Ebays PL .ITS A SCAM

[jasoheat_0]

so i recently ended all my promoted listing , as my sale and views were down to single digits ( 75% ) , now i get this ad from Ebay stating HEY BUY ADS FROM US , what, i had all my listings promoted for at least a year , then all of a sudden in march sales went NUCLEAR thru the middle of the earth ....  what is wrong with the people that run this platform ( DONT NEED CHEERLEADERS AS I WILL GIVE NUMBERS TO SHOW EBAY IS FAILING ) , are they serious , do they have any clue , IAN by himself has dropped active buyers by 25% ( if not more ) GMV ( as he stated may drop to levels of 2019 / but hey its IAN were back down to levels of 2013 ) wow ,  those are HUGE numbers , less we forget about Market Share YEAH thats dropped 40 % , OOOOOOH Ebay employment total has dropped by 4% ( hundreds of employees got FIRED ) what an amazing CEO THANKS IAN ( ebay go ahead a censor me we all know EBAY could careless about FREE SPEECH.. ,.... OH and your  Useless customer support 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@mam98031 Just using your numbers for Q1, if ebay's TOTAL revenue was 2.5 billion (including ad revenue), and ebay's first party ad revenue was 285 million, again, my quick math suggests First Party Ads contributed about 9% of ebay's total revenue. That is actually a pretty substantial sum. (note, for example, that your numbers state that Q1 revenue was up 1%....take out the ad revenue, and Q1's revenue would have actually declined.)

If you read my earlier post in this thread (and the linked article) I think you can see that for some sites, the difference between being up or down can come down to ad revenue. That is pretty meaningful stuff to shareholders.

[mam98031]

I never thought it was going away.  

I've just disputed with others at how many sellers are actually using PLS.  IDK what the current numbers are as far as how many sellers are using it and on how many listings.  Last time I saw some numbers there was about a million listings that used PLS.  But that certainly would have grown.  Do you have some rather current numbers on that?

[mam98031]

Humm, my math must be off.  285 Million divided by 2.5 billion, I get 1.14%.

[rustydalmatian]

Noticed your ID.  How long have you worked for the Board of Directors?

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks....yeah, my mistake....but I think your number should be 11.4%, not 1.14%. So, it's actually more than I said....

[valueaddedresource]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@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.

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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.

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@mam98031 the percentage of total revenue that comes from PLS is only one piece of a much bigger picture and doesn't really tell the full story.

It would be a mistake to believe that Promoted Listings only impacts sellers who choose to opt in and pay the ad fees - PL ads are shown on every search, every listing page, buyer watch lists etc regardless of how many sellers are opted into the program.

The overall experience buyers have on eBay is hugely impacted by PL ads in multiple ways, regardless of what percentage of sellers are currently opted in or what percentage of eBay's total revenue currently comes from ads.

If the way eBay is choosing to pursue their ad strategy creates a negative buyer experience, that absolutely could and likely is contributing in some way to GMV and buyer loss, though of course we don't know to what degree.

The statistics showing that a majority of sellers aren't using PL don't disprove the idea that the way eBay is implementing their ad strategy is having a negative impact on the site - those aren't mutually exclusive ideas and both can be true at the same time,

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@valueaddedresource @mam98031 

The article I linked in a post above gives a nice summary of why so many marketplace sites use ads---the writer doesn't discuss ebay, and the examples he uses are other sites, but I think his points are valid (including the cautionary point he makes, which is about striking the right balance...and I think part of the seller objection to PLs is that ebay might have been striking a reasonable balance when PLS began, but now ebay has lost whatever balance it had.)

Just a couple basic points:

1. Ads aren't going away, and ebay will continue to look for ways to increase both adoption and new ways to generate revenue from the ads (such as the halo feature).

2. As valueadded points out, we are all effected by ads, whether we use them or not. Same thing with the Focus Category Strategy----I don't sell in those categories, but I'm effected by ebay's insistence on marketing them rather than the site (along with other ways)

3. Each seller ultimately has to decide how to use----or not use---ads. They are an ingrained part of the platform at this point, and sellers ignore them at their peril.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

And I'll add a bit to valueadded's point.

Whatever the number of listings are in PLS, we must recognize the multiplier effect, which, with PLS, is the whole point. The reason impressions are so high for PLS listings is because, unlike organic listings, which primarily show up only on the search results page, one PLS listing can show up on many, many pages: view item pages, ebay emails, etc, etc....So the IMPACT of one listing in PLS is far more than the impact of one non-promoted listing.

