16.3 % Suggested Promotional Rate in My Category

[seymourssi]

LoL.  A shameless new low for eBay.  16.3% suggested on top of the 12% they already charge.  That's 16.3% of the item charge, shipping and sales tax, for those of you that are not hip to the actual charge.  Works out to be like 40% of the item. 

Will be moving my items back to 2% just for the insult, thanks for the memories eBay.  And moving my items elsewhere....

[ms.rodriguez*]

Do you promote every single item?    Also has anyone seen a suggested rate that is less than 9%?  9 is the lowest number that I have seen on my accounts.

[dbfolks166mt]

LoL.  A shameless new low for eBay.  16.3% suggested on top of the 12% they already charge.  That's 16.3% of the item charge, shipping and sales tax, for those of you that are not hip to the actual charge.  Works out to be like 40% of the item. 

Will be moving my items back to 2% just for the insult, thanks for the memories eBay.  And moving my items elsewhere....

      I have never used PL and never will I could see well in advance where this death spiral would eventually lead. Expect that "suggested" rate to continue to rise. 

[12345jamesstamps]

Some of my items were as high as 28.7 %...laugh out loud. I took all my high price items off of promoted.

I think I have around 150 still promoted.

[slippinjimmy]

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@ms.rodriguez* wrote:

Do you promote every single item?    Also has anyone seen a suggested rate that is less than 9%?  9 is the lowest number that I have seen on my accounts.

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I used to see lower suggested rates on most of my listings, I hadn't looked for probably 6 months and now I'm only seeing a few that are less than 9%.

The more sellers who use PL and the more they use what I consider very high rates the higher the suggested rates will be.

I could care less, I don't follow eBay's suggestions when it comes to spending MY money.

I only use PL on a selling account that is a repository for dead stock and I only use the minimum rate. If I wanted to spend money advertising these listings I think sending offers to watchers would be more effective than spending money on PL.

[nuclearomen]

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@seymourssi wrote:

LoL.  A shameless new low for eBay.  16.3% suggested on top of the 12% they already charge.  That's 16.3% of the item charge, shipping and sales tax, for those of you that are not hip to the actual charge.  Works out to be like 40% of the item. 

Will be moving my items back to 2% just for the insult, thanks for the memories eBay.  And moving my items elsewhere....

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👀seriously insane! They have been raising the suggested since they changed the way PLs are charged, but 16.3% - wow! Did they raise all your suggested rates for the new PLS update to include PLD suggested rates or is this a brand new item/listing and different then your other suggested rates? 

@mr_lincoln see this one? crazy!

[m60driver]

Have you not noticed that Ebay's suggested PL rates, regardless of item or category, have all creeped up into the low double digits and would require gross profit margins in the rather high double digits?  Having been in retail for nearly 50 years I honestly don't understand where they are coming from.

[slippinjimmy]

They are coming  from......

1 - Making it up to sucker sellers who can't think for themselves

2 - Raising the percentages because there are sellers who will use a high rate for reasons known only to those sellers.

[vintagecraze50]

Anybody paying up to 40 percent on the item to ebay has to be jacking the prices up very high and/or getting inventory cheap. It’s as simple as that. 

[vintagecraze50]

Right. You do not have to promote every listing just some so it draws them to the rest.

[siamjane8]

I think what is funny is, that eBay is destroying it's own cash cow. Lol..... They can't do anything right... They just see 6" in front of them.  Promoted listings were a decent value at first and people saw instant increases in sales.... Then eBay wanted more and more so they flooded the site with PL making them ineffectual.  Then when they were not getting enough add fees they raised the rates, then when that wasn't enough they charged the fees on she's tax and shipping lol... Then added halo listings!!! The next gimmick is auto rate increases which is what we are now seeing run ammuck, and turning more and more sellers off of promoting!!

It is almost comical the lack of any connection sense or business sense they have..... They just keep biting the hand that feeds them. Btw- since every aspect of the eBay pages are littered with PL's..... They don't even work any more. Buyers are numb to them and ignore them and also if it's promoted it won't show up in organic results so it is hidden from search unless you fumble through an the PL carousels! Your listings actually get less visibility when you provide lol... Oh how eBay has bungled this one up again!

    Best thing for sure to do is stop promoting and get eBay to go back to an actual relevant effective search algorithm that shows people what they type in the box!

[stainlessenginecovers]

Guaranteed there are people using those rates; 

therefore, to compete, you would have to meet/exceed. 

It's NOT an eBay thing. It's a 'competitor' (think of some of the countries that don't mind) thing

[reallynicestamps]

That does seem high.

Usually these very high rates are suggested for categories where there are more listings than sales.

I can't see that buckskins and leathers would be overloaded.

I pay 15% for listing books, and I have noticed a lot of 10% suggested PL fees lately.

But.

PL is voluntary.

The suggested fee is just that a suggestion.

EBay's suggestions are good for eBay.

EBay is our landlord not our friend.

OTOH

A Canadian seller has been experimenting with PL vs discounts.

Annoyingly, he finds the PL works better, at a lower cost, than customer discounts.
https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/experiment-with-almost-give-away-listing-pondering-probl...
#6 of 13

This is an experiment in progress. No conclusions yet.

Would you ever offer a Viewer or Watcher a 16.3% discount? Would you set the parameters of a Best Offer to automatically accept a 16.3% discount?

Personally, I use PL about a third of the time to pull eyeballs to my Stores. (At the minimum of 2%.)

I find my PL sales are slightly lower than the sales from non-PL listings, but Views are decidedly higher.

NOTE: This is how I perceive things going. Anecdote is not data.

[mr_lincoln]

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@nuclearomen wrote:

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@seymourssi wrote:

LoL.  A shameless new low for eBay.  16.3% suggested on top of the 12% they already charge.  That's 16.3% of the item charge, shipping and sales tax, for those of you that are not hip to the actual charge.  Works out to be like 40% of the item. 

Will be moving my items back to 2% just for the insult, thanks for the memories eBay.  And moving my items elsewhere....

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👀seriously insane! They have been raising the suggested since they changed the way PLs are charged, but 16.3% - wow! Did they raise all your suggested rates for the new PLS update to include PLD suggested rates or is this a brand new item/listing and different then your other suggested rates? 

@mr_lincoln see this one? crazy!

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@nuclearomen , @seymourssi 

Thanks for the tag ... as many of us know the terminology is critical here, "suggested" is NOT based on fact.  It's like fishing, they bait the hook and see what bites.  When PLS was new they termed them "trending rates" which implied they were based on historical data ... 

PLS Campaigns prior to 2022 were great ... during 2022 when they were making changes, adding PLA (pay to play) revising how Views were counted, etc. PLS took a nose dive, none of mine that year performed like they did prior to 2022. 

I have been testing PLS with THEIR "suggested" rates and ones I prefer to use plus testing some much lower ones ... the results are staggering ... the bottom line is if one does not use the "suggested" rates or higher their sales will not be good, period.  For myself, I don't appreciate the pointed manipulation ... 

[wilsonharborsales]

That isn’t eBay, that is desperation for sales by your competitors.  It is s race to thr bottom to get sales in certain categories, especially clothing.