eBay

ritasloft · ‎05-02-2018

Hi all!

I am noticing my promotions banners are again showing at the BOTTOM of listings, and no longer up near the top of the page (my understanding was that eBay decided to revert back to displaying the banner back at the top of the page from their ill-conceived decision to move them to the bottom).

Perhaps there is valid data to support better conversions with the banner at the bottom of the page. Regardless, I still prefer it to appear at the top, and it is disappointing not having not having an option to choose from.

Is this a new test? Is anyone else experiencing this?

These constant changes and lack of communication are getting frustrating.

Thanks for any insights,

lovtaco0 · ‎05-02-2018

You are not alone. @Anonymous please ask them to put the banners back on top!

wendyandhollie · ‎05-02-2018

i'm so sick and tired of ebay playing these games with sellers.

tpowers1971 · ‎05-02-2018

Yes. Very frustrating and if intential very stupid.

My last promotion strarted off with typical numbers n boost then bam (I ran it 2 days) day 2 zero.

Sales overall were likewise about 60% of what they ahave been steady averging for over 6 months.

Sure, quirks ups n downs etc I get it but 3 straight days of 60% of what you did steadliy for 6 months plus. The 3 days running numbers are actually lower than any two back to back days in 18 months maybe more and it was preceed by a couple well well above average days. So... it's not the weather n season n nobody wants Your **bleep** **bleep** that always gets tossed around.

Something is going on.

Promotions don't show at the top (who's gonna grab em if they don't know)

Sales over all took a 40% hit (why????)

and...

I also noted a rather sharp decline in Clcks from my (paid) Promoted Listing as well.

My sale through rate on clicks is around 13% and that much has not changed but the number of clicks on average are 40% of what theywere.

In my case the downfall came out of the Blue right on April 30th

destinysdarlings2013 · ‎05-03-2018

Same here....the last time they did this my multi item sales went straight to zero. Saem question as last time, "how many people scroll all the way down to the very bottom of a listing"???????

mary0212 · ‎05-03-2018

Same here - and some of my sale items have eBay catalog info which goes on forever before anyone gets to my specific description never mind the sale promotion.

Already the sale info (unless price cut) doesn't show in the search results list, so promotions does not encourage clicking, reducing the value of a promotion to sellers. Putting the banner at the bottom makes it completely worthless.

ritasloft · ‎05-03-2018

I received a reply from the social team stating that they did a test over the holidays and determined it delivered the best experience.

https://twitter.com/RitasLoft/status/991861269610336256

Did someone forget that after making this banner placement change "permanent" earlier this year, they reverted it back up top where it belongs? ...and now it's being thrust back to the bottom again where it's nearly worthless?

So frustrating.

ritasloft · ‎05-03-2018

I just tested 3 different listings with promotion banners (different sellers) on my phone.

None of the promotions appeared for me at all. Either on the mobile browser (chrome) or the mobile app, no promo or banner appeared.

I realize this is difficult to see, but there's no banner visible on this seller's listing viewed on my device, it's visible (at the bottom) when viewed on a desktop browser.

Here's the promo on a standard PC browser:

There are, however, a lot of 3rd party ads at the end trying to direct buyers off site both on mobile and on PC browser.

Here's the same item on moble. No promotion visible at all.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

tyler@ebay · ‎05-03-2018

@ritasloft wrote:

Hi all!

I am noticing my promotions banners are again showing at the BOTTOM of listings, and no longer up near the top of the page (my understanding was that eBay decided to revert back to displaying the banner back at the top of the page from their ill-conceived decision to move them to the bottom).

Perhaps there is valid data to support better conversions with the banner at the bottom of the page. Regardless, I still prefer it to appear at the top, and it is disappointing not having not having an option to choose from.

Is this a new test? Is anyone else experiencing this?

These constant changes and lack of communication are getting frustrating.

Thanks for any insights,

Hi @ritasloft - I can confirm that the placement of the promotions banner is being tested again. We encourage you to make sure your promotional offers are competitive and enticing, as poor promotions can lead to a lower conversion rate. I don't have much more information at the moment, we'll keep you updated as we hear back. Thanks!

Tyler,

ritasloft · ‎05-03-2018

Thank you for the reply tyler@ebay

I realize you are not the one pulling the levers on these types of decisions, but I take issue with several aspects of these promotion banner "tests" in particular.

The promotion manager page describes one of the benefits as such: "Using Promotions Manager helps your items stand out in search results, increasing visits to your promotion page and exposing more of your inventory." The images on the page show promotion teasers in search results, yet promotion teasers apparently do not always show, or don't for certain customers, or who knows what the criteria may be. Apparently it's a secret recipe that won't be disclosed?

