Finally have Sales/but had to take PLs (Promoted Std) to 10-12% for ALL listings to Make it Happen

[katzrul15]

The title really says it all.

Have sales, but my PL percentages are killing me.  Played with it over and over on percentages and when I lower then to even 8%, sales stop.  At the 10-12% range, we have consistent sales.

Really dreading then the FALL update, additional fees and USPS increases.  Not certain how we (us) are going to be able to do this and remain profitable overall??  Anyone else concerned about this?

[ducks2k]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques  -- just built one yesterday after your suggestion -- 10% off orders $50+, which fits my stuff just fine.  Item listings still look the same with the 2 rows of sponsored suggestions right in the middle of the item page.  The only listing format change I can see is the small line describing the promotion.

Just checked a competitor with promotions, his have the sponsored rows also.  Maybe it is an eBay category thing. 

[nowandthenfabrics]

I'm in the same boat. Actually we all are. It's really sad because I've been selling since 2013 and it just keeps getting worse every time they update. It did not use to be this way and a lot of people have left eBay and are selling else where. Sad because the most of the ones who left help build eBay. Hopefully eBay wakes up. I think they are catering more to big businesses rather than small businesses who actually were the ones who made them what they are today. I wanted to let you know your not alone.

[ducks2k]

@nowandthenfabrics- to me, the most depressing aspect is that eBay is still, far and away, the best venue for my material, but they just keep trying to drive sellers away.  Obvious corollary - when the sellers go, the buyers will go too... 

In the eBay golden days - very early 2000s, there was a strong social component to the buying and selling.  We knew who bought things and how much they paid.  We could make new friends and co-collectors in the digital world, instead of national societies with quarterly journals and snail-mail.  By my recollection, ALL of my current group of collector friends with similar interests started out with contacts via eBay - sometimes within the TOS, other times, in spite of them.

Because I have always treated eBay buying and selling as an interesting hobby in itself, I have tried to keep up with all the changes, and "promotions" seem to be the current buzz-word.  In the last half-year, the only change in sales I can clearly define and attribute were when I changed from offering 250 or so items per month as auction, to having a "store" of 5,000 items.  Sales have increased 5-10 times, but it was only possible when eBay essentially dropped the listing fee for my category, and I could list all 5,000 at once, and just sit back and wait for buyer searches to find them.

I had not looked into promotions at all until a month ago.  Carefully studying the sales since then, there are almost none that can be attributed to "promotions" directly.  by that, I mean sales that would not have occurred without the promotion.  Although eBay claims about 1/3 of my sales are due to promotions, careful examination shows me that most of the clicks on my promotion links are essentially accidental -- the buyer clicked on a promotion link instead of going back to his organic search or to organic links in my store.

This reality does not mean I am against "promotions", just that they are not what they are described to be.  So far,  half a million claimed "impressions" and 58 claimed sales totaling $462.00 have cost me $9.29.  By my reckoning, the half a million "impressions" are pure b.s., and there are, maybe, half a dozen of my sales that resulted from PL as the primary cause. 

Anyway, PL is how the game is played now, so I need to get the maximum benefit before all the other sellers join in and level the playing field again.  At that point the PL fee will simply be the FVF with some additional percentage points added - but that is the game, and those are the rules.  Ebay will change the rules again....

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@ducks2k  Well, OK, that rules out running a promotion as responsible for the difference. I think you might be right...it might be the category (or even sub category---I have some mens clothing up, and I'm not seeing it----could just be womens clothing has different rows (color, brand, etc....rather than the more general rows: similar, related). I wouldn't make too much of this, because it is entirely possible that a week from now, womens clothing could have more rows, too. As best I can tell, whatever the exact number of rows a particular listing may have, there are a few things we can be pretty sure of:

1. There no longer appears to be a row dedicated to the sellers own items. (This may be because some sellers were complaining that their own items should not show up as sponsored on their own listing page. Of course, the remedy sellers wanted was: show a row of my items as organic. The remedy they got was: OK, fine, we'll just remove your PLs and replace them with other PLs. If so, this clearly falls into the "be careful what you wish for" file).

2. There are a huge number of PLs on any given listing page. The exact number may (for now) vary, but no matter how you slice it, the "view item page" is now a catalog of other sellers' items

3. There doesn't seem to be any way to avoid this. It used to be that when a buyer clicked through to a listing, there was an underlying assumption that he was probably in decision mode---and it was the seller's "job" to convince him to buy, to "close the deal": great photos, description, TOS, etc...maybe even something like a link in the description :"check out my related items, I'm happy to combine shipping to save you money." Now it seems the underlying assumption is: he's still shopping, so let's show him yet another array of items he can choose...which almost certainly weakens the seller's ability to make his case for "buy it now". 

