eBay

otkhaven · ‎03-02-2023

Has anyone else noticed this? I've recently started going through old listings fixing mistakes, cleaning up the titles and descriptions and noticed suggested ad rates were pretty high. Thought it must just be the most fresh suggested rates based on everything.

But then I came across an old listing for a pair of Free People jeans. 2 views in the past 30 days and 1 watcher. Once I fixed all the mistakes in the listing and made it to the promoted section, it was suggesting 15.5% ad rate! None of the other jeans I created new listings for today were anywhere near that.

I experimented: "Sell Similar" gave the exact same result for suggested ad rate. 15.5%. So instead, I created a brand new listing from a template. Inserted the exact same pics. Copied all the exact same information in item specifics. Copy and pasted title, condition and description. Same price, same shipping, same everything. Identical listing. But the brand new listing is only suggesting 8.5% ad rate. Both listings were using the same promotion campaign as well.

The only difference I can see are, the original listing had 2 views, 1 watcher and had been up there for a few months. Has ebay mentioned this somewhere and I just missed it, or are they squeezing more money from ads out of old inventory?

redlinear · ‎06-21-2023

@otkhaven
Interesting observation.
I would assume, to many sellers, When a listing has been on ebay for a long time, it needs to go away.
Seller's might assume that Not many people want it, or, Too many of them on eBay.
SO, lets increase the Promotion Percentage "considerably" in hopes of getting it seen above all others.
Which that info ends up in the eBay machine and is now suggested to you.
I mean, to me, that makes sense.

What makes no sense: When you start that item all over from scratch and the suggested PL % is lower as a new listing.

Makes me think eBay's suggestions might still be derived from older listings. Instead of the items themselves.
IE: The item doesn't matter. The age of the listing does matter (regardless of the item).

mr_lincoln · ‎06-21-2023

@redlinear wrote:
@otkhaven
Interesting observation.
I would assume, to many sellers, When a listing has been on ebay for a long time, it needs to go away.
Seller's might assume that Not many people want it, or, Too many of them on eBay.
SO, lets increase the Promotion Percentage "considerably" in hopes of getting it seen above all others.
Which that info ends up in the eBay machine and is now suggested to you.
I mean, to me, that makes sense.

What makes no sense: When you start that item all over from scratch and the suggested PL % is lower as a new listing.

Makes me think eBay's suggestions might still be derived from older listings. Instead of the items themselves.
IE: The item doesn't matter. The age of the listing does matter (regardless of the item).

@redlinear Prior to 2022 what I found was that older items actually sold more during a PLS campaign then during non campaign times. It could also mean Buyer found one's store as the result of a PL item then did some shopping in the store and found something they wanted ... which happened to be an older buried listing.

The truth of exactly how eBay handles things will remain unknown but suffice it to say if they can manipulate listing visibility and combine that with given the impression higher rates will help everything sell then I suspect they will do that ... IMHO of course LOL! I am running my own PLS tests and some of my assumptions about some of the manipulation seems to be firming up ...

Regards,
Mr. Lincoln - Community Mentor

jupiter_collectibles · ‎06-23-2023

Yes it's "suggested" but when rates were lower I was getting great sales. Now that the suggested ad rates are almost double I'm not even getting close to before and I'm promoting DOUBLE what I was before? That makes absolutely no sense. Last month my promoted listing sales were down 54% and my organic sales were up 7%, that's mathematically impossible if promoted listings "work".

mam98031 · ‎06-23-2023

@jupiter_collectibles wrote:
Yes it's "suggested" but when rates were lower I was getting great sales. Now that the suggested ad rates are almost double I'm not even getting close to before and I'm promoting DOUBLE what I was before? That makes absolutely no sense. Last month my promoted listing sales were down 54% and my organic sales were up 7%, that's mathematically impossible if promoted listings "work".

Well there is likely a couple of reason for that. Ebay constantly is trying to get more sellers using PLS, so you now have more competition in PLS listings. The other thing is the current economy. So many sellers, more than is normal are complaining about their sales.

So to me it does make sense. The more and more sellers that use PLS, the more you need to pay to get above them.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

siamjane8 · ‎06-24-2023

Basically PL are set up as a race to the bottom, pitting sellers against one another for visibility that is purchased through ebay in the form of Promoted listing fee rates.

There is ZERO transparency with anything in the program and no accountability.

When they "suggest" and get just one seller to up their rate to something ridiculous- it skews the whole rate for everyone, and increases ebay's profit margins. The suggested rate is not based on anything other that how much ebay needs to meet a quarterly goal.

If everyone would cancel the promoted listings on the first of the the month, the system would slowly correct itself in the next month and we could have a fair and organic marketplace again that focuses in on the product offered and not the seller most desperate to lose money to make a sale.

I actually dont really care about the fees as a seller...... What i really hate about PL is as a buyer- PL has completely destroyed the search results. Ebay search is so irrelevant its nearly impossible to find anything on ebay- just hundreds of promoted listings that have nothing to do with what you searched for.

Another factor that many do not realize is that since ebay will not show the same organic listing and the PL, ebay is effectively "hiding" promoted listings from the search- I commonly see lousy search results, and then after i click on a listing- there are many more items in the promoted carousels within the listing that were not shown at all in search. This is just plain bad for buyers and sellers. The general search results are so poor that buyers think the selection is limited and move to google and other platforms.