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?

[vintagecraze50]

At some point pay more to play is going to lead to the buyer cannot afford the product so they will go to the store down the street and buy it.

[vintagecraze50]

Economy bad, pay more to sell. Does not make too much sense to me.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@iamalwaysright wrote:

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@katzrul15 wrote:

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?

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How long after making the PL change have you noticed the change in sales? And how long is your sample duration to determine it as 'consistent sales'? And what was the 'suggested percentage' ebay gave you on those?

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@vintagecraze50 

@iamalwaysright 

@katzrul15 

Those eBay "suggestions" to say the least are a little whackadoodle. (Trying to be polite!) I just went to create a small promotion. I use the same percent across the board. The store category gave me a number of items that would all be in the same ebay category. With a minimum of 3 different rates in play for lower $ end of the spectrum listings. It could have been more. Ummmm huh??? Suggested out of the sky or a random number spinner?? Not sure!!

-Lotz

[dbfolks166mt]

At some point pay more to play is going to lead to the buyer cannot afford the product so they will go to the store down the street and buy it.

Already happening. I seldom buy anything on eBay these days simply because I can find it cheaper elsewhere and in the case of a B&M store have it quicker. 

[katzrul15]

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@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

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@iamalwaysright wrote:

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@katzrul15 wrote:

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?

---

How long after making the PL change have you noticed the change in sales? And how long is your sample duration to determine it as 'consistent sales'? And what was the 'suggested percentage' ebay gave you on those?

---

@vintagecraze50 

@iamalwaysright 

@katzrul15 

Those eBay "suggestions" to say the least are a little whackadoodle. (Trying to be polite!) I just went to create a small promotion. I use the same percent across the board. The store category gave me a number of items that would all be in the same ebay category. With a minimum of 3 different rates in play for lower $ end of the spectrum listings. It could have been more. Ummmm huh??? Suggested out of the sky or a random number spinner?? Not sure!!

-Lotz

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@lotzofuniquegoodies 

@vintagecraze50 

@valueaddedresource 

The "suggested" are whack-a-doodle AND once you take it to 10-12%, it then tells YOU that YOUR suggested is at least 10-12%.  lol

What a total scam.  SCAM!

[katzrul15]

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@dbfolks166mt wrote:

At some point pay more to play is going to lead to the buyer cannot afford the product so they will go to the store down the street and buy it.

Already happening. I seldom buy anything on eBay these days simply because I can find it cheaper elsewhere and in the case of a B&M store have it quicker. 

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Same here - rarely shop on this site unless I need something that is a retired item/vintage, etc.

[2013grotz]

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@dbfolks166mt wrote:

Already happening. I seldom buy anything on eBay these days simply because I can find it cheaper elsewhere and in the case of a B&M store have it quicker. 

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Honestly, been doing the same for quite a long time.  Ebay has basically been for very specific stuff I can't find readily via mail order (new stuff) or B&M.  Both offer things much cheaper than the average same item here.  Of course, after getting scammed on a cell phone, and getting socked to death by ebay FVFs, my outlook at buying anything here has gotten a lot dimmer.

That said, all my listings have been dead for views and no sales for quite some time now.  Evidently, any bump only lasts for that 30 days or whatever that's in the terms, but it wouldn't be surprising to me if I'm outbid now.

[ducks2k]

Flip side of the "shop elsewhere" logic is that, in my specialized area of collectable stamps, eBay has far and away the largest number of both buyers and sellers for these.   My buying is oriented to sellers that don't know what they have - frequently professional sellers, but with no detailed knowledge of this specialized area, or just have an item or two outside their specialty and can't describe/price it well.

In this case, all of the AI "help" in finding me what it thinks I am looking for is working 100% against me.  I am looking for misspellings, mispricings, and misplacements.  I am browsing for items outside the norm, and its suggestions are laughable, at best.

When I go to sell things, I wouldn't mind the AI help, except that the whole eBay philosophy can't distinguish between searching and browsing.  With searching, the buyer knows what he is looking for and does not want to see distraction ads.  A row of truly "similar" items might be helpful, but there is very little possibility of another seller being able to pay for good targeted advertisement that would directly compete with the specific item the buyer clicked on.  This is mainly due to terrible item specifics for collectable stamps - and the AI has not come remotely close to learning when or why two stamps might be "similar".

For browsing, the buyer does not have a specific item (sku) in mind and puts in search terms that have tended to return the wheat mixed in with a lot of chaff.  Whether the chaff is paid for or just a result of broad search terms is irrelevant - it is still chaff.  There are certainly times when I view, and even purchase from the chaff, but that is not really what I want to be doing.  I can't imagine that the impulse buying contributes more than 5% or so to GMV.

