Promoted Listings Standard - Ad Rate Minimum Increasing (1% to 2%)

[wastingtime101]

Got this e-mail from eBay:

We're continuously evaluating the performance and impact quality of Promoted Listings Standard as a tool to drive seller success. As part of this work, effective July 11, we’ll be changing the minimum ad rate for Promoted Listings Standard from 1% to 2%. While we recognize this impacts your business, this change will ensure your campaigns remain competitive in reaching buyers in our growing marketplace, and also allow us to deliver products and services that drive best-in-class returns for eBay sellers.

Just in the past year, we’ve added new Promoted Listings Standard features like an all-in-one campaign dashboard and downloadable reports that provide sellers with a convenient way to review important campaign data. On July 11, we’ll be rolling out a new feature that’ll allow sellers to edit multiple listings at once for both Bulk and Simple campaigns. This’ll make it quicker to adjust ad rates versus having to make manual changes for each campaign.

And there’s more to come.

Next steps

We’d encourage you to adjust your ad rates that are below 2% on or before July 11 to 2% or higher so that your promoted listings can continue to appear in advertising placements across the eBay network. If you decide not to make any changes, those listings will still be active but won’t be promoted.

[chlipp-78]

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@katzrul15 wrote:

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@gracieallen01 wrote:

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@chlipp-78 wrote:

The fact that they're making this change almost immediately after they started charging promoted fees on shipping shows just how greedy they are and how little respect they have for sellers... that was a huge change against sellers and they couldn't even give it two or three months to let it blow over. It's like hurricane season where one storm is immediately followed by another storm without hesitation... so destructive and sickening. 

At what point will sellers stand together and say enough is enough? We really need a social media presence with hundreds of thousands of followers, like an accountability account, so if they decide to hurt us they will at least receive negative publicity for it that can't be ignored... right now the backlash is too small and scattered to get them to listen. Negative publicity won't stop them from making greedy moves, but it could get them to think twice and slow them down. 

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Never - and ebay knows it.

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So very true.  It would be great to have a boycott day, but boycott what?  Unless a huge number of sellers all went on time away at one time, it would only be the pebble in the ocean effect.

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It's not about boycotting... that's not necessary and wouldn't even be possible to organize at this point. It's more about making the complaints more visible and negative publicity on a viral scale. Big companies like eBay absolutely hate stuff like that floating around the general public online. It's bad for their image, it's bad for business. That's why they pay people to track down online complaints. Every time they decide to disrespect sellers with a greedy change they should have to ask themselves "is today a good day to deal with tens of thousands of frustrated sellers on social media?" 

[siamjane8]

@chlipp-78 

  That is true for sure- they hate bad publicity.   Like a couple years ago when they hunted down those reporters and harassed them for just legitimate unbiased reporting.   At least the then CEO got ousted (although its criminal that he got is $75,000,000.00 golden parachute), and close to 10 other higher ups got criminally charged and some when to jail.

   Its almost unbelievable that grown adults would act like that and send pigs heads and porn magazines and books on how to deal with losing a spouse to the people to threaten them....... really shows how much these companies hate bad publicity. 

    Hopefully the current administration is more open to taking feedback and criticism as a positive thing and use it to improve the platform- thats  all we really want- to be heard and to have the problems fixed so we can buy and sell here.

[kelsautoparts]

I will promote my items 2% for Oct,Nov,Dec, and maybe Jan. I will drop all promotions for the rest of the year. So now instead of 12 months at 1% they will get 3 or 4 months at 2%.  I was happy with the exposure I had at 1% and now that everyone will have to pay 2% I will not get any more exposure then I had previously. So its really just Ebay taking more money from me and not giving me anything for it. On July 11th all my promotions will stop. 

[spookyef]

I'm just glad I decided to drop my store subscription down to the introductory level last month when it came up for renewal. I wonder if it's merely coincidence that they dropped this bomb on us AFTER the store subscription renewal period had passed....

[spookyef]

Yeah, and I thought at the time "that's it for EBay" . Surely people will be so disgusted by this behavior that they will stop buying on EBay. So what happened? Absolutely nothing. Stock didn't drop a bit. People kept on buying.  What does it say about us as a country that we would ignore this just so we could get a good deal on a pair of shoes?

