Interesting Observation ; Only Promoted Listings Showing

[desertratmotosports]

So sales slowed down past few weeks right, no big deal.  Some times it consumer confidence fluxuations, weather, events, seasons, etc...  Since I'm full-time business as some of you are or even serious part-time I keep a keen observations on listing performance and competition.  It's common for me to search my own products logged in and not logged in.  I used the promoted listing feature on most products at a low rate, pay to play I guess.  I get a few sales via this system, but not consistent, no big deal. 

This is where it gets interesting.  So a drop in sales(20%) and a uptick in promoted listing sales, that's odd usually it is linearly correlated (Mathematics background, yes I use stats with my business).  I do a search of products that are using the promoted listing system and turns out, only the promoted (Sponsored) listing shows up in the search results.  The native listing are nowhere to be found.  So I conduct a search of items that are not apart of the promoted listing program.  These listings show up as normal and none of which are apart of the rolling blackout.  While it's no secret and apart of the user agreement that eBay can control when listings can be shown.  Kind of irks you at first, but it's their business and service, I'll give them that part.  However, eliminating all my native listings and only showing promoted listings to ensure conversion of the promoted listing program is....a bit sketchy and dabbling a grey area of fleecing your sellers.

Thoughts? Not intended to bash eBay by this post.  I never been done wrong by CSR and I have conducting many sales through eBay.  I mean, from a business perspective, if this is how it's going work, would it behoove of me to cancel promoted listings?

[threshold.sales.group]

15th out of 21 in Best Match.

Just a thought, I doubt promoted listings are a very good fit for most items. In your case the type of sku's are specialized and cater to buyers who already have some knowledge of the category and likely have made the decision to purchase - just deciding where.  To that buyer the promoted listing may actually be a turn off.  With 20 or so potential offerings, that's not overwhelming job for the buyer to quickly scan the selection.  

My hunch would be any downturn in sales is unrelated to the promoted listings and more to do with price - ebay has switched the "lower price" notifications to lookers into overdrive the last few months. Now if I click on listing and don't complete a sale, I'll get pinged with notices that there are lower price options (or that the price on the one I checked out has been lowered).  

[coolections]

Well said. Buyers can care less about a seller's problems. They see the sellers stuff and that is all that matters. If they buy they buy.  In most all cases price is the major factor so it doesn't matter if you are #14 or #25 or #2 on the best match list.

[l.a.toy.shop]

its been confirmed folks by eBay. There is a problem and we are loosing sales due to this issue.

[l.a.toy.shop]

Besides an open ticket on this matter, I also opened a billing inquiry for a discount or partial refund since some listings are only showing as sponsered. So that was my case, we will see in 72 hours what they say.

[l.a.toy.shop]

Hey, I did the same and turned off sponsored listing on my top seller and gave it half hour. My listing did not pop up like yours. But what I did notice that it was now showing at the sponsored listings at the bottom of the page. If I turn sponsored listings on, that listing shows at the top of the page and bottom in sponsored. But my regular listing never came back up even with sponsored listings off.

[moondogblues]

"Confirmed. Got off the phone with eBay. While giving them examples, I also noticed the issue with other sellers. I was asked to NOT cancel my promoted listings until they look into the item numbers for those on Promoted Listing program. I will give them 3-4 business days and I'm going to have to turn it off, it's 130 something listings, and it's costing me sales. Majority of my sales recently have been from my non-promoted listings, because they are not at the bottom like the promoted ones.

Now the question is what will happen to my original listings when a search is done. Will they re-appear or while they remain in the eBay seach engine abyss. Months ago this would have been moot and would be a non-issue with the original native listing."

Are the 'promoted' listings the ones that say "Sponsored"? I rarely click on those because I thought they were from big box stores...so if that is the case it could be a perception issue.

[moondogblues]

Hi bubbleman!!!!

[desertratmotosports]

No idea on who is allowed to use the Promoted Listings, it's an additional service that was offered several months ago.  I average $1-1.5K in coversions just from it alone.  However, the issue wasn't the decrease in conversions from original listings and promoted listings, it was that the original listings dissapeared when I used the service. 

No worries, I turned them all off and within a few hours my original listings reappeared in the search results yielding a couple hundred in sales.  I think the the promoted listing system is currently broken at the moment. 

[labs118]

How fun ebay shows only the promoted listing that they get an extra piece of , you pay the extra %
But not showing the original listing that many got sales from
and think all those extra promoted listings now that the credit just came out for the Spring 2017 seller updates.
more sellers will be promoting, more money for ebay ! 

Appears happening to many

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Promoted-listing-broken-and-costing-sellers-sales-and-...

I asked Customer Service if the extra cost that sellers are paying will be refunded since now sellers who are promoting thier listing are only getting the sponsered listing shown and if a sale is made it can only be a sponsered item.

I received no answer,but was told it would be forwarded to the proper parties.

Promoted listings is broke and has affected sales and best match placement. Ebay advertises that it increases visibility and has no effect on best match but until it is fixed that is not true.

[d-k_treasures]

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@moondogblues wrote:


Are the 'promoted' listings the ones that say "Sponsored"? I rarely click on those because I thought they were from big box stores...so if that is the case it could be a perception issue.

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I thought the same thing too. If they call them 'promoted listings' for sellers, why aren't they called 'promoted listings'? Sponsored listings to me implies that you will be going off-site.

[desertratmotosports]

I turned them all off yesterday and the faucet has been turned back on :-).  Lesson learned.  Watch, an email will go out about how many promoted listing conversions they had and why you should opt into it...LOL.  I love eBay, I do.  When something is broken and you know that it is, maybe you should send an email out to people who subscribed to it.  I know if my client files a case item not received, item not as described, I AM expected to resolve it,  I can't simply ignore it. 

[Anonymous]

Hey everyone, I just wanted to step in and let you know that we’ve become aware of a recent technical issue related to our promoted listings offering. On March 31, we rolled out a routine product update on the marketplace. After the rollout, the ‘promoted listing’ appeared properly, but a subset of users experienced a scenario where their listing was not visible in organic search. We are currently working on a fix to address the underlying problem. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Impacted sellers will be refunded the promoted listing fees starting from 3/31 until such time as the fix is complete.

[dhbookds]

that's good news Trinton, I trust you will let people know when it's fixed? And do the "subset" who were impacted have to get on a list to get the credit or do you have the info?  Probably would save some questions if it were to be put on the Current System Status board? 

@Anonymous

[d-k_treasures]

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@dhbookds wrote:

that's good news Trinton, I trust you will let people know when it's fixed? And do the "subset" who were impacted have to get on a list to get the credit or do you have the info?  Probably would save some questions if it were to be put on the Current System Status board? 

@Anonymous

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The 'subset of users' were probably all of the ones who used the  promoted listings ..... you always have to read between the lines.

After the rollout, the ‘promoted listing’ appeared properly, but a subset of users experienced a scenario where their listing was not visible in organic search.

Sure wish the 'jump to last post read' was fixed ....

[ryanrobyn]

Are they supposed to call you back. If so don't hold your breath. After selling for about 1 3 years I have NEVER received a promised call back. Ebay reps don't know what a promise is and only tell people that to get them off their back.