Regards,
@nuclearomen wrote:
@zamo-zuan wrote:By design, it will be IMPOSSIBLE for PLA to not decrease the value of PL. Same as it was impossible for PL to not decrease the value of organic listings.
@nuclearomen went over it pretty well already. EBay is the only one to benefit out of PL and PLA. It increases costs for sellers, and inadvertently increases costs for buyers (as sellers can not reduce price as much as they would otherwise if they're paying for PL). The only one to benefit is eBay. BUT higher prices on eBay as a whole HURTS eBay at the same time.
The problem lays in the fact, that aside from bid on top search slots...because only fools buy the first listing they see for something, let's be honest, when is the last time you search for something seen the first listing or first 2-3 even and just automatically bought it? I don't know, sure it happens but most people are hesitant and tend to look for awhile before they decide.
The issue is that while the existence of PLA and PLE will no doubt bring higher costs for things for buyers, just as PLS has, any business sense person will add the cost of the elected rate to the price of item regardless if it sells on the PL or not. But with PLA / PLE there is no way to accurately determine the cost that will be for seller to sell 1 of those items...the only way is to say something like "OK, we will assume that item will sell within 10 clicks or 20 clicks or 30 clicks... therefore if we commit $0.10 per click we need to adjust price by $3 to cover the cost per clicks we will be paying for that results in no sale in order to still make profit when we happen to sell 1 of those items on PLA" ... that is a HORRIBLE way to conduct business, very risky, and has potential for loss to seller if they don't determine correctly (and how could you?) how many "clicks" it will take for a sale... if we could do that we 1. wouldn't need PLA / PLE or even PLS 2. wouldn't be having this discussion cause no one would be paying for CPC if we know item will sell within xx amount of clicks. 3. Ebay wouldn't attempt to waste time offering PLA's. On top of fact rising prices maybe everywhere these days for everything and anything but there is still a point where buyers says "to hell with you, no way, $20 for pencil, $90 for a vinyl or CD, $200 for a book, I'll go somewhere else, XXXX ebay/seller!" - all because ebay and them alone has forced sellers to raise prices due to fees and then shipping (if offer free like me or even if don't most sellers include a increased cost in the price of item for shipping and supplies).There's a reason eBay claimed we would NEVER see PPC ads on eBay. But here we are. Just driving more trust issues with eBay.
Idk, never heard them say this myself, but maybe they did. I personally feel PPC (or CPC cost - per - click) was in the plan the moment PLS started couple years ago on ebay. I also personally feel that PLS is a form of PL that sellers have come to accept and be OK with as the model works of pay if sells, not CPC. Most sellers are not happy with the idea of CPC and for good reason!
PL themselves have already led to non-stop algorithm changes almost weekly. It's a system that is impossible to balance with the thousands of categories on eBay. As one direction means PL will be necessary to get sales, the other says PL won't be worth the money, so the algorithm constantly switches the balance back and forth, category by category. It causes volatility and instability.
The algorithm is the reason why PLS has so many horrid performance issues now and why sellers are experiencing both mass loss of impressions that stay to a decline and also considerably less impressions all together and the amount of them since they instituted the new algorithms prior sell update to this one. Look at your graphs and it is clearly visible. My impressions are rarely going over 20-25 thousand these days, no matter what I do or how many campaigns I end and start or how often. This time last year and the whole time we have had PLS since I have used them since the start were always minimal 40 thousand + now, never, sometimes they are at 15 thousand or less. No matter, because the algorithm use to be able to be beat and/or at least tricked by ending and starting a new campaign and impressions would sore on a steady for longtime back up to those numbers ...now it cannot be, end and start campaign every week if want but those impressions will never regain and if they do they will drop within 24-78 hrs. One reason is because the algorithm is favoring listing activity (not selling activity), less seller is active with daily new listings, the more ones impressions will continue to decline - FACT - I have watched this happen for months and have gone through the results here with @mr_lincoln who happened to also fine a interesting comparison of when spikes happen (leave that to him to explain). Simply put, idk if ebay employees algorithms that learn on their own as time goes by, but you cannot trick or beat it now like use to.
It's silly that sellers have to spend less time focusing on how to make their customers happy, and more time figuring out what is working well in the current algorithms, including "what percentage of PL will actually get me impressions this week?".Indeed, but it's not silly, it's sickening... the amount of time I invest EVERY SINGLE DAY to the "what is going on" agenda, watching listing performance like a hawk - regularly - daily - several times a day - views/watchers - PLS graph - do i need to end and start a new campaign? Do I need to run a sale? What kind of sale? How much? How long? Do I need to raise prices for algorithm to pick up a nicer profit for ebay? ...yeah, it's sickening, the amount time one needs to be actively watching and changing things on ebay...it was never meant to be - but the days of list, go live your live and wait for sale are long gone on ebay. IMO of course.
