06-26-2018 07:07 AM
I have been a seller for a few years, have done everything right according to Ebay, gone along with new policies (offer guaranteed delivery, free shipping, have 100% positive fb etc) and was a TPS Plus until the free shipping requirement. This morning I found out that Ebay has instituted a policy that an item that was on promotion cannot be put back on sale for 15 days. I sell clothing and this policy is going to significantly hurt my sales. Over the weekend I put a large part of my store on promotion and consequently had a significant boost in sales. I now can't put any of those items back on sale for 15 days. If I were to put some of these items back on sale next weekend and would get a similar boost in sales how is that a bad thing? I called Ebay and was told that buyers have complained about sellers marking items up and immediately putting them on sale. So instead of targeting those sellers and working with them Ebay institutes a blanket policy that affects all sellers. When I run a promotion it's generally 10-20% off. I do not mark up items before they go on sale. Increased volume of purchases as a result of a promotion is good for me and ultimately Ebay too. Also, there is no way to tell which items are eligible to be put on promotion. If I go to the promotions page and format a sale there is no indication as to which items are beyond the 15 day restriction. Finally, as a seller shouldn't I have received prior notice to this policy? I found out from another seller.
I have always been one to defend Ebay when others complain about policies as a great venue for selling but after they have made free shipping a requirement for TRS Plus and now this I am very discouraged. I would think I am the kind of seller Ebay wants to keep happy as I am making them money. It feels like Ebay is trying to get rid of sellers like me.
06-30-2018 07:12 PM
06-30-2018 07:13 PM
06-30-2018 07:31 PM
After Being on Hold for 2 1/2 Hours for the Designated Anchor Store Support, I was Given some wild Explainations. How it wasn't fair for Regular Sellers without a Store since they Can't run Sales... REALLY!!! If they Want a Store Let them Pay for One. Why is it not fair!! This was Just One Thing I was Told.. So Why Are we Paying for a Store which they Raised the Price By $100. Also I was Told the Work Around was to Run a Storewide Order Discount of Like 10%, That the Buyers would see That Just Not the Slash Through the Price... So I Did it and GUESS WHAT. NO BUYER WILL SEE THAT IT IS A 10% off Total Order Sale and you Know WHY??? It Says it at the Very Bottom of the Listing Page. Seriously I Sell Antiques and Collectibles. There is No Price Gouging and My Prices Cannot be Compared to New Merchandise. Go to My Store and Look at any Listing Between $26.99 and $500.00 You Have NO WAY to SEE it is On Sale Unless You Go All the Way to the Bottom Of The Page. How Many Buyers Literally Take the Time to Go to The Bottom of the Page if They Don't see it is On Sale. This is My Sole Livelyhood and My Sales are 65% less this week alone..I Always List My Items Fairly and at the Price I would Like to Get, I Don't inflate and When I run My Weekly 10% off sales the 10% off is What I Can Sell for and still Make a Profit. It is Win Win for Me and Buyers. And I Don't Use 30 Day Listings ever because I Tried and It Put You So Far Down on Search Results it wasn't woth it. I Do 7 Days on 98% of My items. So Now I Can NEVER Run a Sale They relist every 7 Days. So Another Thing I was Told was Just Mark the Price Down.. SERIOUSLY Buyers Like to See the Red Slash. The Antique and Collectibles catagories Should NOT Be Included in this MOST STUPID Rule Ebay Has EVER PULLED and They have Pulled some Stupid Ones. So WHY ARE WE PAYING FOR STORES when we Can't Control Our Own Sales WITHIN THEM?? I am on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown over this One.
06-30-2018 07:37 PM
Also I have a Few Listings Ending Today and tomorrow still with My sales Going but after That I am Screwed.
06-30-2018 07:51 PM
This should never have been applied to used goods, only new items. It's impossible to follow the FTC guidelines for anything but new items.
Why? If the FTC is satisfied with eBay's new definition of the regular price for a used bowling ball, there's no reason one couldn't use Markdown Manager 15 days after that price was in place.
06-30-2018 07:56 PM
@vintage_villages wrote:If you use good til cancel, your item will get deleted by ebay if your item doesn't sell within 60 to 90 days, so it is really not good idea to use it. And also ebay will bury your item when you use good til cancel, there is no bump. It will be lost in the masses
When the item is newly listed or it is ending, ebay will normally bump your listing to 1 or 2nd page but as to good til cancel, you get nothing. If you talk to experience seller, they don't use good til cancel or 30 days, they use 5, 7, 10 days listing
Get deleted after 60-90 days - not true as long as it's still being renewed each cycle.
Getting buried from being listed too long without sales (my items are unique, so a sale would clear that stock) - yes that is true.
If you list a few new items every day, it will boost relevancy to other items in the store.
As for 5, 7 and 10 day listings - experienced sellers don't use this unless the product moves fast. Why? Because a listing like this will cost 6x, 4x, and 3x store fees because after your free listings are used, you will pay per listing.