To again quote the article I mentioned:

With all these benefits, there are a few things marketplaces should watch out for:

• To not hurt the user experience by managing ad load and keeping ads relevant

• To ensure that suppliers not paying for ads can still compete on the platform and that new suppliers still see value in the marketplace (since many will first see what results they’re getting before putting money into ads in the marketplace)

To be fair, I don't doubt that ebay recognizes the importance of this. However, ebay is under pressure to grow ad revenue, especially in light of its promise to investors and its apparent inability to show substantial growth in GMV. I think that must create real tension within ebay---can they meet their promised ad revenue goal without alienating too many buyers and sellers? If they meet the ad revenue goal but GMV and user numbers sink to really low levels, the ad revenue growth won't be enough to make investors happy. 

So, it's about balance....and right now, I'd say things are pretty lop sided, but that's my perspective as a seller. ebay's internal stats might convince them otherwise. 

As a seller, I can't ignore them. I can choose not to use them, but if I do, I need to be aware of the risk in doing so. And if I choose to use them, I need to understand the risks as well, and need to find the most effective---and profitable--- way to use them

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

From the Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript:

Our advertising business continues to deliver robust growth at scale despite challenges in the broader digital ad market. Strong demand for Promoted Listings drove first-party advertising revenue of $285 million, up 31% or more than 30 points faster than GMV growth for the third straight quarter. Total advertising revenue grew 23% to $317 million. During Q1, over 2 million sellers adopted single ad products, and we reached more than 750 million live Promoted Listings.

Our standard CPA product was once again the largest contributor to advertising growth, benefiting from continued optimization and performance improvement. In Q1, we rolled out a new machine learning model for ranking CPA ads that improved sales philosophy for sellers and conversion for buyers. This ranking model also enables us to evaluate the expected performance of multiple ad products alongside each other rather than making ad-serving decisions in silos. This change will be beneficial as we continue to expand our multiproduct advertising portfolio.

Our emerging Promoted Listings products also continued to scale and grew mid-single digits quarter-over-quarter during the seasonally slower Q1. This growth was led by Promoted Listings Advanced, our cost per click format, which benefited from an upgraded relevance model deployed in the quarter as well as the inclusion of CPC ads within more of our existing ad services.

[mam98031]

Oh I agree it goes far beyond the numbers.  But it is a measuring stick so to speak.  The clutter on individual listings is just nuts in my opinion.  They often bury the seller's description so heavily any buyer would have trouble to find it.

[chicboutique31]

People playing with and losing money at an alarming rate is not a joke, it people's Income!! If you have no helpful insight, you have no business to be here unless you want to help. 

[rugerskick]

I think many sellers here have a beef with how the ads are done here.  Mainly when you go and look at one of your own listings, you see it split apart with other sellers ads breaking up your item description.

I think buyers get tired of seeing so many unwanted ads assaulting them at multiple places when they are trying to review a listing, its frustrating and leads to choice paralysis, which benefits no one.

[mam98031]

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@chicboutique31 wrote:

People playing with and losing money at an alarming rate is not a joke, it people's Income!! If you have no helpful insight, you have no business to be here unless you want to help. 

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@chicboutique31 

It was sarcasm.  

[chicboutique31]

I can explain that extenstively , if you add the upc code , it automatically fills out the information for you. I sell a lot of skin care products that I do research on before I list it because when it comes to skin or makeup,  some people are skin sensitive to certain ingredients in the product. When I go to list a product and I type in the Upc code, all of the ingredients and information are incorrect to what is on the box and product website, and when I type in the actual ingredients, it doesnt allow me to use the Upc code, so in total consideration of the buyer, I have to type in what exactly is on the box and it automatically erases the Upc code. If you look at my skin care and make up listings, it is the exact and correct ingredients for the consumer. Im not a lazy seller, I do research everytime I list a skin care or make up product. 

[chicboutique31]

Along with, me implyingto the scam is that i have purchased many many  items on this site and it is from another state which takes days to deliver but the following day, it is marked delivered and it is always a box of cake batter mix from Wal-mart! This has happened 4 times now and I have nothing to back me up because it is marked delivered.......Go ahead..?!?!