eBay

brian_burke@ebay · ‎03-09-2018

All,

I thought I would let you know that from 8-8 Pacific time we are having a 20% off coupon - let you buyers know AND do some shopping yourselves - it's a great offer

https://pages.ebay.com/promo/2018/0309/7020.html

Join us at eBay Open this September! eBay.com/ebayopen

jerzee908 · ‎03-10-2018

brian_burke@ebaywrote:
All,

I thought I would let you know that from 8-8 Pacific time we are having a 20% off coupon - let you buyers know AND do some shopping yourselves - it's a great offer

https://pages.ebay.com/promo/2018/0309/7020.html

Messaging buyers on ebay is like walking on eggshells these days. How would you suggest letting buyers know? Maybe ebay send a message the day prior to "watchers"? I used the coupon myself, but had NO sales the day this coupon was active (I had sales the day before and the day after.....go figure).

Great idea......really bad execution.

michael_atw · ‎03-10-2018

I assumed it had 8000 disclaimers so didn't bother looking until I read this page by accident. Never seen one before.

Saved $118 buying an SNES and some flips.

michael_atw · ‎03-10-2018

I'm pretty sure eBay consists of a couple hundred employees who sit around flicking boogers all day... then someone says, "We gotta get this done" and the newest employee types it up.

castlemagicmemories · ‎03-10-2018

So sorry about your Aunt, Pixzee. Hang in there.

blueberryjellyfish · ‎03-11-2018

Jumping in without reading past the first page of the thread.

brian_burke@ebay This promo would have been great if it did not occur while hundreds of thousands were without power from recent weather events. Will there be another opportunity soon (like in the next month) or was this a one-off?

brian_burke@ebay · ‎03-11-2018

All,

Sorry I dropped after posting this, but I wanted to get the word out - I then drove 4 hours to spend a weekend in Connecticut with my aunt and cousins - and disconnected.

I'm surprised a bit a some of the reaction to my post. I posted this elsewhere through other social channels and received a positive response - I was really just trying to share with you a very good promo.

Regarding SPAM - I never said to violate any policy, I only said to let your buyers know. Many store sellers have lists of buyers that they can communicate with. Many of you have social networks that you can post this to (FB, Instagram, etc.) without violating any their policies.

For those afraid to use the eBay messaging system, I'm not sure how sending an email asking a buyer to come back to eBay and save 20% is considered taking a buyer off eBay.

I'm glad some of you were able to take advantage of the promo and for those that experienced an issue, please reach out to our customer support team.

And, I don't know if we are planning to do another one of these. But if we do and I receive it to push through my social channels I will post again to the Seller board.

Thanks for selling on eBay.

Brian

Join us at eBay Open this September! eBay.com/ebayopen

thenobletuckylife · ‎03-11-2018

Afternoon Brian,

Many Many sellers on ebay are smaller and even though they seem to be "out of the loop" in social promotions or do not have the larger resources that most of the mega sellers have they in fact are still sellers that rely heavily on the incomes they generate here.

It is this smaller size seller that many times finds they are left to the whims of CS and fair representation when communications arise even within Ebay between themselves and potential customers.

After being a very successful seller here for years, and at one time being considered one of the premium examples of what ebay wanted in a seller, we no longer sell here and part of that reason is expressed by many who have already posted here.

I appreciate that this may have caught you off guard yet maybe just maybe the response you received here is a sincere outcry from many of the small sellers that ebay really needs to not be surprised about. Many of these sellers lost out on revenue...not because of their product availability, but rather by the constraints that ebay has placed on them based on REAL WORLD experience.

Just some thoughts and thank you for taking the time to come back and help us better understand your desire to help.

Mr C

emerald40 · ‎03-11-2018

@hioctane62wrote:
Without quoting your entire post... I have to agree with most of what you said. It would be awesome if ebay did something like this and gave some advance notice, with heavy advertising in many different forms of media.

Just think of the number of people who might come back to ebay if they actually KNEW this was going to happen, and could plan on ... OK, this happening on Sunday from midnight to midnight.

________________________________________________

These types of sales are spur of the moment. It is to get you to check on ebay often as some great incentive might pop up.

It would not have worked if it was promoted days in advance as some sellers would have heavily promoted it with their buyers and since supplies were limited it would have ran out ealy in the morning.

I liked it this way much better. Those that are ebay's loyal buyers got to take advantage of it.

dcintennessee · ‎03-11-2018

brian_burke@ebay, KUDOS to you for disconnecting! Family time is precious.

Overall, the comments here were positive, and/or intended to be helpful for future reference...because we all certainly hope there is a next time! I think all fully negative comments were due to difficulty or misunderstanding with redemption. Echoing @thenobletuckylife, sometimes even long-time buyers & sellers are murky on procedures. Anything y’all can do to create verbiage that assumes your audience is a first-time shopper, would help.

Thanks so much for all you do. It’s appreciated.

itemsthingsandstuff · ‎03-11-2018

brian_burke@ebaywrote:
All,

Sorry I dropped after posting this, but I wanted to get the word out - I then drove 4 hours to spend a weekend in Connecticut with my aunt and cousins - and disconnected.

I'm surprised a bit a some of the reaction to my post. I posted this elsewhere through other social channels and received a positive response - I was really just trying to share with you a very good promo.

