Bring Back The Old Markdown Manager

[thriftscorechic]

I just want to be another voice to let eBay know how much the change in markdown manager is hurting us. I have been unable to put anything on sale for the past 2 days and my sales are literally in the dumps when I was used to making around $200 every day. This is absolutely devastating for us and I'm sure it is the same for many other families that rely on eBay to make a living. PLEASE CHANGE IT BACK. Since the change I have sold nothing and received no offers on any of my Buy It Now items. I am only selling things on auction. Do I change everything to auction? Well I don't have much time because rent is due and auctions take 5 days, and people don't always pay right away. I have also been lowering prices but it's not helping. I'm not just writing to complain about my particular situation, I'm writing because I know there are many other people in the same situation as me. Many people are wondering if eBay is literally trying to drive its sellers away. Is eBay trying to starve us? I absolutely hate the idea of the 14-day rule, it takes so much power out of the seller's hands. We alread complied with "free returns", now this? I've been with eBay for 10 years, if I had the money and the means I'd jump ship because of this change. But instead I'm just clinging on for dear life hoping I don't end up homeless next week. Please for the love of God bring back the old markdown manager and let us put sales on so that we can eat this summer.

[irinahat]

I made $384 the last day markdown manager was active.

Since they changed it? (I took down my sale to raise the sale % and that's when I realized all my items were skipped)

I made a whole $75 since markdown manager changed.

Going from making around $200-400 daily to suddenly dropping to $70?

It's disheartening...

[catcookielover]

Except for a sale from a previous buyer that wanted a best offer, I too haven't had a sales since the disabling of markdown manager. I am wondering how many sellers will be cancelling their store subscriptions, since they no longer can use the tool to run any sales.

I am not sure how to list here now, so I am taking a small break to come up with a new plan.

[irinahat]

The worst part is that markdown manager is broken right now in the sense that it isn't filtering out items that aren't allowed to be put on sale yet.

It shows us our entire inventory and then starts saying "SKIPPED: PRICE" after we've launched a sale.

This may be fine for people with smaller inventories, but, I have over a thousand items listed and you can only run a sale with a max of 500 items.

I'd have to create 3 different sales only to have 99% of it say skipped. Could they not make a way for skipped items to not be shown at all until the 14 days have passed and they are eligible to be put on sale?

[bostonsgarden]

Totally agree 100%, this new system is also killing us, very frustrating to be so micro-managed esp after being on here for @ 17 years! I just added the free return shipping to all of my listings and now can't put anything at all on sale! Such an absurd set-up now along with the forced free shipping returns for a trs badge that I'm also about to throw the towel in and go with any of the numerous online sales routes. Ebay is heading for extention if they keep up this F- the seller attitude

[66ronscollectorsspot66]

I totally agree. Due to these changes we did not renew our yearly contract and we are Closing the store after 13 years.

[hermosa_beach_threads]

I’m baffled. 

Can soneone please provide the logic behind this update?

All my listings are “SKIPPED”!

I went from selling almost $400 the last day of the old markdown manager, to $0 in 12+ hours today...this never happens. 

How is this generating more money for eBay?

[fashiontreasuresfashion]

I hear you thriftscorefashion. Most of my sales are generated from weekend sales, making up to 2k. Stomach is in knots since I have no way of making any money over the biggest Summer Sale. So now what do we do?

All I was told from ebay is that they will send my concerns to upper management. Great! That will help drive my sales!

My first major frustration with ebay and this may just kill my business 😞

[maizerbutter]

I contacted ebay and also voiced my dislike to this new policy.  My sales have come to a hault! I'm guessing many sellers havn't crossed this no selling bridge, yet.  

[njrtsr]

I hated the new markdown manager... at first. I had to recreate all my sales from scratch! But I find it quicker and easier to work with now that I got my sale parameters uploaded.

[thriftscorechic]

I also am baffled. I don't understand how eBay is benefiting from this except maybe us small sellers are small potatos and we don't even matter much at all for their bottom line? These changes are so bad they seem deliberate. Like eBay is literally trying to show us the door. It was so sudden and during the Summer too, when things are hard anyway. I was expecting some slow downs, some glitches, but of all the things, not being able to place anything on sale is something I never even imagined would happen in my worst eBay nightmare.

[irinahat]

I believe that the whole logic behind this is that some buyers complained because they bought a marked down item that wasn't the lowest price on the market.

