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?

[2013grotz]

---

@dbfolks166mt wrote:

Who is making that suggestion? 

Ebay is, on the "Active Listings Screen" under "Promoted Listings".   "Suggested ad rate" is one of the options in setting a PL percentage.  I was wondering aloud how this "6.8%" is derived and what the figure actually represents.

---

@dbfolks166mt wrote:
You have no way of knowing if this will happen and no way of knowing if it does whether the PL was what caused the sale.

I don't know if raising ad rate to "Suggested ad rate" will make a sale, which is why I suggested the experiment.  But ebay will charge a promotions fee ("Ad Fee Standard" in the financials) in addition to the FVF if a PL click led to the sale.  So in that way I know exactly whether it is the PL that caused the sale, as I've noted a couple of times already in this post.

(Do you even know what we are talking about here?)

[katzrul15]

---

@2013grotz wrote:

---

@katzrul15 wrote:

Same here - tweak the PLs down, even slightly = no sales at all

I had a thought.  I keep wondering what this "Suggested ad rate" is exactly, and if it's this point.  Right now I'm running with a constant %, but it is always below the "Suggested ad rate".   I'm wondering if I go to those "Suggested" rates, if sales are going to pop on them.  Of course, I'd have to raise my prices a lot further (honestly I'd have to double them to recoup all my costs here), but half-tempted to find a sane set of items to test that on.

Overall, I'm not really getting how anyone sells here and makes a reasonable profit.  I sure don't.

---

@2013grotz 

I did raise my prices to cover what I "thought" was 10%.  Problem with that is you have no idea what sales tax will be (yes, you can guess), but you end up eating some, as a result of sales tax delta, international fees charged as Buyer pays from outside US, even with US addy, etc)

[flyingmvp]

---

@2013grotz wrote:

---

@katzrul15 wrote:

Same here - tweak the PLs down, even slightly = no sales at all

I had a thought.  I keep wondering what this "Suggested ad rate" is exactly, and if it's this point.  Right now I'm running with a constant %, but it is always below the "Suggested ad rate".   I'm wondering if I go to those "Suggested" rates, if sales are going to pop on them.  Of course, I'd have to raise my prices a lot further (honestly I'd have to double them to recoup all my costs here), but half-tempted to find a sane set of items to test that on.

Overall, I'm not really getting how anyone sells here and makes a reasonable profit.  I sure don't.

---

We have here few sellers who experimented and came back with an evidence that shows the "Suggested ad rates"  are Bot made abstract numbers that are designed to bait you to hand more $$$ to the venue while your profits decline steadily.

that's how and why sellers are forced to raise their prices to cover for the Additional fake
suggested" ad costs while pricing Ebay out of competitiveness as a whole and sending buyers to shop elsewhere...

[nuclearomen]

all i know it's day 5 of no sales here - when they released the new listing tool - getting sick of having to do 1000 things to get one sale - so i'm not, started adding listings to another platform this morning I use time to time. 

[dbfolks166mt]

all i know it's day 5 of no sales here - when they released the new listing tool - getting sick of having to do 1000 things to get one sale - so i'm not, started adding listings to another platform this morning I use time to time. 

I still manage a sale on eBay now and then but I diversified long ago and these days about 80% of my items sell on other venues/platforms. I wind up spending more time deleting listings on eBay than I do processing sales. 

[nuclearomen]

---

@dbfolks166mt wrote:

all i know it's day 5 of no sales here - when they released the new listing tool - getting sick of having to do 1000 things to get one sale - so i'm not, started adding listings to another platform this morning I use time to time. 

I still manage a sale on eBay now and then but I diversified long ago and these days about 80% of my items sell on other venues/platforms. I wind up spending more time deleting listings on eBay than I do processing sales. 

---

@dbfolks166mt sad isn't it, just gets worse and worse, and before long out of tricks in bag to pull. Thus i'm just not going to do anything (for now, atm) just don't have the energy today to deal another day with it all. 

[kathieskorner]

I am on day 8 of no sales on all four accounts - haven't been to the post office since Saturday 9/9.    While my decline in sales started in 2021 - it has been spiraling since May of this year.   Three of my accounts have been forced into the frustrating new listing tool.  Going to see if I can import the listings on one of them to my old ponderosa account parking garage since sales have dropped to one in August and one in September.  May re-open my old betsy account for higher priced items - they have been making changes as well, but at least they are advertising the site.  Will keep adding listings to the account that has not yet been forced to the new listing tool.  

Going to have a huge estate sale after Thanksgiving, and then decide where I go from there. 

[nuclearomen]

---

@kathieskorner wrote:

I am on day 8 of no sales on all four accounts - haven't been to the post office since Saturday 9/9.    While my decline in sales started in 2021 - it has been spiraling since May of this year.   Three of my accounts have been forced into the frustrating new listing tool.  Going to see if I can import the listings on one of them to my old ponderosa account parking garage since sales have dropped to one in August and one in September.  May re-open my old betsy account for higher priced items - they have been making changes as well, but at least they are advertising the site.  Will keep adding listings to the account that has not yet been forced to the new listing tool.  

Going to have a huge estate sale after Thanksgiving, and then decide where I go from there. 

---

yeah, I've heard (and seen same exact fall in PL on the 6th) from various people, that last sale fell on this weekend between 9th-11th (11th for me) - something site wide is happening, don't know what but something went haywire - to many coincidences seller to seller, graph to graph. But anyways... I do Mercari - it sucks, it's no ebay (in good times) but I have had sales there, in the last 4-5 month span I sold there had 40+ sales, just I don't sell vinyl there well and have to ship outside that platform (pirate ship) cause they don't do media there... but that's why I have a lot of gaming merch I use for there, I pulled most all gaming merch from ebay a year ago. 