After more than a month of PLS (2%), I cannot attribute very many sales to the PLS - a significant percentage of the "promoted sales" are just due to the buyer taking the easy click that has been placed under his nose, rather than going back and clicking from his search or from my store category.  My guess is that virtually all of those would go away if my store categories could be organized by item title, instead of being presented in random order.  My stamps tend to be organized and collected in series, and mostly, are annual issues that I would like to present in order sorted by year.  If I could do that, my multiple sales would be from buyers going back and forth to the store category.  Advertisements could direct the buyer to "similar" series, but it does a terrible job of directing to "similar" stamps.  MY similar stamps would easily be ones with the same text, but a different year - but that is not how the AI sees it.

If sales "velocity" was a serious goal, my buyers would buy more things faster if the items were sorted.  Even more than that, a display mode that suppresses the image and just lists the item title and price info would allow MY buyers to cut 90% off their search time.  They could search out a series and instantly spot if I had any of the stamps they are missing.  I do this over on my own website with links over to the eBay items, but there is no practical way to integrate my website with eBay checkout.  For me, the 10% or so of fees would be worth it simply for the payments processing and funneling of new customers to me.  But, ... that is not how eBay wants to do business.  Sad, but it is still the best game in town.  I really do not wish to construct an eCommerce website.

[katzrul15]

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@ducks2k wrote:

Flip side of the "shop elsewhere" logic is that, in my specialized area of collectable stamps, eBay has far and away the largest number of both buyers and sellers for these.   My buying is oriented to sellers that don't know what they have - frequently professional sellers, but with no detailed knowledge of this specialized area, or just have an item or two outside their specialty and can't describe/price it well.

In this case, all of the AI "help" in finding me what it thinks I am looking for is working 100% against me.  I am looking for misspellings, mispricings, and misplacements.  I am browsing for items outside the norm, and its suggestions are laughable, at best.

When I go to sell things, I wouldn't mind the AI help, except that the whole eBay philosophy can't distinguish between searching and browsing.  With searching, the buyer knows what he is looking for and does not want to see distraction ads.  A row of truly "similar" items might be helpful, but there is very little possibility of another seller being able to pay for good targeted advertisement that would directly compete with the specific item the buyer clicked on.  This is mainly due to terrible item specifics for collectable stamps - and the AI has not come remotely close to learning when or why two stamps might be "similar".

For browsing, the buyer does not have a specific item (sku) in mind and puts in search terms that have tended to return the wheat mixed in with a lot of chaff.  Whether the chaff is paid for or just a result of broad search terms is irrelevant - it is still chaff.  There are certainly times when I view, and even purchase from the chaff, but that is not really what I want to be doing.  I can't imagine that the impulse buying contributes more than 5% or so to GMV.

After more than a month of PLS (2%), I cannot attribute very many sales to the PLS - a significant percentage of the "promoted sales" are just due to the buyer taking the easy click that has been placed under his nose, rather than going back and clicking from his search or from my store category.  My guess is that virtually all of those would go away if my store categories could be organized by item title, instead of being presented in random order.  My stamps tend to be organized and collected in series, and mostly, are annual issues that I would like to present in order sorted by year.  If I could do that, my multiple sales would be from buyers going back and forth to the store category.  Advertisements could direct the buyer to "similar" series, but it does a terrible job of directing to "similar" stamps.  MY similar stamps would easily be ones with the same text, but a different year - but that is not how the AI sees it.

If sales "velocity" was a serious goal, my buyers would buy more things faster if the items were sorted.  Even more than that, a display mode that suppresses the image and just lists the item title and price info would allow MY buyers to cut 90% off their search time.  They could search out a series and instantly spot if I had any of the stamps they are missing.  I do this over on my own website with links over to the eBay items, but there is no practical way to integrate my website with eBay checkout.  For me, the 10% or so of fees would be worth it simply for the payments processing and funneling of new customers to me.  But, ... that is not how eBay wants to do business.  Sad, but it is still the best game in town.  I really do not wish to construct an eCommerce website.

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@ducks2k 

It is sad.  Glad it still works for you on some level.

[ducks2k]

@katzrul15-- that is really the problem - it DOES work - it just could work much better.  It just seems odd that over the years, eBay has consistently made choices that are less good than they could be.  They do things in the name of "buyers" that I am sure buyers have not requested.  There are plenty of discussions here about how they have made it harder for sellers.  The idea that the marketplace could be made more profitable to them by selling advertising than it could be by making it a better marketplace is puzzling.  For a while, they can squeeze more profit out of existing sellers, but they are sacrificing future sales expansion by driving sellers away.

Amazon works for buyers - I don't know how it is for sellers, but Amazon either fits with, or has caused the decline in inventory variety of retail stores.  In many cases these days, It is quicker, easier and cheaper to shop for something with Prime next day delivery than it is to go to a retail outlet that has a wide selection on the website, but the store is limited.  The variety they no longer have in the stores is available weeks in the future.  Why bother?

