Ebay's new Offsite Ads Program- Will it kill sales?

[siamjane8]

     I just saw some information saying that this new offsite ads program ( that ebay is offering us $100 to try) is in beta testing now and sometime in 2024 should go full scale.  The intent is for ebay to no longer pay google for any ad space so our listings will only show up on google if WE pay ebay the offsite ads premiums.( so if our listing is a perfect match, it wont show unless we pay ebay more...)

    The problem is that with ebay's search engine being so overmanipulated with promoted listings and irrelevant results- most people use google to find ebay listings!

    Are they setting up a situation that will kill sales for anyone who does not pay to pay further?!

If this is the case- what value does ebay offer at all?- if we need to pay google for placement and ads- why not just get our own websites and pay google?

    My first thought is that this would only affect the "shopping" tab on google and that the general search because if google cant "look" for matching listings in its own search- what good is google then?

   Either way- ebay is providing less and less and costing more..... Isnt that what ebay is supposed to do for our FVF?- advertise and bring buyers to the platform. 

[toomuchstuffagain35]

I must be an outlier then because I OFTEN use google to find what sites HAVE (potentially) what I'm looking before I head to a site.

[baseball-trading-cards]

This is just another form of greed from eBay targeting their sellers. Why do sellers need to pay ebay to drive traffic to ebay?! ...isn't this why sellers are on the platform? ...because ebay drives traffic to their listings. Good grief...ebay continues to make disastrous business decisions... the site is still rampant with fraud and sales have plummeted on the site. 20+ year seller here...

[paulibeverlyhills]

Well, I have mixed response to your post. I've been on eBay for 20 plus years, always selling, excellent feedback, lovely customers &LOVE eBay!

I shop here as well as list. No complaints here ever in past.

IN the last six months I have had literally NO SALES--4 with 375 listings, including one scammer, who lied & ripped me.. So I decided to try the offsite experiment last week to see if promoting might help. Result, ONE person extra viewed my listings in 9 days. ONE!!!! Very peculiar. Using the offsite  did NOT drive traffic to my listings. Cost me $45 ($5 day x 9 days). A total loss. please Don't say "you didn't give it a chance." 6 months of zip has not left me in a mood to lose a few hundred more dollars & all the work.. I deactivated it,as no desire to spent $l50 to entice a potential 3 more views!!! I know the economy sucks-I get that, but I have always had sales no matter, even in other bad economic times. 3 customer reps said "thank you for your loyalty to eBay", but none of the 3 could offer suggestions other than I should promote the listings, despite all 3 saying my sales figures didn't make sense based on my seller history. What is happening here? I don't want to seek other avenues, but it feels like I am being sabotaged or pushed out the door. Your input will be appreciated. Thank you.

[siamjane8]

@paulibeverlyhills I am sorry to hear about your experience! That is a complete bummer.  Although it is almost exactly what i would expect.  Ebay's implementation of promoted listings was simply designed to separate their customer's (sellers) from their money.  In no way does the program even promote or increase sales because generating sales was not a real consideration for them- just the short term boost in revenue for ebay.     

     If ebay wanted to help generate sales they would fix the search engine to actually show people what they search for INSTEAD of unrelated promoted listings!  Promoted listings is like a cancer for ebay- I was looking for a simple solid wood toilet seat with soft close hinges yesterday......  SO frustrating to navigate through "plastic" seats and fake wood (all promoted)/ ( not to mention all the unrelated items)ones to find an actual solid wood seat...... then it was $15-20 MORE than every other site on the internet because sellers MUST up their prices to accommodate all the extra promoting fees.  Ebay is shooting itself in the foot!!!

  As sellers - our best hope is to completely abandon using promoted listings at all cost and force the company to rethink its strategy- Fix what is broken and stop with all the gimmicks and voodo- just offer a great product at a good price, show buyers what is available and what they search forand just sit back and watch the sellers and buyers return.   Just get out of the way and let ebay users build the platform up again.

[selsa84]

Yep. Cutting of the nose to spite the face 

[isaiah53-57]

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@luckythewinner wrote:

The problem is that ... most people use google to find ebay listings!

Do you have  source for that statistic?

I have never used Google to find eBay listings.

I always go directly to eBay.

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Let me help you - Considering that ebay had less than 4% of the domestic online sales last year, how many people do you think really go DIRECTLY to ebay without doing a Google search?

