck with a 14 day wait with no way to get them on sale because EBAY forced them to do something. And they changed prices. I suggest that you do something to roll this thing back completely and relaunch in a few weeks once you figure this out and you don't get people caught up this this fiasco. They should not be punished for the next 14 days for simply lowing thier prices manually to thier sale prices in hopes of trying to keep sales. If they move them back up it resets the clock again.

Hopefully the problems I am seeing will be fixed soon as well, or is there something else EBAY is not telling us such as relisted items cannot be put on sale for 14 days, which really would not solve peoples problems as they would still be limited to one sale per month.

lastly I saw a great suggestion the other day and that was not to implememnt any sale restrictions for sales that are 20% or less. The abuses that were apparently trying to be dealt with (scam sellers saying 70% off and it being the same price as everybody else) is not going to be an issue with sales that are 20% or less. These are just minor sales to help move inventory and motivate buyers to push the button.

Hopefully EBAY will listen further and not hurt or penalize legitimate hardworking sellers on your platform. Things need to be a win win for sellers, buyers and EBAY stockholders.

Please advise on how to get items that were relisted and in the middle of this waiting period can be put on sale (end, relist, put on sale) OR some other method? Here are a couple item ID's that did not work to help you figure it out 232834391452 and 232834399306

Thanks,

Jim

tyler@ebay · ‎07-04-2018

@techwiese wrote:

Tyler

Thanks to EBAY for trying to fix this, but it is not working. I ended several items a little while ago that would not go on sale due to the new policy, and relisted them. This is apparently what EBAY says has to be done to reset the items and allow them to be included in a sale. As I read it, if an item had been relisted after June 25 until this morning it would still be subject to the 14 day waithing period. I did not change my standard Listing price at all in months. I just ended some items and relisted them. I then tried adding them to existing propmotions and they come up skipped just like they were before this policy was partially recinded.

I almost got desperate enough yesterday to simply change all my regular prices since nothing could be put on sale, but I didn't do that! I hoped EBAY would get this fixed. However It appears others did and are now messed up and stuck with a 14 day wait with no way to get them on sale because EBAY forced them to do something. And they changed prices. I suggest that you do something to roll this thing back completely and relaunch in a few weeks once you figure this out and you don't get people caught up this this fiasco. They should not be punished for the next 14 days for simply lowing thier prices manually to thier sale prices in hopes of trying to keep sales. If they move them back up it resets the clock again.

Hopefully the problems I am seeing will be fixed soon as well, or is there something else EBAY is not telling us such as relisted items cannot be put on sale for 14 days, which really would not solve peoples problems as they would still be limited to one sale per month.

lastly I saw a great suggestion the other day and that was not to implememnt any sale restrictions for sales that are 20% or less. The abuses that were apparently trying to be dealt with (scam sellers saying 70% off and it being the same price as everybody else) is not going to be an issue with sales that are 20% or less. These are just minor sales to help move inventory and motivate buyers to push the button.

Hopefully EBAY will listen further and not hurt or penalize legitimate hardworking sellers on your platform. Things need to be a win win for sellers, buyers and EBAY stockholders.

Please advise on how to get items that were relisted and in the middle of this waiting period can be put on sale (end, relist, put on sale) OR some other method? Here are a couple item ID's that did not work to help you figure it out 232834391452 and 232834399306

Thanks,

Jim

@techwiese

Hi Jim -

The change today was to remove the 14 day restriction between markdown events. The other rules that were announced in the Seller Update still apply: items must be live on the site for 14 days before they can be marked down, and they must be at the same price for those 14 days.

If you have items that are currently on a markdown sale, and you want to be able to put them on another one immediately, the best thing to do is end the markdown+sale event and create another.

The 14 day clock is determined by item number, not the item mentioned in your listing. So a relist, or sell similar will reset the clock, even if the item you're relisting was up for 30 days before.

As others have pointed out, that's where the Good Til Cancelled format can be helpful - since a listing there keeps the same item number every time it renews.

The suggestion for smaller percentage sales is an interesting one. I can't make promises, but I can get it passed on. Thanks!

Tyler,

kylesportscards · ‎07-04-2018

Thanks, Tyler! What a wonderful Independence Day surprise!

The Promotion Manager is working for us exactly as it always has. Thanks for helping us get this resolved.

bluemoon-half · ‎07-04-2018

Hmm, well that sounds like good news. I will test it out in a store catagory and see if it works. Hopefully, previous sales do not count as price changes then and I can get my sales back up. I guess it can pay to voice your opinion on here.

techwiese · ‎07-04-2018

Tyler,

Thanks for the explanation. Looks like everybody got too excited too fast, thinking this mess or a big chunk of it had been solved. The EBAY message said that EBAY had listened and responded, but I don't see how this little tweak solves any of the problems people have been crying and pleading to solve. In fact I have read hundreds of the messages on tons of these blogs in the past week and don't recall anyone asking for this particular relief.

Unless I am missing something, it provides no help to anybody unless they use a good til cancelled. I have never done that as it was my impression was EBAY didn't want millions of unsellable items sitting in good til cancelled listings and wanted people using 30 day Listings to more or less keep the community free of total long term junk.

I am still unclear how good til cancelled is a good thing or how this change helps. You cannot have an item in 2 promotions, so when one ends the price changes and then you have to wait 14 days. You cannot end a promotion to restart another as when you stop a promotion the price goes up and you have to wait 14 days to get the items in another propmotion. What am I missing?

