New Promoted Listing Rules are now in effect. Halo

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

It is March 30th. The new PLS rules regarding Direct and Halo sales are now in effect. 

Also, as of today, a buyer is now said to have "viewed" a Promoted Listing even if he has not clicked through to the listing, as long as he clicked the "heart" to put the item on his watch list.  (This change impacts both PLS and PLA fees.)

Both of these changes expand the number of sales that can be treated as a PLS sale.

IF you use PLS , you should familiarize yourself with these changes if you haven't already.

[cardxcraft]

I think @heckofgame is on point with this, but I'm in your boat...I'll see how it is for a few months with no promoted listings.  We'll see how it plays out.  So far I have 23 views today.

[cardxcraft]

No, the subsequent purchase has to be promoted; and you're charged the PL rate at which said item is promoted 

For example, buyer purchases item A with a PL rate of 2%, comes back later, 15 days, and purchases item B PL rate of  10%....you're charged the PL rate of 10%

[zamo-zuan]

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@bill.purvis2012 wrote:

My understanding is that it is now the "Buyer" who is followed and not the ad or item. In other words, if a buyer clicks on your promoted lidting and buys something else entirely even if it isn't a promoted item, you pay for the promotion.  

Sellers will be paying promoted fees on unpromoted listings because a buyer may purchase one of the seller's unpromoted listings.  If they go to the seller's store and purchase anything, the seller will be charged for it as a promoted listing whether it is or not. 

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I just want to repeat something that I had mentioned earlier when this was first announced:

I'm fairly confident this is already how it was working to begin with. There was far too many inconsistencies. And there's no way that PL are realistically getting a 8% conversion rate like the traffic statistics claim. 

We'll see in a few weeks if the statistics are different in the future compared to now.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@bill.purvis2012  No, not exactly. It's a bit more complicated than that

Item A is shown to buyer as sponsored. Buyer clicks....here are 3 scenarios:

1. Within 30 days, buyer clicks on and buys your Item B. Item B is NOT in your PLS campaign. There will be no PL fee, just as under the old rules there is no PL fee for an item that isn't in a PL campaign.

2. Within 30 days, buyer clicks on and buys your Item B.  If Item B is shown as sponsored, seller pays a fee. But that has nothing to do with the 30 days and Item A. That's simply because, just as under the old rules, if you click on and buy a sponsored item, seller gets hit with the fee.

3. Within 30 days, buyer clicks on and buys your Item B. If Item B is NOT shown as sponsored, but IS in your PL campaign, seller pays the PLS fee as if Item B had been shown to the buyer as sponsored. This is a "Halo" sale. This is what is different. 

A common example of this: Within my own store, my items---even though they are in a PLS campaign---are NOT shown as sponsored. So, until today, anyone coming directly to my store----say, from my social media site---could buy stuff and there would be no PLS fee. But now....

Buyer clicks on my item A (a sponsored item) and , oh, 2 weeks later is on social media, sees a post I made for my ebay store, clicks through to my store and buys an item that is in my PLS campaign (but is not shown as sponsored, since its in my own store). ebay will look back and find the click on Item A (which, in fact, had nothing to do with the buyer coming to my store), but , once they find that click, the sale will be attributed to the fact that 2 weeks before the buyer had clicked on item A, and I will therefore have to pay the PLS fee. 

I will definitely be evaluating the impact of this change on my business.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

devon@ebay   Another question for the ads team. Again, quoting from the Announcement's FAQ:

• Yes, if a buyer adds your promoted item (Advanced or Standard) to their watchlist by clicking the heart icon, it is considered an ad click. It is not considered an ad click if a  buyer removes the same item from their watchlist based upon the expanded definition of a click. 

I'm confused. 

As to PLA, is this correct?

If a buyer clicks the heart icon to add to watchlist, that is a "click" resulting in a PLA fee.

If a buyer removes an item from his watch list, it is NOT a click, and so no PLA fee.

So, adding to watch list= PLA fee

Removing= No PLA fee.

As to PLS, is this correct?

If a buyer clicks the heart icon to add to watchlist, that is a "click" which could result in a PLS fee.

Now, what is the effect of this:

Click heart icon on Item A to add to watch list.

Two days later, click heart icon to remove Item A from watch list.

