eBay

albany_sellers · ‎09-20-2021

At this stage I have decided to halt ALL promotions. No more promoted listings, period.

When it has sunk so low that we are now being asked to bid on keywords or be buried in the search results, it's time to rethink things and consider other avenues. I called it back when regular promoted listings were rolled out and said that this was just the start until something else came along like "super duper ultra mega major hyper uber promoted listings", and well, here it is.

You see, they knew something all along when promoted listings became a thing, and that is that eventually we would be promoting just to maintain what our sales were prior to promoted listings. eBay enjoys the extra fees and we all end up right where we started at while also "choosing" to promote. Now that everyone is promoted, apparently we need "super promotions" to be promoted over the regular promoted listings, so really, what is the point of bothering to even promote?

Repeat after me. When everyone is promoted, nobody is promoted. Go right ahead and try to compete with Promoted Listings Advanced and see how well that works out. Enjoy paying more and more just to get your listings seen.

I mean honestly, do quality listings even matter when you can just buy the top placement? Is it even worth it to have good photos, good descriptions and relevant keywords when someone else can just buy the spots?

My prediction, the search results are going to be a mess of low quality, irrelevant results that will serve to make eBay look like wish or alibaba. Buyers will get frustrated because what they want to find will be hidden from them in favor of purchased results. Sellers will get frustrated because doing a good job will be secondary to the people who pay to play, and many will leave for other platforms where they believe the playing deck is not as stacked against them.

For me personally, once my sales tank because of this, I will be taking the remainder of my listings elsewhere and double down somewhere else. There are a couple other places I have been watching and thinking about trying out, and this just might be the push I needed to do so.

caldreamer · ‎09-20-2021

Seems like...just another money grab.

flyingmvp · ‎09-20-2021

Your prediction is known and it will happen, even Jamie Iannone understands that.

The thing is, that the management of Ebay is temporarily, they are warming their seats and planning their next gig, they are invested in the future of Ebay even less then a Sri Lanka dropshipper of a $0.99 items from China 😀

As long as they can show short term profit and make the shareholders happy (for the duration of their stay) it's fine.

There is no need to get frustrated or disappointed, sellers should spread their wings and move on

the same way Iannone will move on to his next $18,000,000+ gig after Ebay, without looking back...

it is what it is.

toysaver · ‎09-20-2021

I see it as just away for eBay to try and make more money and ring up charges to sellers.

donsdetour · ‎09-20-2021

Hmm I see it as great trouble just on the idea of selling say brand names: or owned names and may violate owners rights....

This has happened to others....

Again: not so well thought out thing by eBay.....

tidbits4u2 · ‎09-20-2021

This is really getting ridicilous, now we have to bid against other sellers to sell our products, are you kidding me, promoted listings is alreay nonsense. Its already went from who is willing to pay the most fee's to sell your items to now we have to bid against each other, this is a sinking ship and has been for along time, and an absolute shame for people like me who really rely on eBay for income, guess it has come to the end, we all knew this would happen, just really sucks for smaller sellers like me, but thats what eBay has been trying to do all along is to get rid of all the small sellers and just rely on the large and corporate sellers. Meanwhile china gets to sell illegal knock off stuff for super cheap and gets a better deal on shipping than us, they probably get lower fee's to. There are so many wow factors now, this is the problem these days, anything good never stays good, the corporate greed will always prevail.

kswoodsman · ‎09-20-2021

Restack your deck and stop selling items where there are already 100 or 1,000 other like or similar items.
Be that 1 in 5 or 1 in 20 (at most) to get your item to stand out.

Then the work put into your ad listing will pay off for you.

The photo in the search results is the first thing they see of your ad.
Be sure your photos are (slightly) taller than they are wide or that they are 1:1 width vs height.
This gets the photo/listing to the take up the maximum allotted size in the search results.

Then do all you can to ship the sold item the same day it was purchased.

THIS will move you up in search results.

johneezstore · ‎09-20-2021

Totally agree with you. I'm sure they have it all over my account how I complain about Ebay and if another site started that could compete, at least 70% of small sellers would jump ship in a heart beat. I wish more people would go to the site that starts with a B and make them competitive. If enough sellers did it they would get more traffic.

luxgoods · ‎09-20-2021

Promoted Listings is already a joke. Why would anyone want to get involved with this disaster? Ebay Should really try to fix the search engine and stop sending me credit card offers

maros9416 · ‎09-20-2021

Spoken like a true champ! Not many realize the positive effects of the larger first photo. Also, the ( former ) basis of eBay was rare or hard to find items. I suppose the lowest price will always get attention as well.

flyingmvp · ‎09-20-2021

@luxgoods wrote:
Ebay Should really try to fix the search engine and stop sending me credit card offers

Why would they fix it?

The "advanced" promoted listings is just another product designed to take more money from the sellers, that's their main focus.

Ebay management decided to give up Ebay's position and placement as an Ecommerce platform, they can't compete with Amazon, or business owned websites (which many of the sellers here have) so they had turned to an advertisement platform where sellers are eating sellers while paying to play, Ebay is the broker and making the $$$ off it. buyers are leaving to better venues from known reasons, so sales are becoming a part time/ secondary source or interest of income for the Platform.

kus1617 · ‎09-20-2021

Click-bait listing doesn't come cheap...You want the maximum exposure You have to pay for it...Oh! and the affiliates need to be paid too...ICYMI...they just got a raise...😋

Anonymous · ‎09-20-2021

Ebay is intentionally trying to take advantage of sellers even further than they already do every day with their pathetic seller protections and fraud ridden marketplace.

Ebay knows that most sellers do not understand how an adsense type system works. They hope that sellers start engaging in bid wars against each other to get the top spot as they fight over the last crumbs on the table. The system only benefits Ebay as you pay as a seller to advertise regardless if your item sells or not. I know a lot of sellers who aren't on these boards who have never tried a system like this are going to throw a lot of money away trying to sell their items, that's exactly what feebay wants them to do.

And of all the millions ebay will make off this, not a penny will be spent on anti fraud measures, competent customer service, or any other feature that benefits sellers or the community in general. It'll go right into the executives wallets.

Milk that cow until she dies.

luckythewinner · ‎09-20-2021

@albany_sellers wrote:
When it has sunk so low that we are now being asked to bid on keywords or be buried in the search results

Where were you told you would be "buried in the search results"?

yuzuha · ‎09-20-2021

@kswoodsman wrote:
Restack your deck and stop selling items where there are already 100 or 1,000 other like or similar items.
Be that 1 in 5 or 1 in 20 (at most) to get your item to stand out.

Bingo. There's zero need to use Promoted Listings if you aren't trying to sell the same thing as hundreds of other people.