[earthdreamer]

Decided to expriment with a Suggested Ad Rate campaign on around 20 of my items, but so far have not received a single new view on any of them. Mind you, I only began the campaign yesterday, so may need to give it more time. 

The vintage designer jewelry sells OK, though mainly only through auctions, and to loyal repeat buyers, so not doing any promos with these at this stage.

The new jewelry, on the other hand, is refusing to budge. I don't have many items listed so far, but they are the pick of my best sellers from my B&M store, and I am listing them around 30% cheaper than in store. 

Have added 10%+ promo rate to these, and will see how they go.

I suspect I will need to increase the quantity of my listings, and though I have thousands of items in stock which could be listed, I am hesitant to invest all the extra time if it is for nought. Kind of a catch-22 situation. 

[zamo-zuan]

---

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

---

@richard1rst wrote:

Understand that it is not my intent to provoke an argument, I am simply continuing on with my underlying theme:

“I’ve just had my brain washed and I can’t do a thing with it:”

I have an independent web site. I have NEVER paid Google any ad words or promotional fees. HOWEVER you can not imagine the sheer ecstasy of one day finding my site as line one, page one of Google search. And my picture as the first picture on line one of Google images. The explanation is rather simple. I had something no one else had. They sold out rather quickly proving that some people wanted them.

The classic success adage: Find a need and fill it.

That one, admittedly, fluke aside my independent site and my eBay listings frequently show up on page one of Google search and both my independent pictures and my eBay pictures show up in the first few rows of Google images. And by the way, NONE of my pictures have a pure white background which Google supposedly demands. Another brainwash debunked.

It does require some effort. There are sites that offer, for free, listings suggestions and other sites that offer, also for free, to review your listings and point out shortcomings. Of course for that to work people are going to have to put heir Cognitive Dissonance on hold. And for some, it seems, that is impossible.

Pay for Play may be here but I do not accept that you must join.

It’s that Groucho Marx thing again.

---

It's become a high stakes poker game with only the Mega Players being able to ante in. Now a matter for everyone else to know when to walk away or know when to run. (Apologies KR moment.) Similar to how eBay explained collecting taxes from all as "levelling the playing field".

-Lotz

---

Nah... "Leveling the playing field" was taking everything related to the purchase, such as tax, shipping, etc and combining it to one "transaction" and having the fees automatically taken out at the time. Combining it in such a way that they could charge fees on the ENTIRE TRANSACTION. Claiming that it's the "same as PayPal because they had their fees". 

Rather than doing it in the traditional way, where promotions, shipping, etc would be put on a BILL and charged separate from the FVF. 

And pretending to give us "stellar USPS price cuts" while hoping people don't realize that once you add the eBay FVF, you're paying far more than you would if you got your label outside of eBay.

That's "levelling the playing field" in their opinion. Giving themselves the advantage to trickle more and more out of sellers and hoping they don't notice. 

[zamo-zuan]

---

@dbfolks166mt wrote:

A year from now, are we going to see posts stating "I listed my items with promoted listings at 25%, and got nothing. But when I upped PL to 35%, my sales picked up big time". How far does one think eBay is going to take this? Until PL becomes a required program, starting at a certain % ?

This is the down side to PL and the prisoner's dilemma. It in essence becomes a race to the bottom at the sellers expense and eBay's gain. 

---

It's not really eBay's gain, as they've pushed things so far that they're approaching the point where it's almost cheaper to buy the items in store rather than on eBay.

I hope they made their short term gains by then, because once that line is crossed, eBay's numbers and all our sellers numbers are going to plummet.

[earthdreamer]

It's not really eBay's gain, as they've pushed things so far that they're approaching the point where it's almost cheaper to buy the items in store rather than on eBay.

Here Down Under that is already the case for the cheaper items. Virtually all of the under $15 items that I sell in my store are more expensive on ebay. In fact, that is one of my selling spiels, letting people know they will pay more on ebay! (Yeah, not very smart when I am trying to start my own ebay selling campaing...)

[zamo-zuan]

---

@earthdreamer wrote:

It's not really eBay's gain, as they've pushed things so far that they're approaching the point where it's almost cheaper to buy the items in store rather than on eBay.

Here Down Under that is already the case for the cheaper items. Virtually all of the under $15 items that I sell in my store are more expensive on ebay. In fact, that is one of my selling spiels, letting people know they will pay more on ebay! (Yeah, not very smart when I am trying to start my own ebay selling campaing...)

---

Of course they're just going to blame it on the economy and rising gas/shipping prices.

Meanwhile, look at the percentages they're getting off promotions?

Recently they even literally said they would take it to "double digits". In reality, if they didn't exploit that so much, and actually gave us shipping discounts instead of disguising shipping prices increases as a discount, we would be far cheaper than stores.

[katzrul15]

---

@zamo-zuan wrote:

---

@dbfolks166mt wrote:

A year from now, are we going to see posts stating "I listed my items with promoted listings at 25%, and got nothing. But when I upped PL to 35%, my sales picked up big time". How far does one think eBay is going to take this? Until PL becomes a required program, starting at a certain % ?

This is the down side to PL and the prisoner's dilemma. It in essence becomes a race to the bottom at the sellers expense and eBay's gain. 

---

It's not really eBay's gain, as they've pushed things so far that they're approaching the point where it's almost cheaper to buy the items in store rather than on eBay.

I hope they made their short term gains by then, because once that line is crossed, eBay's numbers and all our sellers numbers are going to plummet.

---

This is SO true.  No traffic = no sales.

[ladyindecadence]

It appears something was changed on the 1st and and fully integrated by the 6th PLS impressions went much higher the ever before then started to fall and have continued to fall. This seems very similar to whatever ebay did in early may of this year that killed sales for almost two months.