Within 30 days of the first click on the heart icon, buyer buys Item B from me, which is an item in my PLS campaign. Am I charged the Halo PLS fee? OR----does the fact that the buyer removed Item A from his watch list before the Item B purchase negate the PLS Halo fee?

Again, prompt answers would be appreciated. Thanks!

[chapeau-noir]

Oh, gawd. 😖

[simply-the-best-for-you]

Thanks for the reminder.  3 sales so far today, nothing indicating they were Halo, but then again, where I'm looking may not be where they put the notification.  Has anyone seen one yet & know where/how it's denoted?

[meekamaye]

Thank you! That always had me so confused. Sometimes I tend to read more into things than I should. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@simply-the-best-for-you  

From the Announcement's FAQ:

"...the Promoted Listings Halo item sale change is only applicable to clicks after March 30th, 2023 at 8AM PDT. It is not retroactive. Any Promoted Listings Standard clicks before March 30 will not be considered for this change."

So, I'm guessing for some of us, especially smaller sellers, it might be a few days or more before we see a Halo sale. Sellers with existing PLS campaigns with a lot of items in the campaign might see something sooner.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@simply-the-best-for-you  

From the Announcement's FAQ:

"...the Promoted Listings Halo item sale change is only applicable to clicks after March 30th, 2023 at 8AM PDT. It is not retroactive. Any Promoted Listings Standard clicks before March 30 will not be considered for this change."

So, I'm guessing for some of us, especially smaller sellers, it might be a few days or more before we see a Halo sale. Sellers with existing PLS campaigns with a lot of items in the campaign might see something sooner.

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques  Maybe, but all my items are promoted & 2 of my sales today qualify, so depending on navigation, I could have seen one already.  I expect to see one very soon. 

[dolcetreasures]

PL %’s are absolutely absurd now. The lowest suggested rate I can see on any of my items is 9% going up to 19%. Absolutely astonishing to think that eBay thinks I can pay that from my eBay sales. I would need to be robbing stores to pay that. 

[lakefor94]

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@the-hook-and-the-loop wrote:

I expect a huge drop in eBay's "money grab" income today. If you'll remember last May when everyone's sales stopped, well today eBay is self-inflicting the same wound that it's sellers suffered(and are still suffering).

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I was under the impression eBay was going to make more money from sellers. I doubt they have this figured incorrectly. 

[nuclearomen]

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@meekamaye wrote:

Thank you! That always had me so confused. Sometimes I tend to read more into things than I should. 

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welcome...that's just the 30 day rule... still not sure about the heart thing... but really it's just going to be any item sold will be given pl fee in most cases if you run pl on that item... as @zamo-zuan said, pretty sure it's always been set up like that, the amount of sales on PL have increased since it's inception to the point that most all sales have a PL attached, the heart will just help them reinforce the applied extra fee. The issue is since all this new PL fee things was announced and they have been working on it's implementation actual sales have gone down hill. It's day 4 here not a sale in sight... aside from the issues I have seen on my own account, have heard a great deal more from others past 2 weeks and see nothing but huge no sales trends going on. There use to be strategies one could do that would turn that around but I have tried them all and nothing has mattered. Even increasing elections by 2-3% has shown no difference or change. Now MAYBE as someone said - this is result of things needing to catch up on their end, adjusting to the new system or whatever, but it's fact they made changes to the algorithm most definitely in the past week, it's shown via GTC sales  or lack there of. Seems some are having luck with auction style listings but auctions aren't for everything. 

In the end, used PLs since they started and I as many others have seen how sales went from 20-20% on PL to basically every sale in that time... and the cost has risen to do it as well, brings the average FVF to total minimum of 16-17% but I've seen many having to pay 25-27% total because they are jacking the PL elections at 10+% - for a company who talks about inflation but has created (at least aided) that inflation is quite ironic. Bottom line is they intend to collect PL fee for every sale marketplace wide and they will get it one way or another, these new rules help them achieve that goal. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@simply-the-best-for-you  It could certainly happen. let us know what you discover.

[shag182]

Can this flipping image NOT be shown every time I sign on FEEbay??  Over and over and over again is bordering on ABUSE.  PROMOTE PROMOTE or be THROTTLED, THROTTLED. I am NOT amused. 😠