4. Are there ways to  mitigate the negative impact on the seller? This might be a useful discussion to have, but I'm not sure there are a whole lot of options.

A seller can use PLs , which will increase the chance that he might make a sale when he shows up on a competitors listing, but that doesn't do much to mitigate the impact this has on the seller's own listing.

Running promotions (such as discount sales) might help, as the promotion might persuade the buyer to stay more focused on what the seller has to offer, rather than looking at all the bright shiny things from other sellers.

Not sure about this one , but a seller might design a description template and include his photos in the template, which will take up considerably more space on the page, and might help to keep the buyer focused on the listed item. (I say not sure for a couple reasons, including the fact that ebay could probably take away this option is too many sellers use it and ebay concludes it is hurting PLS performance).  

Make sure Make An Offer is enabled. While ebay has claimed they do not put identical items on the page, we know this isn't true, especially so for items that don't have a UPC or other code number. I just looked at one of my items, and see several of the same thing from other sellers, at lower prices. At least if I have Offer enabled, the buyer MIGHT decide to give me a chance to make the sale by discounting my price.

Maybe we should start a separate thread for this question, to get input from other sellers?

4. Short of a complete management change at ebay (and maybe not even then), I don't see this going away. Since you asked about ebay's underlying goal (aside from the obvious  revenue generated by the PLS fees) I would say it is : increased sales velocity and , believe it or not, in ebay's mind, enhanced buyer satisfaction.

Over the years I've noticed many sellers (especially those like me ,with long tail items) have a tendency to say "Just wait till the right person comes along, and it will sell". But there are very good reasons why every business, from a seller like me to ebay, should want increased sales velocity. Does this increase sales velocity for the site overall? We may think it does not, but ebay is the one with the internal data, and I'm guessing they see evidence that it is indeed increasing sales velocity overall.

Enhanced buyer satisfaction: When we look at the hundred or so competing items on our listing page, we see: clutter and a bad experience. But buyers who actually find stuff to buy in that "clutter" are probably happy, maybe even delighted when they come across something they didn't even know existed until that moment. Again, ebay has the internal data on this, we don't. 

In any event, this is not going away. As sellers, we can either go away, or we can try to figure out how to make this work for us, or, at least, how to reduce any negative impact it is having on our business.

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

Nice to see everyone enjoying eBay's drugs(Promoted Listings). I have to use it, for there will be no sales. 80%-90% of sales now have "AD FEE STANDARD" applied to them.  It's an expensive habit at 10%-13% rates + the 12.9% on final taxed sale price. I can't wait to see how many more designer drugs eBay can mastermind in the near future. There is still profit for them to get.

[ducks2k]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques  - If I could have given your post two thumbs up, I would have.

I did notice that the "simply..." listings had a SixBit logo, so your conjecture that item template might be useful, is worth more investigation.

Yes, the bottom line is -- figure how to make it work or go away.  I'm not going away, so I will keep investigating.

[katzrul15]

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@nowandthenfabrics wrote:

I'm in the same boat. Actually we all are. It's really sad because I've been selling since 2013 and it just keeps getting worse every time they update. It did not use to be this way and a lot of people have left eBay and are selling else where. Sad because the most of the ones who left help build eBay. Hopefully eBay wakes up. I think they are catering more to big businesses rather than small businesses who actually were the ones who made them what they are today. I wanted to let you know your not alone.

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@nowandthenfabrics 

Thank you for sharing that - you are so very correct, we are ALL dealing with thus - not just me.  Easy to forget that.  Thank you, again!

[katzrul15]

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@the-hook-and-the-loop wrote:

Nice to see everyone enjoying eBay's drugs(Promoted Listings). I have to use it, for there will be no sales. 80%-90% of sales now have "AD FEE STANDARD" applied to them.  It's an expensive habit at 10%-13% rates + the 12.9% on final taxed sale price. I can't wait to see how many more designer drugs eBay can mastermind in the near future. There is still profit for them to get.

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It is expensive.  And will continue to be, unfortunately.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@ducks2k  Well, I use SixBit too....but I tend to keep my descriptions pretty short, and I don't think merely using SixBit does much. I'm looking more at page real estate. People who have all their photos within the description---and often fairly large---plus a longer text area---simply make their listing more prominent on the page, because the description box takes up more real estate. Does that help keep the buyer focused on the listing? I think it might....

