mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
@siamjane8 wrote:I agree that selling in a saturated category is going to make things harder for you but again- PL are not the answer. PL are a pay to play scheme giving the sales to the highest bidder regardless of quality of product , quality of customer service, slower shipping, poor quality listings etc.. This is absolutely no way to grow your buyer base at all. By "forcing" sellers to promote and lose another 5-10% of their profit, you are causing them to cut corners as well, so now PL is actively lowering the quality of your best sellers. Everything about the pay to play advertising scheme is detrimental to ebay buyers and sellers- it only profits ebay's shareholders in the short term while hurting the overall company in the long term.
PL may not be the answer for you and clearly MOST sellers don't use it according to Ebay's published numbers. However that does NOT mean it doesn't work for other sellers. That is why it is a TOOL that we can CHOOSE to use or CHOOSE not to. There isn't any right or wrong answer. Each seller needs to make this decision for themselves.
PL isn't the answer for you, that however does not, by any stretch of the imagination mean it doesn't work for others.
"By "forcing" sellers to promote and lose another 5-10% of their profit, you are causing them to cut corners as well, so now PL is actively lowering the quality of your best sellers. " As I previously stated, the use of the PLS program is a CHOICE. Ebay is NOT forcing sellers to use it. That is a silly thing to say, have you even reviewed the financial numbers related to PLS. Only about 1% of Ebays income comes from PLS. Does that mean the other 99 doesn't somehow count?
Some continue to say this on the threads when they know it is not true. The only reason to knowingly post this FALSE information has to be to stir things up a bit.
Pay to play has been around for DECADES and is common practice on many retail sites. This is nothing new, it may be new to you, but the concept is not new at all.
@seconhandrosie wrote:I agree 100%. In the last few months, my sales have plummeted to less than half that of the previous several years. Feebay is hemorrhaging buyers at an alarming pace and dying a slow death. Meanwhile, Feebay will squeeze every penny they can from desperate sellers. Promoted listings will be the death of Feebay.
There financial statement, which are available to the public do not indication that bankrupcy is imminent. Some posters predict this a few times each year for likely that last 20 years, yet here we all are.
Again, if you are pricing your product correctly [increase the price to cover additional fees], sellers are fine.
Taking their statement out of Context is inappropriate at best. Here is EXACTLY what @yuzuha actually said.
"You can promote an item at 100%, but if buyers aren't interested in it or they feel the price is too high, it won't sell."
@siamjane8 wrote:@mam98031 if you take a closer look at my orig post "forcing" was in quotes. Everyone understands it is not mandatory. I was not spreading misinformation. By severely limiting the organic search results and injecting tons of PL instead of relevant organic results- ebay is in effect trying to "force" sellers into promoting. To create a situation where sellers feel its the only option to get visibility and sales back.
As a buyer- i speak to my personal experience and 95% of everyone that i have asked- i would rather see relevant accurate results so i can quickly find what i am looking for and make a purchase instead of a clutter of unrelated ads mucking up the listing page.
I do fully recognize that for a few sellers- it does work...... likely for a drop shipper that purchases 10,000 units of a trinket and has a set margin and does not ever ever see the product or warehouse it or ship it. Their sales profits are generated by bulk sales at small margins and having your stuff shoved in front of peoples faces does probably work.
But- as you mentioned- only 1% of sellers use PL.........so it it wise for ebay to destroy the search and buying experience for 100% of the buyers for what 1% of the sellers use?
Apparently not because there are sellers on a few thread that keep saying that very thing.
Again, I'm not defending PLS. I'm not arguing with you that you and everyone else has the right to like it or not, use it or not.
The sellers I know that use it are NOT dropshippers. IDK why you would think that.
Who is making a profit and for how much is what you keep talking about. Let me try this another way. While Ebay does earn more money because of PLS [FYI Ebay is a for profit corporation], sellers can too.
Selling an item for $100. That $100 has taken into consideration all the seller's costs and fees at this point. The seller decides they want to give PLS a try and the Seller is willing to pay 7% which would be an additional $7.00. So at the very list the seller will increase their pricing to about $107 or slightly more.
I'm unsure why so many sellers think these extra fees must come out of the seller's profit margin. I certainly does not mean that at all.
Look IDK how else this conversation can benefit either of us much less anyone else. You have your mind set and that is the way it is for you. Which is your right. Others see it differently and that does NOT make them wrong and you right or you wrong and them right. The math I showed in an earlier post was very easy to follow.
Best wishes.
@siamjane8 wrote:The point is that overall -ads are not a bad thing. businesses rely on them to get their brand known. If i go to a marketing company and pay them for a campaign- i know what i am getting, a tv or radio spot, a billboard, a newspaper ad, an internet or social media spot, etc. Sales are trackable and repeatable and the data will show the effectiveness. I will pay and put those cost into the price of the goods, but i will have transparency to see what works and be able to adapt and make a decision on how to proceed with my advertising spend.
Ebay promoted listings however have no transparency. you have no control over what is shown to whom or when, or if ever at all. You cannot target your customers- your PL ads show up on all kinds of unrelated searches making them ineffective. And then unbeknownst to you- someone could beat your % by 1% and then your campaign is worthless. Ebay PL is NOT advertising spend like they say - it is a PAY TO PLAY scheme that is a race to the bottom. it is not healthy for the platform and the planform has been in steady decline since PL when into practice. Its not the only reason for loss of GMV and sellers and buyers but it is a very large contributing factor.
It can't be. PLS income to Ebay in the first quarter of 2023 was 1% of the total sales. At this time PLS isn't as popular with sellers as Ebay wants it to be and they are pushing to get more sellers to use it. In time it will likely grow, but for now it is too early to tell.
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques
Thank you for the additional information. You are just giving numbers from a different time period than I did in my post. What I posted is accurate and can be seen in this link.
- Revenue of $2.5 billion, up 1% on an as-reported basis and up 3% on an FX-Neutral basis
eBay's first-party advertising products, primarily driven by Promoted Listings, delivered $285 million of revenue in the first quarter