[skeletonstore]

Ebay only really wants sellers who list regularly.  By regularly i mean many dozen of items a day or you have 10's of thousands of items available spread out of the month so you're constantly getting an appreciable amount of refresh.  You don't really need any promotions if your account is that healthy.  I've done many experiments over the past year and have found good luck selling regularly with a few dozen items and 2% promotion rate.  Many categories are highly competitive and that will not cut it.  You better have something really in demand but then that gets into catch 22 scenarios because you will attract some bad characters, perhaps some who know how to take you for a ride.  The fee rate on ebay has been much higher than they say for a long time.  USPS alone can kill you when 1st class costs as much as priority used to cost not long ago.  Then you have ignorant buyers(potential) always low balling you on heavy items.  Ebay should publish what the shipping will cost to them before they send an offer.  I could care less about setting parameters when things change and markets shift.  Remind them too of how much a seller is paying in fees.  

[meme6253]

Please don't Smash your head into any walls!!, I Agree That Worst Time to do this, Were all people to & the rising costs affect us, like anyone else, I don't know what to do either,but I will not be smashing my head into any walls, (not Yet)

[wastingtime101]

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@nuclearomen wrote:

@valueaddedresource @wastingtime101 
An additional thought, was thinking (lol, sometimes that's a dangerous area) but wondering how ebay's latest take to social media apps like tiktok etc... and them obviously paying those companies to run ads on their networks is partially contributing to fee increases to their sellers (flipping that cost onto us)...any thoughts to that? 

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eBay switched from TV ads to social media ads a couple years ago because they thought it was a better way to reach their target audience: 18-24 year olds. So I doubt this increase on PL has anything to do with that. They've been doing the social ads for a while.

[wastingtime101]

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@amricons wrote:

There is another USPS rate increase coming in July 2022 I think.

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Yep @amricons. The July 10 changes are coming up in about 3 weeks. I'll re-post what I said back in April.

Pages 150-152 of this document show the proposed Media Mail increases for July.

Flats are also going up, as are letter stamps, postcard stamps, insurance, PO boxes, and more.

According to pg 173 it looks like the base $50 insurance included with Priority shipments is increasing to $100.

USPS is also changing around zones! Any seller that uses shipping rate tables will need to closely evaluate and make necessary adjustments.

Sellers offering flat rate (or "free") shipping for media mail will need to make adjustments, as will sellers that build the cost of insurance into their item/handling charges.

[nuclearomen]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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@nuclearomen wrote:

@valueaddedresource @wastingtime101 
An additional thought, was thinking (lol, sometimes that's a dangerous area) but wondering how ebay's latest take to social media apps like tiktok etc... and them obviously paying those companies to run ads on their networks is partially contributing to fee increases to their sellers (flipping that cost onto us)...any thoughts to that? 

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eBay switched from TV ads to social media ads a couple years ago because they thought it was a better way to reach their target audience: 18-24 year olds. So I doubt this increase on PL has anything to do with that. They've been doing the social ads for a while.

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uhm not exactly, the most recent ads running via apps like tiktok started this past year. But yes, it's to target gen z - which is OK for things some things but not the entirety of what is offered on the marketplace(s).

[nuclearomen]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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@amricons wrote:

There is another USPS rate increase coming in July 2022 I think.

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Yep @amricons. The July 10 changes are coming up in about 3 weeks. I'll re-post what I said back in April.

Pages 150-152 of this document show the proposed Media Mail increases for July.

Flats are also going up, as are letter stamps, postcard stamps, insurance, PO boxes, and more.

According to pg 173 it looks like the base $50 insurance included with Priority shipments is increasing to $100.

USPS is also changing around zones! Any seller that uses shipping rate tables will need to closely evaluate and make necessary adjustments.

Sellers offering flat rate (or "free") shipping for media mail will need to make adjustments, as will sellers that build the cost of insurance into their item/handling charges.

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don't need that, just ask, Media Mail increases July 11th via 10%
also, there is new dimensional weight program kicking off for postal ground 
Last they are changing the Zoning for USPS, which means packages may cost you a bit less or more starting July 11th depending on origin to destination zones. 

And no, I don't need make any adjustments to my free media mail shipping as I don't include silly insurance, I simply replace - which has happened a huge total amount of times of 3x in 20+ yrs. or if can't offer something of equal value or refund. Insurance is only worth placing on large money orders, package your stuff extremely well don't need it. 

[wastingtime101]

So today's the day. Wondering how many reading this decided to promote at 2% if they were formerly 1%ers.

[ten_o_nine]

Eventually life will go on and those who refuse to play will stay far back, pay to play or get out of the way, as simple as that 😊

[ekmadonna]

or take your business to another or several other platforms. 

[mari.mazzi]

I didn't stop promotion on a couple of my listings that were previously using a 1% ad rate and when those listings sold, even though the ads were not showing, eBay still had the gumption to take the 1%  from my sale!  I'm furious and I'm calling them now. I want a reimbursement for my 1%. Not giving them a penny more.