Pay-to -Promote

[brightfuture50]

I'm newer at selling (long-time buyer), and I'm testing the waters with the whole pay-to-promote thing. My question is this, isn't it likely that a seller will increase the price a little if they chose to pay-to-promote? I mean, that's what I feel like doing if it comes to that. Yes, I know it depends on what you're selling. I'm selling collectibles with a known following, so I know I don't necessarily have to pay-to-promote to get found. But, I may sell other things, so I'd appreciate knowing opinions across the board. 

[dhbookds]

Certainly a seller is going to cover all his costs with the price (and/or shipping) so it rather depends on what definition of "price" you use.  I can list an item, raise the price, put it on sale or I can just put the item on sale without raising the price because I know the margins I have on the item can bear the cut and still give me the "price" I basically want.  

[luckythewinner]

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My question is this, isn't it likely that a seller will increase the price a little if they chose to pay-to-promote? 

Yes. But there are 20 million sellers here so I suspect that some will not raise prices at all; some will raise prices by the amount they are promoting; and some will split the difference.

so I'd appreciate knowing opinions across the board.

Are you looking for opinions about what other sellers are likely to do, or are you looking for opinions about what you should do?

[12345jamesstamps · Accepted solution]

 I only promote the high end items now. Maybe 200 out of 3000.

I don't increase the price of promoted items.

I look at those sellers who sell the same items I am selling and undercut their price so my item is lower priced than their item. I rather give the savings to a buyer...not a bigger fee to eBay. I am into "repeat buyers" as a business plan. 

You don't have enough listed to promote. Maybe promote only one item. A buyer looking at that one promoted item will look at your other items that are not promoted.

I do promote my items above eBay suggested promoting. High price items will take longer to sell anyway.

[tobaccocardyahoo]

Do you expect your buyer to be looking for your items or to stumble on them from a wider search?

The answer tells you whether promotion will help.

Look at your search placement and number of competitors when you do a likely search. It will be obvious whether promotion might help.

[meme6253]

Ebay frowns upon the idea of raising your prices to offset the difference, But I do it & you should to, Actually everyone should!, They don't care about our profit margins, Only Theirs, So we have to look out for ourselves!

[redlinear]

You are correct(ish).   However, there are MANY things on eBay that just don't sell very well, or very fast.  Items that sellers have had listed for-ever.
Those items will be dropped to almost nothing, and promoted to high heaven. Just to get rid of them and get "something".  Which is a tad more than throwing them away. 
BUT, on items that do sell fairly well, the prices are increased so that the item can be promoted.  And it works.
You can view sold items and items that are currently listed.   You'll see that the items sold for prices all over the place.  (some high, some not).   
On semi-popular items, price (within reason) doesn't matter.  What matters is that the item gets seen.
   

[ebeths_eclectic_collectibles]

Another way to approach is my item isn’t selling should I promote or reduce prices. How about instead of reducing the price by 20% you try promoting 5 %

[brightfuture50]

I have to agree with you. Advertising costs money (and eBay's Pay-to-Promote is no exception), and every merchant in the world has to figure that into their price, preferably not their profit. That usually results in upping the price somewhat. It's not shady, it's standard practice.

[4pawsup*]

Simple answer is yes i do.

[brightfuture50]

I appreciate all this helpful feedback! I guess there's no cut-n-dried, right-or-wrong way to do this. It depends on what I'm selling - certain collectibles have a following that routinely search for them and rely on the organic search results. Even better, they have saved those searches and get emailed when I list something. If I decide to sell something like, IDK...toothpaste or cute sweaters, I may well have to promote them to get them seen. No offense to cute sweaters!

Raising prices somewhat to compensate for advertising costs is standard practice with all retailers worldwide, so why should it be different here? Ever notice in life how the longer an ad is the more the bottom line is? 

I love the suggestion that it's best, when possible, to lower the price and give that savings to the buyer rather than eBay. After all, eBay does things like charge me whatever they want for shipping labels / shipping AND gets its cut of whatever that is, while that cuts into my profit. So...yeah. I'll take this approach myself whenever it fits with what I'm selling (lower price - pass savings to buyer).

Thanks everyone!!

[pls-consignments]

I too sell collectibles. However, raising prices to off-set promoted expenses will only benefit other sellers who are selling the same item you are... for less. You would need to raise the fair market value of that item. Unfortunately, you can't do that on your own when many sellers in your category are lowering their prices to stay afloat. 

[ebeths_eclectic_collectibles]

The concept of promoting isn’t necessarily to sell your item at a higher price than the competition. All things being equal in price it is bring your item to the forefront or top of the search. 

[reallynicestamps]

With PL standard, you only pay for the promotion in Search if the item actually sells.

It's my experience (anecdote is not data) that PL items seem to sell at a slightly lower rate than nonPL listings.

As if PL brings eyeballs, but rather than buy, the customer browses and buys.

Again anecdote is not data.

Also, the reason to use PL rather than discounts, is that PL works better than discounts.

DH was dead against having discounts in our B&M store, believing that it made the purchase feel less "aspirational".

A Canadian seller has been tracking his PL and nonPL sales compared to discount offers and finds that PL works better. His experiment still has a couple of months to run,so results are preliminary.

EBay is not our friend , eBay is our landlord.

And everyone hates giving money to the landlord.

While buyers give us money, even if it is less money than we would like.

So emotinally, we prefer to give the buyer some sugar instead of the landlord.

But if on a  $100 sale we have 10% PL, we get $90.

And on a $100 we give a 10% discount , we get $90.

Which puts more money into our pocket?

[ebeths_eclectic_collectibles]

“But if on a  $100 sale we have 10% PL, we get $90.

And on a $100 we give a 10% discount , we get $90.

Which puts more money into our pocket?”

The next question should be if the result is the same which option lends itself to a faster turn or sell thru rate