Is Promoted Listings Standard a Hoax ?

[kidincandystore]

So I sold something to a buyer yesterday by manually activating the Best Offer setting so he could send me an offer for my listing.  I couldn't send him an email with an offer for some reason, so I updated my listing to have the Best Offer button to be available.  When the item sold, eBay charged me a Promoted Listings Standard fee.

I knew this wasn't the case because I made the sales by communicating with this guy via email and activated the Best Offer manually on my listing.  Please let me know how Promoted Listings Standard played a role in this method of sales.  Thanks 

[slippinjimmy]

How do you know that the buyer didn't originally find the listing via a Promoted Listing link? It could have been up to 30 days BEFORE they made any contact with you.

[wastingtime101]

It matters what link they clicked on when they found your listing in search, not how you negotiated the sale in the end.

[katzrul15]

The issue is you have no way to know.  You promote it, it sells, you pay. 

[kidincandystore]

As a matter of fact I just spoke to an eBay rep and that's what she told me.  Any listing set to Promoted Listing will pay Promoted Listing fees when sold.  I don't remember this was the case several months ago.  

[katzrul15]

This has always been my understanding.

Unfortunately, the fee applies. 

[valueaddedresource · Accepted solution]

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@kidincandystore wrote:

So I sold something to a buyer yesterday by manually activating the Best Offer setting so he could send me an offer for my listing.  I couldn't send him an email with an offer for some reason, so I updated my listing to have the Best Offer button to be available.  When the item sold, eBay charged me a Promoted Listings Standard fee.

I knew this wasn't the case because I made the sales by communicating with this guy via email and activated the Best Offer manually on my listing.  Please let me know how Promoted Listings Standard played a role in this method of sales.  Thanks 

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@kidincandystore  sorry to say, but you just found out the hard way that eBay charges the Promoted Listings Standard fee any time the buyer completes a purchase within 30 days of clicking on the promoted ad for that item - even if that purchase ends up being through a Best Offer.

Sellers have been asking eBay to give them visibility about whether Offers will incur Promoted Listings fees since at least 2019.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Discussion-with-eBay/Community-Chat-March-27-1-00-pm-PT-General...

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Discussion-with-eBay/Community-Chat-January-6-1-00-pm-PT-Genera... 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/How-can-you-tell-if-the-user-thats-sending-you-an-offer-g...

I've even spoken to eBay executives in charge of ads about this issue directly - they said they'd look into it and "pass it to the appropriate team" but nothing has ever come of it and sellers are still left in the dark on possible ad fees when negotiating offers.

I'd say at this point, it seems that eBay is not particularly motivated to address the issue.  The safest bet is to just assume the highest Promoted Listings ad rate you've used in the last 30 days may apply any time you are considering how low you are willing to go when negotiating prices.

[katzrul15]

Remember, the buyer would have clicked on it to view it before contacting you.  By doing so, they did click while it was promoted.

[reallynicestamps]

I believe this has always been the policy.

I use Best Offer parameters (high /low) so I rarely have to negotiate with the bidder. But the PL fee (never more than one percent for me) always applies.

As others have said, eBay believes that the listing was found because of PL items being slightly better in Search.

The actual selling price does not come into this.

[slippinjimmy]

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@kidincandystore wrote:

As a matter of fact I just spoke to an eBay rep and that's what she told me.  Any listing set to Promoted Listing will pay Promoted Listing fees when sold.  I don't remember this was the case several months ago.  

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You misunderstood what the rep said.

OR

The rep misunderstood your question

The promoted listing fee only applies if the ultimate buyer has clicked on a sponsored link within the previous 30 days before purchase.

[gracieallen01]

We know what the policy is supposed to be, but does that mean it may have not been a misunderstood question by the rep OR by a misunderstood response by the OP?

[wastingtime101]

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@slippinjimmy wrote:

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@kidincandystore wrote:

As a matter of fact I just spoke to an eBay rep and that's what she told me.  Any listing set to Promoted Listing will pay Promoted Listing fees when sold.  I don't remember this was the case several months ago.  

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You misunderstood what the rep said. OR The rep misunderstood your question

The promoted listing fee only applies if the ultimate buyer has clicked on a sponsored link within the previous 30 days before purchase.

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What Jimmy said is accurate. I promote all of my listings, but I'm not charged the ad fee on every sale. About 25% of my sales come with a PL ad fee.

[caldreamer]

Once you "promote" your listing you have to pay fee (regardless of "how" the sale occurred).   Even if you 
"ended promoted listing" and relisted item (if it sells within 30 after promotion ends EBAY still gets fee).

[kidincandystore]

That's how it was for me previously as not every transaction incurred a PL fee, but only a few.

Nowadays almost every transaction incurred a PL fee.  Especially those high priced items all incurred PL fees.   Yes, I do know I don't have to use it, but if I do, it was sold under PL every time.  LOL ok whatever 

[wastingtime101]

Then it sounds like PL is making a huge difference in your volume of sales. As long as you factor that fee in when pricing your items and sending offers, you're good to go.