How is promoted listings going to work?

[mrconran]

I understand promoting a listing will get the item higher placement.  However lets say you a model 123 widget. There are a number of other seller's that sell model 123 widgets both here on ebay as well as the entire world wide web. The model 123 widget is a current production item still produced and sold all over the place.

In order to be competitive with everyone selling on and off ebay you must keep prices in line with all other seller's here and off ebay.

My question of course is how are seller's going to keep drawing new buyer's to this site and their store here on ebay when the cost of selling keeps rising.

Ebay keeps telling seller's lower your price while on the other hand raising the cost of selling here.

I like selling here. I want to keep selling here, but I like all seller's need sales. 

Just about everyone selling new current items competes with a huge number of other seller's on the entire world wide web.

If I promote my items I would need to raise my prices. Just dosen't make any sense to me.

[mrconran]

In the end the buyer is going to pay for promoted listings.  I think the lowest priced item generally get the sale here. I try and keep my items at the top of that list. Lowest priced + shipping The seller at the top of that list is the one that is going to get the sale. 

I don't buy a whole lot here but that's how I search & buy. I can see where it could be different for used items, certain other items or one of a kind items. But current production items, who care whats at the top it's whats cheapest  that counts the most. 

Am I missing something?

[usmediamass]

I know that ebay's ceo has been bragging about all the money sellers are putting in his pocket for sponsored (promoted) listing.
So I am searching for car parts for an Infiniti on ebay. I have entered all the specifics and at the top of the page ebay put "Great! These fit your vehicle:"
The first one is for a Honda (sponsored) and will not fit on an Infinti.
Three out of the first five listings are sponsored and do not fit an Infiniti or Nissan.
Eleven out of the 29 listings are sponsored and are not even the same brand of car I am searching for.

But all of them are on the page and list that says "Great! These fit your vehicle:"
So sellers are paying to have parts shown to the wrong buyers and buyers can find what they are searching for.
I have read post from car part sellers about buyers buying the wrong parts. I know a lot of it is ebay's fault.
Sponsored adds that search filters do not block make shopping and selling a waste of time and money.
38% of the listings were sponsored and would not work even work for my car on the page that says "Great! These fit your vehicle:"
No wonder all of our traffic is disappeared and sales have dropped.
38% of the listing shown are from people that paid ebay to show me the wrong parts!

I wonder when people shop for items I sell if 40% of the items don't match the search.
And if someone orders from that page that says "Great! These fit your vehicle:" a seller will lose original and return shipping and soon pay 4% more for final value fees, and they paid ebay extra to make it happen.

[bubbleman2010]

Commodity type item sellers will just keep price chasing each other to the basement to make a sale. Not enough interested buyers to support the glut of merchandise listed here. Some new merchandise sellers here are already 20% below wholesale costs and include free shipping. Making 2 cents on every dollar invesment isn't a very good return on your money...

[mrconran]

I purchase most of my inventory direct from the manufacturer's. I buy enough to receive the greatest discounts I can. I don't mind low profit margins as long as I can sell enough. The Internet has made selling just about any new commodity very competitive.  I work on turns, gotta have turns. 

[selecttech]

It is not at all about being the lowest price on eBay for an item.  It is the overall value from the listing that gets put at the top. Example: I have a product just luanched last week from a previous listing that ran its course. I did a sell similiar, ended the old listing, promoted the new listing, filled the title description and speicifics, added great scalable photos, and bam. Top result is my promotion and number 4 listing is the organic listing top page out of 659 results. My price isnt the lowest and doesnt have to be. Its the value your listing offers to the buyer. Eventually, the organic listing will be number one and the promotion will ride with it. 

[mycheaperstuff]

Tagging on to the conversation.... I've been watching promoted listings.... here are a few thread-relevant personal observations... in no particular order...

eBay places 10 to 11 promoted listings on every page of 200 search results.  Two or three placed near the top of the page, 2-3 placed at the bottom of the page, and the rest scattered about.

Promoted listings are only shown in search results sorted by Best Match.  Once buyers sort by any other criteria sponsored listings are not shown.

Even if a one has options set to show seller names in search results, seller name is never shown on promoted listings. Sellers build no brand recognition from promoted listings and it difficult for sellers to find their items' promotional placement.

A great deal of promoted "listing impressions" are redirections that irritate and aren't much of an impression. For example, the initial best match results that search defaults to, redirects of sold item clicks, items frequently bought together, etc.

Trending rate is a self fulfilling prophecy... ebay says, "choose this advertising rate to be seen," so everybody chooses that rate, and viola, ebay gets the rate they want.  I've started asking other sellers what they use in the categories in which I sell.  I've yet to observe that the "average" rate is any where near as high as ebay trending rate.

Sellers I've talked to are all increasing price to cover promoted fees - ebay is developing a reputation as a high price site.

ebay promoted listing recommendations are those listings most likely to sell with or without promotion.

In order to honestly administer the promoted listings program as advertised, ebay must maintain a data base of every individual buyer that clicked on every promoted listing for 30 days. That is HUGE. The redirection of computing resources may be why there are so many system glitches. ...

Or maybe ebay is untruthful, and there is no such one to one database for all promoted listings.  If the program were being operated as advertised, there would be lots of examples of a seller selling an item that had been promoted, but the seller wasn't charged the promotional fee because that buyer had never clicked on the promoted listing.  I have found none. 

The weekly updated trending rates by category cannot be right. The drill down category rates - what sellers are actually charged are ALL substantially higher (in jewelery at least).