So to begin with as a store subscriber naturally I would like my promotions to be visible to buyers (as a teaser) in search results. But they apparently do not, at least for me (ref link above).

Here's the rub, I have listened to several ebay execs, including @dukeontario frequently use the word "transparency" with regard to eBay's (aspirational?) business practices and future direction.

A vague, non-answer is not "transparency". Nor is putting pictures that suggest what a store subscriber will get out of their subscription and promotion tools that are nerfed by some cryptic secret algorithm.

If there exists now, or are soon going to be criteria defining what a "good enough" promotion is in order to "earn" teaser placement in search, simply define and communicate the criteria so we'll know.

As it stands now, a reasonable person might assume, based on the information on the promotions page, that if they purchase a store subscription and begin creating promotions that they will appear just like they do in the imagery on that page:

Back to the promotions banner placement. I simply can't wrap my head around the idea that moving the banner far "below the fold" can possibly materially increase conversion at scale.

If eBay does have data to illustrate that, they could back-up "transparency" talk with data and specific examples to assuage the sceptics and help ease our minds.

The banner belongs up at the top of the listing, in the attention demanding prime virtual real estate that it deserves. Not buried near 3rd-party ads taking customers off-site to complete the purchase.

The nice folks over at ECB made a great analogy in their write-up of this issue, "Imagine a retail store holding a BOGO sale (Buy one, get one at X% off) to excite shoppers, but placing the signs at the back of the store where many shoppers may miss seeing them. That's how sellers feel about eBay's placement of banners displaying promotions they've created that are designed to give shoppers incentives to make purchases or buy more than one item."

I think that says it well.

Thanks for listening.

tpowers1971 · ‎05-03-2018

Doesn't matter how "competive" my promontial offer is if You shove it at the Bottom now does it.

lovtaco0 · ‎05-04-2018

I don't understand why they would test moving it in the first place. In the beginning they had a text banner at the top and they had the box with other qualifying listings in the middle of the listing just above the description.

During the first test they moved everything to the bottom and they tested during the Holidays when sales are generally up and people are buying multiples for gifts so any test results would not be accurate.

After the holidays when sales tend to drop they moved everything back where it was originally. They talked about how well their test went with these skewed results. Then they did another test a couple of months ago and moved everything to the bottom and expanded the test from a small group of sellers to seemingly everyone. Many of us saw sales from promotions decline during this time.

Then they moved the text banner back up to the top but they left the box with other qualifying listings down at the bottom. I understand they want to use the middle of the page real estate for sponsored listings and earn more ad fee revenue, but when PM was heavily promoted last year they talked about the extra real estate you would get, how competitors listings would not appear in the middle of the page, and how that was a perk of having a store after they raised store fees.

Now everything is at the bottom again. The text banner uses such a tiny amount of real estate I don't get why they would want to move it where nobody will see it.

I knew they started testing again almost immediately because my sales that day were coming in for one item at a time when items I have on promo almost always sell in multiples. I checked my listings and sure enough the banner was back down on the bottom of the page.

I know they are testing and the banners are way down, but when I'm buying something I still forget to scroll way down past the list of store categories to see if there is a promotion at the bottom. I generally don't scroll down past the end of the listing description and store categories often extend further down than that pushing the promotion information even lower.

ida0401 · ‎05-05-2018

Same thing is happening to me. I called, they are supposed to get back to me. Yeah right! Every month I have banner problems. This has been happening for a few months. March and April, banner totally disappeared.

lindyslucky · ‎05-05-2018

ANd this is why we haven't even tried promos.

Or had a store.

We never know what we are really getting or how it could change...or any reasons why.

The not sharing info that could help a seller increase sales drives us the craziest.

After decades in retail, running a successful business, selling on ebay is unlike any other sales practices we have ever seen.

We are not adding to inventory, trying to sell what we have.

Then we will reevaluate.

If our frustration can be controlled and a degree of sanity maintained.

ymeagainlord · ‎05-05-2018

tyler@ebay wrote:
@ritasloft wrote:
Hi all!

I am noticing my promotions banners are again showing at the BOTTOM of listings, and no longer up near the top of the page (my understanding was that eBay decided to revert back to displaying the banner back at the top of the page from their ill-conceived decision to move them to the bottom).

Perhaps there is valid data to support better conversions with the banner at the bottom of the page. Regardless, I still prefer it to appear at the top, and it is disappointing not having not having an option to choose from.

Is this a new test? Is anyone else experiencing this?

These constant changes and lack of communication are getting frustrating.

Thanks for any insights,
Hi @ritasloft - I can confirm that the placement of the promotions banner is being tested again. We encourage you to make sure your promotional offers are competitive and enticing, as poor promotions can lead to a lower conversion rate. I don't have much more information at the moment, we'll keep you updated as we hear back. Thanks!