Regarding SPAM - I never said to violate any policy, I only said to let your buyers know. Many store sellers have lists of buyers that they can communicate with. Many of you have social networks that you can post this to (FB, Instagram, etc.) without violating any their policies.

For those afraid to use the eBay messaging system, I'm not sure how sending an email asking a buyer to come back to eBay and save 20% is considered taking a buyer off eBay.

I'm glad some of you were able to take advantage of the promo and for those that experienced an issue, please reach out to our customer support team.

And, I don't know if we are planning to do another one of these. But if we do and I receive it to push through my social channels I will post again to the Seller board.

Thanks for selling on eBay.

Brian

brian_burke@ebayThe negative responses you received, was due to the bad experiences people had with this promotion. Other social channels are less private. It's much harder for peopel that aren't anonomyous to say what they really feel. People are actually afraid that they will get in trouble for it.

And yes, people are in fact worried about getting in trouble for spamming, because ebay's bot system has been especailly hard on us sellers lately. They are afraid that enough bots accidently catch you, that we will get a time out. can you blame us? Look at this board for plenty of examples of why we are afraid.

a_c_green · ‎03-11-2018

@hioctane62 wrote:
Without quoting your entire post... I have to agree with most of what you said. It would be awesome if ebay did something like this and gave some advance notice, with heavy advertising in many different forms of media.

Just think of the number of people who might come back to ebay if they actually KNEW this was going to happen, and could plan on ... OK, this happening on Sunday from midnight to midnight.

If you did try lots of advance notice and heavy advertising, sales would plummet days in advance as word of the upcoming discount spreads, followed by a network meltdown on that day, as everyone tries to purchase at once. It would be something like daily business in the days leading up to Black Friday, only worse because of the generally all-encompassing nature of the 20% off on most everything.

Something as broad as a 20% discount with minimal restrictions is an offer that you pretty much have to spring on your public with little or no notice, and valid for only a short time, because your real goal is not to lose money on discounts, but to train your audience to check in more often.

itemsthingsandstuff · ‎03-11-2018

@a_c_greenwrote:
@hioctane62wrote:
Without quoting your entire post... I have to agree with most of what you said. It would be awesome if ebay did something like this and gave some advance notice, with heavy advertising in many different forms of media.

Just think of the number of people who might come back to ebay if they actually KNEW this was going to happen, and could plan on ... OK, this happening on Sunday from midnight to midnight.

If you did try lots of advance notice and heavy advertising, sales would plummet days in advance as word of the upcoming discount spreads, followed by a network meltdown on that day, as everyone tries to purchase at once. It would be something like daily business in the days leading up to Black Friday, only worse because of the generally all-encompassing nature of the 20% off on most everything.

Something as broad as a 20% discount with minimal restrictions is an offer that you pretty much have to spring on your public on short notice only,, and valid for only a short time, because your real goal is not to lose money on discounts but to train your audience to check in more often.

we aren't asking for days or weeks! Just, ANYTHING that is even remotly a notice before it happens.

jerzee908 · ‎03-11-2018

brian_burke@ebaywrote:
All,

Sorry I dropped after posting this, but I wanted to get the word out - I then drove 4 hours to spend a weekend in Connecticut with my aunt and cousins - and disconnected.

I'm surprised a bit a some of the reaction to my post. I posted this elsewhere through other social channels and received a positive response - I was really just trying to share with you a very good promo.

Regarding SPAM - I never said to violate any policy, I only said to let your buyers know. Many store sellers have lists of buyers that they can communicate with. Many of you have social networks that you can post this to (FB, Instagram, etc.) without violating any their policies.

For those afraid to use the eBay messaging system, I'm not sure how sending an email asking a buyer to come back to eBay and save 20% is considered taking a buyer off eBay.

I'm glad some of you were able to take advantage of the promo and for those that experienced an issue, please reach out to our customer support team.

And, I don't know if we are planning to do another one of these. But if we do and I receive it to push through my social channels I will post again to the Seller board.

Thanks for selling on eBay.

Brian

You really have to put yourself in our shoes on this one.

You said to let our buyers know about the promotion. How would one do this? The only people I have access to are people that made prior purchases and people that have messaged me with offers with items without "Best Offer". If I had access to the people watching my items I could message them or ebay could of sent out a message the day before along the lines of "Save 20% tomorrow on the item you are watching". Maybe send a phone alert to everyone that has the ebay app?

Just about any store, website, etc. sends some kind of email, message, post on social media, etc. the day prior to a big promotion.

Again, I thought this was a very-very great idea that ebay had. I just think if it were properly executed, it would of been more of a success.

michael_atw · ‎03-12-2018

eBay - just like other oligopic internet lazy corps - is not interested in doing the work, friend. They are interested in you doing the work for them.

This saves them lots of cash. eBay does not care if the promo works - I am sure they'd rather it not work as they can say they did it and they didn't have to lose money on it. That's fundamentally logical.

If a million folks used this coupon to its max, eBay would have lost a gross ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS on the deal that day. You can account for the transaction fees they collect - but at best, that would only halve that into a net loss of fifty million.

dcintennessee · ‎03-12-2018

Absolutely agree @itemsthingsandstuff. There's no way a promotion like this should be announced prior to the day it's effective. I was thinking that if it were posted/messaged like two hours before it becomes available, that's enough notice for sellers to figure out how/whether to promote it, and for buyers to start filling their carts!