I used to use 30 day listings when I had Turbolister, but often blew chunks by listing something I sold and not properly updated before loading them again. Fortunately with GTC I haven't had this issue. My current software doesn't make it easy to keep listing every 30 days, and I was wasting an hour a day relisting stuff. Now I just add new stock every few days, and I run auctions often, which brings people into the store.
Cheers, C.
06-30-2018 07:59 PM
@vintage_villages wrote:How you would know if the price is frictitious as you described it? Do you have actual facts that support your argurment? Most of ebay seller don't sell new items, they sell used items. When you sell used item it is difficult to judge the price accurlately. It is not like there is price guide that we could use, in fact only tool we have is 3 months sale data from ebay and that is it. If you sell vintage item like camera, it is really difficult to judge the price accuratly since there is no sales data for it.
I sell rare tokens that are 50-100 years old and have no previous sales history (mainly because they're Canadian, and not a big market for that). I randomly make up a price... 29.99 sounds good. After a few months of not selling, I don't usually put it on sale, I revise the price to 24.99. Then to 19.99 until it sells.
I'm running a sale right now, but I'm busy and want to keep traffic in the store, so I put all tokens that aren't trade dollars at 25% off. I just run sales to push buying every now and again, but if the price isn't accurate, I revise the price to my new suggested retail price.
Cheers, C.
06-30-2018 08:02 PM
@frenchblueshutters wrote:
Oh They Didn't Think of that.. If you Use 5 or 7 day Lisitngs which 98% of Mine are in My Store which I Pay handsomely For.. I CAN NEVER PUT AN ITEM ON SALE! Part of Paying for the Anchor Store is to Have the Promotional Sale ability. Now the $300 is a waste. MY SALES Have Flat Lined since the 25th..
You have two benefits to choose from...
1. List every 5, 7, 10, 30 days, and keep showing up as "new" or "ending now", which will give you higher placement. You should use a good price for this so your item sells.
2. List every 30 days or GTC and run your sale after 14 days of listing, which will give your sales a push when you have lots of watchers who like your item, might want to buy it, but need the motivation.
Either strategy works to boost sales, but you have to decide which would work better for your items. I prefer to use the GTC so I have minimum amount of work every day (as I don't like to relist 50-100 things every single day), and then I add listings as I see fit. IMO, if my item is less than 14 days old, it hasn't be up long enough to determine I can't sell it for the current price.
Cheers, C.
06-30-2018 08:27 PM
As an example on the other side of that argument...
One of my competitors routinely posts all of his items at grossly inflated prices, then goes back in a day later and knocks them down to realistic levels with a sale so that they now are better promoted, with a huge " 70% off for a limited time!" or whatever the actual phrasing is.
A $300 item listed for $1000 then discounted down to $300 via a sale.
When we happen to have similar items listed, his will appear before mine in a best match, even though it still may have a much higher price, due to the sale and discount amount.
07-01-2018 03:56 AM
I'll be happy to join you...was thinking the exact same thing! Are we not paying fees to list, to have a store, final value...how can they dictate what we price our items at??? Anyone who has every been in retail knows that customers want to see a "SALE" even if it's only 5%. This change restricts everything we do as sellers. They are constantly asking me to participate in their promotional events yet they don't want us doing our own???
07-01-2018 04:05 AM - edited 07-01-2018 04:09 AM
So I have a question. Does having items on sale get you better search placement or anything? The only reason I ask is because I am looking at this from a buyer's perspective, since I don't have a store. When I see a listing marked "sale" that alone does not lure me in, I still go by the price of the item, looking at the ones that are priced where I want to pay, whether it's on sale or not. I think because of those jewelry/furniture stores that have the constant sale that word doesn't mean all that much to people these days. Not saying everyone feels like this, but I just wanted to give you one buyer's perspective. Are you able to just lower the price without putting it in as a "sale"? I know that would be a pain in the rear but it's just like in school when a few people who couldn't follow the rules so everyone was punished.
eta: I've been away from the computer for a while and don't have the time to read all the replies. I did read the first page though and saw you mention BOGO, so I understand where you would need to be in "sale mode" or whatever they call if for that. I'm sorry they changed this one. I hope they figure out a way to make it easier to see what's already been on sale (if they haven't already, I missed many posts here lol). Good luck. 🙂
07-01-2018 04:11 AM
@cherry*fizz wrote:So I have a question. Does having items on sale get you better search placement or anything? The only reason I ask is because I am looking at this from a buyer's perspective, since I don't have a store. When I see a listing marked "sale" that alone does not lure me in, I still go by the price of the item, looking at the ones that are priced where I want to pay, whether it's on sale or not. I think because of those jewelry/furniture stores that have the constant sale that word doesn't mean all that much to people these days. Not saying everyone feels like this, but I just wanted to give you one buyer's perspective. Are you able to just lower the price without putting it in as a "sale"? I know that would be a pain in the rear but it's just like in school when a few people who couldn't follow the rules so everyone was punished.
eta: I've been away from the computer for a while and don't have the time to read all the replies. I did read the first page though and saw you mention BOGO, so I understand where you would need to be in "sale mode" or whatever they call if for that. I'm sorry they changed this one. I hope they figure out a way to make it easier to see what's already been on sale (if they haven't already, I missed many posts here lol). Good luck. 🙂
I can't answer about the placement, since that's determined by a number of variables.