But agree...bottom line is, we figure out how to make it work, or we go away...

[stacy_pme]

I did notice Etsy doing lots of TV advertisements lately....

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

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@the-hook-and-the-loop wrote:

Nice to see everyone enjoying eBay's drugs(Promoted Listings). I have to use it, for there will be no sales. 80%-90% of sales now have "AD FEE STANDARD" applied to them.  It's an expensive habit at 10%-13% rates + the 12.9% on final taxed sale price. I can't wait to see how many more designer drugs eBay can mastermind in the near future. There is still profit for them to get.

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It is expensive.  And will continue to be, unfortunately.

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@the-hook-and-the-loop 

@katzrul15 

That's a bit of a personal decision!! Really all depends on whether you are comfortable "doing" drugs? I was told just to say no!! Thanks for sharing the analogy.   🙂 Very appropriate!! Anywhere we can anonymously report the pusher?? Maybe there would be a reward??

-Lotz

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

Unfortunately, it's not a choice. The second I reduce the rates, no sales. eBay techs aren't so stupid.

[zamo-zuan]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

Does this increase sales velocity for the site overall? We may think it does not, but ebay is the one with the internal data, and I'm guessing they see evidence that it is indeed increasing sales velocity overall.

Enhanced buyer satisfaction: When we look at the hundred or so competing items on our listing page, we see: clutter and a bad experience. But buyers who actually find stuff to buy in that "clutter" are probably happy, maybe even delighted when they come across something they didn't even know existed until that moment. Again, ebay has the internal data on this, we don't. 

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Regarding sales velocity, I'm not sure that their stock reports are in agreement with increased velocity.

They have a history of making decisions that defy logic. Such as during the "fidget spinner" fiasco where they admit that search favored high price items, acknowledging that it had brought sales down. The goal was to bring up the Average Selling Price... But why on earth would that be a more important variable than getting more sales on eBay (for buyers, sellers, or eBay themselves)?

They also have a history of making false claims of "satisfaction" to justify their changes. Early 2019 the management of the Motors category was visiting top sellers in person to discuss difficulties they may have been facing/things that could be improved/etc. Alongside showing them the technical issues we faced, one of the things I presented to them was the problems promotions were causing. They were very open about how promotions were one of the #1 complaints they received from sellers they visited, and while they know sellers are unhappy with it, that year was going to be a "year of promotions". They stated that they do know the issues but eBay is a "big ship and takes awhile to steer in a different direction".

Shortly after that, Wenig is speaking in public about how "seller satisfaction with promotions was so high that they're going to 'give us what they want' and give us even more promotions" and where he first promised a PPC promotion feature. He also made claims like the promotions feature got the best feedback from sellers of any feature they ever added, etc. 

All sellers know the truth, and those of us who were here on the forums at the time seen the truth. Promotions were certainly NOT the most well received feature, they actually created (and still create) a very turbulent environment. To treat us like we were "begging" for PPC ads? Get real.

I wouldn't presume their interpretation of internal data, nor their claims of buyer/seller satisfaction, are in any way rooted in reality.

In regards to starting a thread to get input on sellers, I think it's a great idea. Collecting data and figuring out how to best work in the environment we have is often times the only choice we have. If this is something we could do on a regular basis, it could be very beneficial to sellers. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@the-hook-and-the-loop wrote:

Unfortunately, it's not a choice. The second I reduce the rates, no sales. eBay techs aren't so stupid.

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To my mind its a variation of negative option billing or darned if you do and darned if you don't!!  Here's your lottery ticket. Hope you win but odds are not in your favor!!

-Lotz

[isaiah53-57]

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@2013grotz wrote:

I've mentioned it before: I went PL on all my listings (and adjusted prices accordingly), and will note about 90% of my sales since then are associated with PL.  So evidently it would seem to be a necessity.  Indeed, it does seem ebay is playing a "pay to play" game.

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@2013grotz  ebay is on tilt from where I stand - Here is a clip from a post I just made in another thread:

"So now on top of the estimated 15% to 20%+ that comes right off the top of your selling price in fees, they would like you to promote your items up to another 10%(or even higher) to get sales, pushing you to give up 25% to 30%+ of your items selling price in fees alone - If you own the item for half of the selling price, that essentially means it will take close to, or even over 50% of your profit to sell an item here using promoted listings, and THAT'S not taking into account ANY extraneous fees, time, or risk involved.

Its absolutely insane - When the program 1st came out several years ago, I posted that the use of promoted listings for any long term seller, was akin to putting the noose around your own neck...Hope they're having fun now..."