Regards,
Hi @mycustomer1
Many of us saw that eBay started to jack up the "Suggested rates" last year and the numbers seemed to indicate they wanted to see their total Fee intake (normal FVFs plus Ad rate %s) around the 20% to 25% range on every PLS transaction.
Rates doubled and tripled in a very short period of time. And to your point, my experience via my own testing was that unless I played the high Ad rate game sales would not be successful ... the sad part is that the higher Ad rates wreck the profit margin so I won't do that.
I used to run one 30 PLS Campaign each quarter. Prior to 2022 they worked just fine. Then PLA was fully launched and the new Views counting in the early 2022 and everything changed ... sales started to slowly decline. So for the last 18 months only 2 have set new high sales records ... therefore no growth and selling becoming unsustainable. The numbers just don't lie ... seeing that trend in a short period of time like a month or two might be a normal dip in sales but to see it continue for a year and a half is a trend not a normal dip.
Things sell, yes but no longer fast enough ... sell through rates have doubled and tripled forcing inventory to be moved to other venues to keep cash flowing ... while I have always preferred selling on eBay the operative word is "selling".
@luckythewinner wrote:
@mycustomer1 wrote:It seems like add rates have gone from around 10% to 15-17%. I have 20/20 vision so I'm not seeing things. So, on top of 13.25% I pay when a listing sells, if I go with recommended at rate, it's another 15-17%? Folks, tell me. What is the story? Eventually, it will be 50% of your sales, plus shipping & tax, to play in this game! No, your not obligated to pay these add rates. It's a sad state of affairs for many sellers. Sure, Google charges to post listings. Yes, I can go through the list of 5 similar sites getting their listing ahead of Ebay without those add fees. Tell me the whole story!!!
The "story" is that eBay wants to make as much money as possible.
So they are "recommending" that you give them as much money a possible.
The solution is for you to choose to not give them as much money as possible.
@luckythewinner I like that ...
@reallynicestamps wrote:if I go with recommended at rate,
All eBay recommendations are good for eBay.
EBay is your landlord not your friend.
You are in a very competitive category, although mens dress shoes are not as saturated as sneakers or leggings, so you may need PL to be seen.
Anecdote is not data, and I am in vastly different categories than you, but I have found, for my stores, that I can use only the minimum 2% PL Standard rate, and still get Views.
What is interesting is that while about a third of my listings have PL added, much less than a third of my sales , last month only about 5%, are PL.
So my thought is that, PL does bring eyeballs to my Store, but then the customer browses and often buys something else.
Remember that PL is optional.
Remember that eBay is not our friend.
Try comparing your sales rate on Promoted items with non-Promoted.
Your business plan will be different than mine, and should be. But experiment and compare the figures.
@reallynicestamps Some good points in there ... I've used PLS for a very long time, like back when it first launched and they gave Sellers a $ 30 per quarter Ad credit off PLS fees. That's when I ran one 30 day PLS per quarter and took advantage of the $ 30 from eBay. Over time a trend emerged for my PLS campaigns and for approx 7-10 days after a PLS ended BIN sales would tank then rebound to normal levels.
In 2022 that trend changed significantly and BIN sales tanked after a PLS ended for a much longer period of time. So much so that Auction sales per week would eclipse BIN sales numerically.
When it comes to algorithms, programming and manipulation nothing is off the table so I can see that programming could be set up to bury or hide listings in an attempt to get an account to run more or longer PLS Campaigns in an effort to get sales moving again. The other obvious approach is to suppress PLS sales unless an account uses the Suggested rates or higher rates ... that one I proved out with my own testing. Considering that 1.7 BILLION listings on the venue was a published number I can easily see where burying or hiding a certain % of listings would not have much affect on the overall revenue.
I periodically check my View counts since the new View counting was launched in early 2022 ... 30%-35% of my items consistently have 0 Views in the last 30 days. What that means is that any sales I get are for the most part from 2/3s of my Active listings at any one time. If I check for Views of 0, 1 & 2 the total % of all my listings is between 45% - 60%. So that means half my stuff is getting few to no views.
At the end of the day the numbers don't lie ... in the last 18 months only 2 months have set new sales records ... no growth and lost sustainability.