So what exactly is the benefit of todays change? All it seems to do is force everyone into good til cancelled listings? But even then it does not seem to address any of the problems folks have been trying to explain for days. They need flexibility, they are not trying to scam anyone, just move thier merchandise using 10 and 30 day Listings. They need sale % flexibility, they need to do weekend or holiday sales, they need to ability to move old inventory and seasonal items, they need flexibility to hone in on the right pricing for unique items, and people like me need sales and flexibility to move open box/customer return items. Most of the sellers who have been crying for help have said they are running minimal sale percentages less than 20%. Mine I think are all 15% or less except for some discontinued clearance tonneau covers I have at 25% off . My regular price is well below other online pricing and even at 25% off that they take months to move.

However I could lower the price 5-10% and run a 15-20% off sale if we have flexibility to adjust prices and place items on sale strategically that helps everybody (buyers, me, and EBAY).

So lifting the restriction for 20% off (or less) sales seems like it would actually solve the vast majority of the EBAY communities problems, and keeps things simplified. This 14 day thing is a totally confusing maze of twists and turns. I also think that if these confusing rules only applied above 20% you would have far less abusers and you probably would solve quite a bit of the problems you intended to fix as it would drive everyone to do sales of 20% or less.

You would get most sellers simply adusting thier regular prices to a level that allows them to have a 20% or less sale with all the flexibility they need. This is exactly what EBAY supposedly was trying to achive. Then the scam sellers will be stuck with thier fake 75% off sales at most 15 days a month. They would not last long and they could not price manipulate and if they tried they could never do a 75% off sale

Please look hard at recinding this new policy that seems to do far more harm than fix the small problem it was seemed to be needed for. At least recind it for 20% or lower discounts that seveal people have mentioned. It is obvioulsy killing all of us, and the relief we all got excited about getting this morning looks like it is not of much use in solving the concerns unless I am really missing something. If possible please consider lifting all or most of the policy for a couple months and have EBAY management work with sellers to find a good policy for all of us buyers, sellers and EBAY. Then implement a smart and focused policy to address the problem that does not entangle good legitimate sellers. Remember once buyers realize the bargains are gone on EBAY, we all will be in serious hurt as they won't come back once they are gone. They will simply go to Amazon or some other online venue to shop for bargains as they will have it set in thier minds there are no bargains on EBAY except maybe a few days a month. And that will not last long as the sellers will have to close thier doors if they are taking a 50%+ hit in revenue.

Lastly, in the short term, if I am correct you are saying the only possible way to have items on sale more than 15 days a month is to convert everything to good till cancelled. If that is the case why even have fixed price listings that are anything other than good till cancelled? But if that is what EBAY wants I will start moving my 500 listings to GTC, but I'll give it a few days to see if any other changes are coming.

Thanks,

Jim

earthangel57 · ‎07-04-2018

Hello everyone....a couple of days ago, I, too, had been having trouble launching a %-off promotion, as I had done many times in the past, and when I couldn't get it done after about 6 or 8 tries, I finally called eBay Support (which took waiting nearly an hour for a call-back), and, after what ended up being a FORTY MINUTE discussion with the representative, I ended up just as frustrated as everyone else, who has been posting on here.

Ultimately, the representative DID confirm that this new 14-day ruling had recently been implemented, and there just seems to be NO way to get around it;...she said, "you'll just HAVE to wait the required 14 days, before you can put items on a promotional sale", and that really sucks!

To which, I said, "well, what about those sellers who relist their items often, like, every three to five days? Or, even 10 days? While they're waiting for the 14 days to elapse, what happens when they relist a few days later, does the 14-day-count start over??" And, she said, "yes, the count WOULD start over, at that point"....which I think is friggin' ridiculous!

I pointed out, and tried to explain that, if we typically relist items for anything less than 15 or 30 days' duration (for most of OUR items, we typically relist every THREE days), there is NO way that we could EVER meet the 14-day requirement, so we would NEVER be able to use the Markdown Manager ever again, and I think that's kind of like "discrimination", of sorts, y'know?

Sure, the 14-day rule might work out perfectly FINE, for those sellers whose listings have a longer, 30-day duration, OR those sellers whose listings don't seem to have ANY end-date, but, what about the other sellers like us (of which, I'd bet that most sellers are like us), who choose to relist every 3, 5, or even 10 days, to keep their listings as current as possible? Will we NEVER be able to run promational sales, ever again?!

Of course, she then suggested that we could simply lower all of our prices, to "more-or-less" equal the %-off special we were going to run, but, I see a HUGE problem, with that...I just don't think a potential buyer, when they view your latest listing for an item, and the newly-lowered price that you're now asking for the item, THEY'RE not going to know that you did, INDEED, lower the price...no, they'll just assume that it was ALWAYS that price!

HOWEVER, if they happen to view your item, and see that the original price has been marked-through, reflecting a new, lowered price, AND that there is the notation, "10% off!" (or, whatever your discounted, %-off special pricing happens to be), then I think that buyers would be MUCH more likely to buy the item, then, when they see that the item is currently at a newly-discounted price, and for a short time only....don't you guys agree?

Anyway, eBay;...please, PLEASE change the Markdown Manager back to the way it was;...if we can never use it again for promotuional sales, because we can never meet the 14-day requirement, then that's just yet another reason to finally get out of the eBay-bizz, after doing this stuff for over 18 years, as we have (not to mention, eBay's penchant for taking not ONLY 10% of an item's sale price in a Final Value fee, but, ALSO keeping 10% of the shipping collected, too!).

Thanks,

earthangel57

susiewoosie47 · ‎07-04-2018

So I guess no my strategy to compete with Amazons Lighting deal day is out the window! I was Going To Have A 48 hour mark down sale of 30% like I do on Black Friday and Cyber Mondays but if my items aren on for 14 days they won't be included in my sale. thats a crock, and who ever came up with this needs to look at best business pratices because this is not one of them. every one should be able to put thier stuff on sale when ever they want and not have to wait 14 days. OMG REALLY EBAY WHAT'S NEXT????