Monthly Chat - January 11th at 1:00 pm PST

[devon@ebay]

Hi Everyone! This month's chat you’ll have an opportunity to talk to specialists from our Growth Advisor Team. The theme of the chat is, “Focus on setting yourself up for success in the new year and setting goals”. Get all of your questions ready for the team, so we can make the most out of this month's monthly chat on January 11th at 1:00 pm PT!

Edit: Thanks for joining us for the Monthly Chat with eBay Staff and the Growth Advisors Team.The chat thread will remain open until 2 PM PT at which point we'll close it from additional responses. After that time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that might still be unanswered.To post your question, click Reply in the lower right corner of this post, type your question, and hit submit between 1-2 PM Pacific Time. The format of our chat mirrors the format of our Community Discussion Boards, where each post will appear in the thread chronologically. The (specialist name) and Community Team will review each question as it comes in, and will quote the original question in our reply. This quote and the reply will appear later in the thread, so just keep scrolling down to see our answers.As a reminder, we want (specialist name) to be able to get to as many members as possible during the allotted hour, so we have a few things to ask of you:

Keep on topic
Scroll through the list of questions to see what has already been asked to decrease chances of redundancy
Keep the message/question simple and no more than one to two items. If you include multiple questions in a post, please be aware that they may not be addressed during the chat and (specialist name) will do their best to follow-up with it after the chat has closedMissed the chat? Send your questions to the podcast by calling 888-723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com and maybe your questions will make it on the air! Or listen to past episodes while you wait for next month!”

[sarah@ebay]

@valueaddedresource I can pass along this request to still have access to this information. I am not sure what their final plans are at this time, but we are always open to suggestions to continue improving the seller experience.

[devon@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

Thanks devon. So, basically, the reply from the Livestream team is: No, it will not be expanding to all sellers this year. Is that correct?

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques We are always looking to expand our new features based on how pilot testing goes. We will keep sellers in the loop as we push out new features throughout our rollout. 

[dhbookds]

making sure that your item has all required and recommended item specific filled in, is just as important. Each item specific is a searchable filter for buyers to utilize.

that may sound good.........but IS are a hot mess in many categories and remain so after a couple of years......many redundancies, many that totally do not apply, upwards of 40 or more for 1 item......and  not all are  searchable filters...........in fact many are not...........  But we have to deal with them, even as you recommend "filling them all in"...........  

[sarah@ebay]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques Thank you for the feedback on buyer payments. I will pass these suggestions along to the team. At this time, I am not aware of any mandatory payment changes.

[postcardcountry]

Item specifics must be relevant to the item.

Many, many times they are not and no matter how many times suggestions to fix have been submitted, they have been totally ignored by the item specifics team.

The only ones they have fixed were obvious errors (Central America is a continent), Canada is not a country, and none of the postcard manufacturers were US companies.

[sarah@ebay]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques Thank you so much for these suggestions. They are very insightful on what our sellers might want to see, and I am happy to pass this along to the appropriate development team.

[sarah@ebay]

@dhbookds We definitely want all of our sellers to feel they have a place on our site. The Verticals were part of eBay’s focus, but our “non vertical” sellers are just as important. We have a team that has a focus on small business sellers to help ensure they are seen and have access to being a part of things like daily deal promotions.

[golfingaddict]

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sarah@ebay wrote:

@golfingaddict Promoted listings are a way to get exposure. However, making sure that your item has all required and recommended item specific filled in, is just as important. Each item specific is a searchable filter for buyers to utilize. Also, photos are just as important. As a growth advisor, we can see sellers grow their sales by improving their listing quality without using PL. If you would like to experiment with PL, you can set it at the lowest threshold percentage. Also, utilizing things like seller initiated offers, coupons and store newsletter all are proven ways to help generate and grow sales.

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 How does PL set at the lowest percentage help?

Are you helping in general or did you look at my items/store?

I fill in all item specifics (long and tedious process with the new listing tool)  I use store promotions/offers.

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here. 

[devon@ebay]

Thanks for joining the chat this month! It's closed from further replies but we'll keep working through to make sure that questions are addressed.

[sarah@ebay]

Thank you for asking about this. I would like to suggest reaching out to the shipping team as they will be the ones to assist with this issue and be able to offer further insight.

[mr_lincoln]

Good afternoon sarah@ebay  & devon@ebay 

Sorry I am late to the Chat.  My issue is in regards to PLS trends.  Prior to 2022 I would run one PLS per quarter.  I would put ALL my GTC listings on the PLS and select ONE Fixed AD rate for ALL items between 5% - 10% and for most items the AD rate was always above eBay's suggested rate(s).  Historically these PLS did well boosting sales, driving traffic and moving more long tail items than during non Campaign times.  However, the trend was that for about one week AFTER the ending date on each PLS Campaign sales dropped like a rock AND low than normal selling times in between PLS Campaigns.  It was as though eBay would HIDE my items at the conclusion of a PLS for a week to 10 days before they redounded and were visible again ... this was an observable and repeatable occurrence.

2022  was not good for PLS ... with the introduction of PLA in late 2021 (if memory serves), the Item specific implementation in Feb 2022 and then the Views counter change in may of 2022 my PLS in the first 3/4s of 2022 under performed by a lot.  PLS Campaigns ran well below previous selling levels prior to 2022.

Can you explain why the flip in PLS performance from one year to the next?

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here. 

[golfingaddict]

I just looked at my listing and there is a massive list of sneakers at the bottom of my listing for men's briefs.

Verticals like sneakers are great.  Free shipping for the seller, Authenticity guarantee. 

What do they offer a regular seller?

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here. 

[sarah@ebay]

@mr_lincoln I would suggest reaching out to customer service as we cannot address account specifics on the community forum.

[sarah@ebay]

@golfingaddict For account specifics, you would need to reach out to customer service. Generally speaking, if someone doesn’t currently use PL, starting out at the lowest threshold percentage holds the least risk.

[sarah@ebay]

@golfingaddict There are opportunities and promotions that run throughout the year that are available to “regular sellers”. As well, with stores, there are discounted fees and other benefits.