And besides that, I can do a search on ebay that returns 0 listings and do the same search on google and find listing that ebay couldn't find using their own search engine.

[siamjane8]

@isaiah53-57 You are exactly right and this is the same issue we sellers have been fighting for about 5-6 years. The search has progressively gotten worse month over month- forcing users to search google instead.  Not sure how long you have been here but Lucky is just a poster not a seller so its not really worth considering their "thoughts" lol.  

   Unfortunately there was an internal conflict years go to move search out of the more accurate title based character search and the item specifics cataloged search and ebay went down the wrong path for what the platform needs.   I'm sure its not that simple and im sure many other factors were involved in making sure google would index the listings and such..... but the fact is whatever they did was a disaster and we are reaping the consequences.  Promoted Listings put so much strain on the organic search and all we get are unrelated junk results.  We need to remember that all these algorithms are created by designers, human programmers that are told what to do by someone who makes the decision.  This should be fixable. If google can show accurate results why can't ebay?  It can but someone is CHOOSING to favor overmanipulated search algorithms to collect more of the take.  

[anjofak]

Google is a mess search is worsening by the day, I have pretty much forgotten about the shopping tab as it's never on point with a search and if by some chance the item shows up there it's usually hidden behind worthpoint, I use the image tab if at all.

[siamjane8]

@anjofak   I do aggree with you that google has gotten worse as well! they changed everything about a year agoto be more "shopping" focused instead of informational. makes research and just trying to find basic information near impossible. I have actually started using other search engines because of it! 

   Its still 1000% more relevant than ebay search but it is frustrating that these companies as so focuses on amassing more and money that their product is suffering.

[chariot_badges]

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@toomuchstuffagain35 wrote:

Really? I took it to mean that it could potentially be abused by those "less desirable sellers" to game the system.

Siam wasn't saying at all that all sellers using the pay to play promotions were "less desirable", but he/she sure hit a hot button apparently.

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Yea, everybody has gotten all sensitive lately. 

There is a big group of us that has been considered to be in a "basket of deplorables" for quite a while.  I don't know of any of my fellow miscreants whose feelings were hurt over that.  In fact, we drink to it at times.  Maybe us deplorables don't cry as easily as ... others. 

Sac up.  Get over it. 

I use promotions, heavily.  Last month it cost me $82 to get over $780 in sales.  

Know what I did?   I raised my prices by $100.

Both Ebay and me made money.

[unequivocalfruition]

I have been informed by CSR staff at eBay that the offsite ads are all paid now, whereas they used to be free. Don't expect me to do any free advertising for them. I'm happy with Poshmark, Etsy and my own site. I advertise for myself. And if one were to advertise for their listings at eBay, independently, you're leaving behind an extra 4% that the eBay referral program/ eBay partner network, https://partnernetwork.ebay.com/ will give you for any sales made when a shopper uses your link. If you're thinking of advertising for eBay, you might as well be advertising for yourself.

[unequivocalfruition]

Not true. Hook your store up to Google shopping and you will see your items rank in the Google shopping results. Your store will also show up more in there. It's not easy as I was working on it a few months - I am my own everything - webdesigner, social media, accounting - everything. I just got it hooked up 2 weeks ago finally after a couple of months thinking it was impossible unless I hire someone. I'm seeing my listings on google and visits to my website. There are many better alternatives as well - sell on Instagram easily, but they also control things too. Take control!

[unequivocalfruition]

Search for something and look at the shopping results.

[unequivocalfruition]

I could see and have eaten through funds trying out the promoted listings standards. Glad I turned that one off when I did. This is looking even more devious than I thought - yeah they are betting people will keep paying - attach the credit card and watch it go bye-bye with no results to be seen.  Just like they still expect you to start your auction listing at $0.99 when you first signup thinking that eBay's suggestion should be good enough to you to entice a huge sale on your heirloom jewelry. So many have lost to that gimmick. Not only that, if the seller stops the auction early because it did not get bids, they get charged - not the best experience as if it did sell for $0.99...

[unequivocalfruition]

You're right!

I had a whole slew of no fault returns last year after never having any. That was before the Christmas Season. When a search is manipulated, how can anyone find what they REALLY are looking for in plain English, or whatever language the person is looking for?