I'm going to stick with eBay for both buying and selling until they screw up further.  I have essentially free fixed price listings and sales are regular, if not impressive.  I can see obvious, simple improvements eBay could make, but it requires motivation to make them, and eBay management does not see the marketplace the way I do, so they are unlikely.  Treating collector stamps and designer sneakers exactly the same way seems foolish, but, hey, I'm not making the big bucks here...

[2013grotz]

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@ducks2k wrote:

They do things in the name of "buyers" that I am sure buyers have not requested.  There are plenty of discussions here about how they have made it harder for sellers.  The idea that the marketplace could be made more profitable to them by selling advertising than it could be by making it a better marketplace is puzzling.  For a while, they can squeeze more profit out of existing sellers, but they are sacrificing future sales expansion by driving sellers away.

Indeed.  I remarked on it over in @katzrul15 's "Wage per Hour" thread.  Right now, ebay does very little for me and socks it to me hard otherwise for the scant little they actually do bring me.  Sales expansion = more FVF.  Which means for me if I move more product, they make more money. This shouldn't be hard for ebay execs to grasp.

You think they'd figure that out?   They never have since I started doing this thing.  As many may have figured out, I could have listed a warehouse full of stuff on this site, into the tens of thousands of items.  I haven't because ebay never was very proficient at giving me sales.  To the point that a lot of items I've had listed for months ended up either getting given away, auctioned or sold live.  So why did I never commit to trying for that many items?  I found I couldn't trust ebay for a little, yet lined up things on the site to punish me as a seller, such as the ebay buyer MBG, Managed Payments, Item Specifics, exorbitant FVFs, 1099-K and a whole host of other things.  Frankly there's just no enthusiasm for me anymore, especially compared to when I started selling on this account.

[iamalwaysright]

@katzrul15 

Sorry if this was already asked here, but when you raised to 10%, can you give an estimated percentage of your sales that show it was sold via promotions versus your entire sales that include the ones that were sold thru the non-PL listing? Thanks.

[katzrul15]

It says 100% of our sales were PL, but we did not promote everything listed.  It always says everything sold applies - no way to disprove, unfortunately.

[2013grotz]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

It says 100% of our sales were PL, but we did not promote everything listed.  It always says everything sold applies - no way to disprove, unfortunately.

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@iamalwaysright 

I've been posting estimates myself occasionally throughout this thread.  I promote everything and haven't touched it, so when I see a sale go out with an "Ad Fee" attached I know it's a PL sale. 

The problem is if you monkey with PL settings and promote something and then unpromote it, any click on the listing that brings a sale within a 30 day period while you had it promoted will still bring the PL fee.

[valueaddedresource]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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@ducks2k wrote:

@valueaddedresource- you really are "value added".  I had seen those popups but had still not understood them.  Not sure I do even now...   but closer...

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Thanks @ducks2k ! I do my best to live up to the name. 😉

Just to be clear, when I referenced #73 placement for an ad, I was talking about on the listing page, not the search results page.

The full picture is too large to display properly here in the community, but here's just an excerpt - on this one listing page I counted 116 competing ads on the page, including all the ones in the scrolling ad modules.

So for example the one I have highlighted with the green border, that module had an arrow that allows you to scroll to the right to see even more ads. That theoretical #73 spot would be there, where the buyer would have to scroll to see it, but technically it "appears on an eBay site" so I believe it would be counted as an impression, even if the buyer didn't scroll to physically view it....hope that makes sense.

Your questions about search do bring up a good point as well - does it count as an impression if your listing is displayed as a search result (whether organic or promoted) even if it is on page 5 and the buyer never gets that far in actual viewing?

Honestly, I can't say with 100% certainty. However, the wording of eBay's definition would suggest possibly yes.

If impressions literally are just the number of times your listing appears on any eBay site, that's a pretty broad definition and could potentially mean any time it is served as a search result, regardless of whether the buyer ever actually sees the listing or not.

I wish I could give you something more concrete than that, but that's just my informed opinion based on taking exactly what eBay has said about impressions at face value.

I think that interpretation of it may also help explain at least one reason why so many sellers see increases in impressions that don't equate to additional clicks or sales. As sellers, we tend to think of impressions as a potential buyer actually physically "seeing" our listings, but that may not always be the case.

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Just an update for anyone who is interested - I was able to get an answer to this in the recent monthly chat about PL.

The ads team confirmed that ads in the scrolling carousels on listing pages do count as impressions even if the buyer doesn't scroll to bring them into view.

They also confirmed that if your PL ad appears on page 2 of search results, it does not count as an impression unless/until the buyer actually navigates to page 2.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Monthly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Monthly-Chat-November-9th-at-1-00-pm-PT/m...

While they were not able to confirm if they plan to introduce ad carousels to the search results page, my guess is if they were to do so, then ads in the carousels on search page would also count as impressions, even if the buyer doesn't scroll to bring them into view.