Promoted listing and related fees

[hambright64]

I have been a seller periodically on eBay for many years. Recently, I have taken a hiatus from selling and recently returned to sell some of the same items I have in the past; only I noticed the suggestion to promote my listing at roughly the price of 25% of what I stand to earn from the sale. Knowing that I'm already paying eBay listing fees, final value fees, etc.., I certainly declined to pay even more to "promote" my listing. I have never promoted a listing in the past and had no problems getting plenty of views, watchers, and ultimately buyers. However, curiously and suspiciously, my listings now are getting almost zero views, much less watchers. This has NEVER occurred in the past. My items did not sell. Some had zero views some one or two. NEVER in the past has that been the case. Now, no views with a suggestion to pay to promote. If the fee were minimal, (less than $1) perhaps I would pay; but they want at LEAST 25% of my asking price! After standard fees and shipping and handling, there's no money left! I smell a rat, this seems to me to be manipulation. I have never had to due any kind of this "promoting" to sell in the past and now, not paying for promotion, I get no views. It seems as though eBay is is using this as a means of controlling listings and forcing seller to pay to promote by holding listings hostage from exposure. This seems outrageous to me, I will find other avenues to sell before I will EVER PAY THIS FEE and be held hostage by eBay. Sadly, I feel this is the end of eBay for me, because it makes no sense to sell here when eBay is is now trying to grab nearly half of the proceeds from EVERY listing. Am I the only one upset about this? This makes me rather angry. Does anyone else share my experience and sentiments? 

[earthdreamer · Accepted solution]

Not sure where you are seeing the 25% promotional fee. 

There should be an option to reduce the promotion rate to as low as 2%, if you wish to promote.

So far, I am finding promoting a listing does not seem to make any difference to the number of views, though I do not have a lot of listings for comparison.

My items which are in demand seem to attract views from nowhere, up to 100 views after a few days, while other listings still languish at zero views. 

[09threads]

I stand with you 100%. Ebay was once friendly, inviting and fair. Selling here was actually a pleasure and I encouraged many to join. Those days have disappeared.  The Ebay of today is bloated with greed and dripping of gluttony.  I now discourage newcomers, as to spare them from the inevitable grief to come.  My experience is almost identical with yours. Ive been selling for 10 years,  pay a monthly store subscription and have 100% feedback. I had lots of views, lots of watchers and lots of sales.  Now, if i dont fork over another 25% for promoting item, i get ZERO VIEWS!.  The new squeeze to force us to promte listings is a serious concern, as it clearly mirrors tactics of the mafia. Thousands of sellers have voiced their grievances, only to have their complaints shoot from the inbox to the trash. They have no interest in the seller, they strictly focus on manipulating every possible cent from us. I also question the ethics and legalities of charging sellers a percentage of taxes paid by buyers.  I smell alot of rats.  And sellers who dont understand the 25%  obviously failed math, should sober up and go back to school. Im giving this another 30 days to see how upper management responds, or I'll have to pull out of this scam. Best of luck to you.

[shipscript]

@hambright64 

DECREASED VIEWS

If you have been away from eBay for some time, you may not have noticed that eBay now classifies "views" differently. Previously, any view (whether from an eBay listing filter, preparation previews, indexing, search engine bots, or real people), would increment the view counter. I could often get up to six views just creating the listing. Others, who shared with social media, could get another dozen views as the media bots indexed the listing on various venues. Now that eBay distinguishes between bot views and human views, some sellers were stunned to find that all of their initial views were simply bots.

So today, not only are the bots subtracted from the views, but eBay now implements a 30 day rolling window, so your views can actually decrease over time if human interest wanes.

A couple of my test listings had a half million views or more. I always found that odd (surmising that others might have been testing their own programs against those test listings). Now those listings are back down  to 6 or 12 because real people don't actually look at stuff like that.