@zamo-zuan, @nuclearomen This is a good dialogue, I think Sellers use PLS for different reason AND it's effectiveness varies from category to category. For myself and how I use them it does not drive up the cost for Buyers. I don't jack my prices up then run a PLS Campaign. I also do NOT use any of eBay's Trending Ad rates. Here are the key points for my approach to PLS Campaigns:
1. I use it to drive traffic
2. I run 30 day Campaigns about once a quarter
3. I put ALL my Fixed priced items in the Campaign (200-300 items depending on inventory at the time)
4. I select ONE Ad rate between 5% & 10% and let 'er rip, these Ad rates are far and away higher then eBay trending rates in my categories, the net result (I hope) is MORE exposure
5. I run the Campaigns to move inventory, most of which is already from profitable lots so anything an item sells for is usually pure profit
6. I see MORE long tail items sell during a Campaign then any other time
7. My higher value items are typically sold Auction style so driving traffic helps bring Buyers to my items / Store and I suspect I get a few more bidders during Campaigns
PLA is a different animal altogether and is geared for Sellers to openly compete with competitors on their position in Search results. The PLS Campaigns that I run are basically me agreeing up front to discount (out of pocket) the Ad rate on anything that sells during the Campaign.
@mr_lincoln wrote:PLA is a different animal altogether and is geared for Sellers to openly compete with competitors on their position in Search results. The PLS Campaigns that I run are basically me agreeing up front to discount (out of pocket) the Ad rate on anything that sells during the Campaign.
Understood, and yeah, different sellers/categories of items perform differently. Manufacturers can agree to the out of pocket costs, and if you're able to decide the price you can voluntarily give it up.
In the auto parts market, even if your a manufacturer, your margins are often razor thin and there's not much room for any losses. You can't do the same if you're trying to compete in the top of the market.
For example, many $100 items (as common lowest price in search) are actually < $5 margin. Then if you have to throw 3-4% PL on top, what would the remaining profit margin be? Would it really be worth it to sell an item for $1-2 margin?
Now, it *should* be a really stupid idea to put the prices up 5% higher than the competition and put 5% PL to compensate. That *should* make your item non-competitive. But that's not how it works in action when 2/3 of your impressions are from PL. The algorithm tries to earn the sales from the PL investment being higher than the competition who hasn't done the same, and it becomes simple math and even if your conversion rate drops a bit, you'll still come out on top in terms of impressions/views/sales.
This is the balance I mean. There's no reason 2/3 of the impressions a seller gets should be promoted rather than organic. It'd make sense for 2/3 to be organic and a smaller amount saved for promotions. But that's not the reality:
@nuclearomen wrote:
@mr_lincoln wrote:@zamo-zuan, @nuclearomen This is a good dialogue, I think Sellers use PLS for different reason AND it's effectiveness varies from category to category. For myself and how I use them it does not drive up the cost for Buyers. I don't jack my prices up then run a PLS Campaign. I also do NOT use any of eBay's Trending Ad rates. Here are the key points for my approach to PLS Campaigns:
1. I use it to drive traffic
2. I run 30 day Campaigns about once a quarter
3. I put ALL my Fixed priced items in the Campaign (200-300 items depending on inventory at the time)
4. I select ONE Ad rate between 5% & 10% and let 'er rip, these Ad rates are far and away higher then eBay trending rates in my categories, the net result (I hope) is MORE exposure
5. I run the Campaigns to move inventory, most of which is already from profitable lots so anything an item sells for is usually pure profit
6. I see MORE long tail items sell during a Campaign then any other time
7. My higher value items are typically sold Auction style so driving traffic helps bring Buyers to my items / Store and I suspect I get a few more bidders during Campaigns
PLA is a different animal altogether and is geared for Sellers to openly compete with competitors on their position in Search results. The PLS Campaigns that I run are basically me agreeing up front to discount (out of pocket) the Ad rate on anything that sells during the Campaign.
PLS is used differently seller to seller, but they work the same no matter what item/category the correspond with. The only difference between categories is the amount of that particular item available. Some categories can be largely saturated with same item while others can be none to only a few, leaving all listings promoted and non-promoted at top of search less then half a page worth. Ideally PL was intended to get items in more saturated items/categories more visibility but as ebay pushed for greed more and more sellers started using PLS and it has become normal for everyone to promote everything they have no matter what. The real estate for PL however is not limited to ebay search only. Aside from PL working with google (and always has, it isn't new, but normal listings do also) PL "Sponsored" (as they call them) largely consume a listing, in 2 years this has gone from 1 row to 5-6 rows of "Sponsored" listings...overwhelming a listing with clutter, causing buyers not to read item specifics, descriptions, and even not look at any more photos then the very first photo available shown. It's even far worse on the Ebay app, and description is hidden along with most of the specifics. As that wasn't enough, PL Sponsored ads also appear on emails after you order an item, an emails after item was delivered, ebay main page....
What made PLS even worse? 2 seller updates ago when they introduced PLS-D (Daily Rate). As ebay isn't greedy enough they bring a way to get sellers to give even more FVF's with changing the rate you pay for a sale on PLS with the option of "daily suggested rate" of an item. Now we have them + PLA and PLE... don't be surprised when next update they do something to completely destroy PLS since it will be two updates since they touched it and will want to push PLA and PLE much more.
I stated before, I use PLS ONLY to gain some of my listings real estate back to show my items. Only benefit to using PLS, just PLA will show and hide PL through search at any given time and period, so does PLS, and PL in general doesn't sell the item, it sells on PL because that's the listing that was being shown at the time someone decided to watch or buy it.
@nuclearomen PLA sounds like way too much maintenance ... based on my schedule I like the fire and forget PLS approach ... create it, list it, forget it ... then off to do other things ... pack and ship things when and if they sell ...