But if you have a store with many items (my store has 1400 right now), and in my case, 400 items have watchers. I have the sale so the watchers who are interested customers (people like me that bookmark anything and everything of interest on eBay), will decide that the sale is a good time to buy.
This works, although not brilliantly. But yesterday someone came and purchased 6 items that were on sale. Could have been a new customer, could have been a watcher... so this is what I see a sale as useful for.
Cheers, C.
07-01-2018 04:35 AM - edited 07-01-2018 04:38 AM
@sin-n-dex wrote:
@cherry*fizz wrote:So I have a question. Does having items on sale get you better search placement or anything? The only reason I ask is because I am looking at this from a buyer's perspective, since I don't have a store. When I see a listing marked "sale" that alone does not lure me in, I still go by the price of the item, looking at the ones that are priced where I want to pay, whether it's on sale or not. I think because of those jewelry/furniture stores that have the constant sale that word doesn't mean all that much to people these days. Not saying everyone feels like this, but I just wanted to give you one buyer's perspective. Are you able to just lower the price without putting it in as a "sale"? I know that would be a pain in the rear but it's just like in school when a few people who couldn't follow the rules so everyone was punished.
eta: I've been away from the computer for a while and don't have the time to read all the replies. I did read the first page though and saw you mention BOGO, so I understand where you would need to be in "sale mode" or whatever they call if for that. I'm sorry they changed this one. I hope they figure out a way to make it easier to see what's already been on sale (if they haven't already, I missed many posts here lol). Good luck. 🙂
I can't answer about the placement, since that's determined by a number of variables.
But if you have a store with many items (my store has 1400 right now), and in my case, 400 items have watchers. I have the sale so the watchers who are interested customers (people like me that bookmark anything and everything of interest on eBay), will decide that the sale is a good time to buy.
This works, although not brilliantly. But yesterday someone came and purchased 6 items that were on sale. Could have been a new customer, could have been a watcher... so this is what I see a sale as useful for.
Cheers, C.
Yeah, I can see that. I decided to try and read the thread anyway, I'm recovering from yet another hospital stay and need something to feed my brain. I just read that you can't even put something on sale if you've edited it in the last 14 days? That's ridiculous. I am a serial watcher and I guess if something I had been watching went on sale I would take a look (whether it was marked sale or just marked down) especially if it had been something where price was a factor in why I watched it instead of buying in the first place.
I can kind of see eBay's point, if some sellers have things on sale 100% of the time AND they are claiming outrageous original prices (sometimes I have to wonder on what planet they are getting their pre-sale price) people tend to start to ignore the sale signs. How can eBay police that without a lot more manhours and having to judge who is overpricing before sale prices, etc... It sucks, I agree. I remember once in school someone stole a book and we were all punished for it. It made no sense to me to punish 30 people when you know 29 of them didn't do it. I think sometimes teachers/those in authority (eBay I guess) can't bear the thought of that one person getting away with something, as if punishing innocent people is a better option. I'm sure this is frustrating. I really do hope you all find some kind of solution that works for you and helps you get back those extra sales you could be getting putting items on sale.
07-01-2018 09:59 AM
@sin-n-dex wrote:
@vintage_villages wrote:How you would know if the price is frictitious as you described it? Do you have actual facts that support your argurment? Most of ebay seller don't sell new items, they sell used items. When you sell used item it is difficult to judge the price accurlately. It is not like there is price guide that we could use, in fact only tool we have is 3 months sale data from ebay and that is it. If you sell vintage item like camera, it is really difficult to judge the price accuratly since there is no sales data for it.
I sell rare tokens that are 50-100 years old and have no previous sales history (mainly because they're Canadian, and not a big market for that). I randomly make up a price... 29.99 sounds good. After a few months of not selling, I don't usually put it on sale, I revise the price to 24.99. Then to 19.99 until it sells.
I'm running a sale right now, but I'm busy and want to keep traffic in the store, so I put all tokens that aren't trade dollars at 25% off. I just run sales to push buying every now and again, but if the price isn't accurate, I revise the price to my new suggested retail price.
Cheers, C.
Do you usually price tthem at 29.99. Then you put them on sale.
That is not what is illegal.
It is when all of a suddent you list them now at $50. Then 30 minutes later run a 50% off sale and mark them down to $25.
That is what some sellers were doing and why we are now all paying the price.
07-01-2018 10:00 AM
@73ssnova01ks wrote:As an example on the other side of that argument...
One of my competitors routinely posts all of his items at grossly inflated prices, then goes back in a day later and knocks them down to realistic levels with a sale so that they now are better promoted, with a huge " 70% off for a limited time!" or whatever the actual phrasing is.
A $300 item listed for $1000 then discounted down to $300 via a sale.
When we happen to have similar items listed, his will appear before mine in a best match, even though it still may have a much higher price, due to the sale and discount amount.
Exactly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!