Also there are some sellers who knowingly jack up prices by 40% and then they put a 40% sale on, making their items sell faster when there could very well be better prices for the same item on the market.

Apparently people complained to Ebay about not getting the best deal due to jacked up prices + phony markdowns, giving the illusion of there being a sale, when in reality, the seller simply jacked up the prices.

So now we all have to suffer because SOME sellers do this. And because SOME people complained.

Buyers have FREE WILL. If you see someone running a sale for a specific item, take 30 seconds to do a quick Ebay search, filtering by lowest price. The search engine will show you the best price for that particular item on Ebay - sale or no sale. You have free will to purchase / not purchase something. No one forces buyers to purchase anything. If they impulse bought a marked down item which wasn't that great of a deal because they didn't take 30 seconds of their time to do a quick and very easy price check, then whose fault is that? 

So if buyers have the free will to buy / not buy whatever the heck they want to (yes, even if they impulse bought something and it was a bad bargain, THEY HAD THE FREE WILL TO MAKE THAT BAD IMPULSE PURCHASE) - so why are sellers having their free will slowly chipped away? It's not fair.

[pot0hr]

yes!!!! please help sellers make money... they have to stop listening to ridiculous buyer complaints.  I had a buyer ask me why I raised and lowered prices.  I told him I don't except for running sales, is that what you mean?  yes, he said.

WTH? it's like we suddenly lost common sense with retail strategies here and it's gonna cost everyone in the long run.
If I can't use the sales feature like a normal brick and mortar then I can find another place or I can just manually raise and lower.  There's always a work-around, bottom line is just allow sellers to use their tools that they need because nobody knows how to sell their stuff better than the average seller knows how to sell his own items.  No two stores are the same, stop restricting sellers because you have dumb buyers.  I would thing that eBay would understand this as long as they've been in business

[oem-xcellence2]

At first I thought this was the second most inane thing I've seen Ebay do with sales but the more I found out how restrictive this is the more uneasy I was about it.  Your item has to be listed on Ebay for 14 Days before it can be put on sale and also once it goes on sale it can't go on another sale for 14 Days after that is how it was explained to me.  Since over 60% of my sale take place with a sale and I'll be reduced to running at least 2/3 less sales my revenue will likely drop significantly by a minumum of at leas 1/3. 

My sales dipped for a while to a volume I hadn't been to for 6 months after they intiated this policy.  It took me and many other seller years to figure out a system that generates the sales for the type of items that we sell.  I know they're trying to protect themselves legally but this simply goes way too far.  One of the worst things is that they admit that some sellers are exempt from this and they don't explain why.  We as sellers are know handcuffed and ankle cuffed and thrown in the water and told best of luck.    

I really hope they understand the people's livelyhoods are at stake and this will have devestating ramifications to their incomes if this continues.  If it effects them it will effect eBay also.  It's not just this but there has been a torrent of policies lately and forthcoming that seem to punish the sellers who are doing the most to sustain Ebay.  In October 2018 there will be a 4% penality if your return rates are higher than your so-called peers who probably don't have much volume.  My return rate has been 5% or lower most of the time I've been on Ebay which in most industries is extemely low.  

However they base it on what people say when they return an item.  The problem with this policy are many with the first one being is that people don't read the listings or look at the pictures in the listing.  A large portion of my return cases are never returned.  People often lie on returns in order to avoid restocking fees or return shipping costs.  It is not an objective means of measurement it's very subjective which is why the stopped rating us on feedback but now want to punish us with returns.  

If this policy remains in place I'm going to start making plans to get off of Ebay for good because I've struggled for years with this business to finally get stable and a rule like this is so disheartening.  I was so devastated by this I got frustrated and didn't even finish running a sale last week for the first time since I've been doing Ebay sinc I've been doing it full time and this week I can't bring myself to do it knowing that only a fraction of my items will go on sale and it won't be nearly as effective.  

I can't see how they're listening to sellers because any top seller with experience could see how delerious this policy was when it was first presented on it's face.  Less sales, less money-- that's it! When I call customer service they don't like or agree with it either but I know they don't have the power to do anything.  I shouldn't have to feel like eBay is my enemy and I have to fight them all the time but the path that they've taken in the last few years certainly make it seem that way and that's not the reason I got on this site.