All promoted listings do is put you higher up in search results. Ever since John Dohnahue took over all those years ago this site has gone downhill. Prior to him, Sell thru rates for individual sellers was very high provided you had desirable items. Ever since he showed up, then his successor... The site's goal seems to be, how can we increase sales while also decreasing sell thru rate on the individual level.
The end result is Ebay is my worst venue. It gets similar results to my non promoted personal website that was built on a "field of dreams" "If you build it, they will come" kind of premise. The difference is I pay nothing, I self host my site on my server. I just pay the processor fees.
Ebay changed from a flea market style site to a wanna be clone of Amazon (Not a good clone at that, they want that retail money not the flea market money).
That being said, I never go above the 2% because my items are unique so I'm not competing with other retailers that all carry the same items. If you have unique items, just use the lowest percentage. This site has become "Pay to play". Your items are practically invisible if you don't promote if you carry common items. But at 13% site fees, 13% suggested ad rate, 10% on shipping, many are paying for shipping based on the free shipping scam and then uncle sams cut.... Unless your acquisition cost was near $0, you're making next to nothing.
I used to make a living off of ebay, now it only covers the cost of the coffee and donut I get on the way into the job I had to get because the sell thru rate just dropped to nothing.
mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
