Question about promoting vs lowering price

[blankauctions]

Say I have an item for $15.00 and reduce the price by .75 will that auction typically have a better chance of selling then if I spent  .50 cents (When/if it sells) on promoting? Why or why not?

[north40sales]

I look an promotion fees by a venue with some healthy skepticism. Here, pay us more and we'll guarantee your item a "better" spot in our search engine.

It's just another revenue stream for eBay to extract more profit % from a transaction without having to invest anything to get it.

[mr_lincoln]

@blankauctions   First, I don't think you mean an "auction" but rather a fixed price GTC listing.

There are some fundamental differences in your example. 

1. Reducing a price may help bring it up higher in Search Results under Best match scenarios (low cost including shipping).

2. Promoted Listing campaigns:  even if you "Promote" an individual item of $ 15.00 for the equivalent of $ 0.75 you are only talking 0.05%   That's not much of a promotion to be honest ... who knows how often that will be visible as a Sponsored item for sale.  PL Campaigns can be set for continuous or with and end date.  I use the end date approach.  Store Owners get $ 30 per quarter Promoted Listing Credit to theoretically, even if you Promote that item for 10% ($ 1.50 off), you would get that money back if its the only thing you promoted and it sells within the PL Campaign or 30 days after the last click when it was in the Campaign.  So thinking in those terms its better to use the PL Campaign approach.  So in one quarter you could list $ 300 worth of items and Promote them for 10% and if they all sell you would get ALL your Promoted Listing fees back.  (NOTE: the Credits come one billing cycle after the sale).

[reallynicestamps]

Lowering the cost by 75c means that you lose 75c on every reduced price item sold.

Promoted listings only cost you money when the buyer finds the ad through PL, not if she is visiting your Store for other reasons.

[cashvaluerecovery2011]

I have found that people avoid promoted listings like the plague. People are still finding my non promoted listings and buying.

[dhbookds]

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@cashvaluerecovery2011 wrote:
I have found that people avoid promoted listings like the plague. People are still finding my non promoted listings and buying.

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How do you know that?  do you use PL even tho you think people avoid the listings?

[maot-7]

Personally when I'm buying I find the PL incredibly irritating and I will refuse to buy them out of principle.

I hate it when I select sort by price, time, etc and then suddenly several items come up that are out of order.

That's just me tho, I imagine it works on most people or sellers wouldn't do it.

[hawkwind5454]

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@cashvaluerecovery2011 wrote:
People are still finding my non promoted listings and buying.

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And why shouldn't they? You currently have 150 items listed. The law of averages is bound to take over, and kick in, at some point. 😉

[cashvaluerecovery2011]

Ive been here over 20 years. I have a pile of other ebayers I have known and communicate with on a private forum. Maybe we are all cut from the same cloth but we all find the promoted listings to hit the same nerve that the "top 3 paid for searches" do when you google something. Ya know those bolded paid for placements that are usually redirects to something other than what you searched for?

Well those sponsored listings look JUST LIKE that. I make my searches very specific since search is now a complete cluster here. Then I get a pile of sponsored listings that are usually higher priced, or different from what im looking for. I just completely skip over them. So does everyone I know who uses ebay.

You no longer even get the extra non promoted listing that was promised. It wasnt the promotion part of the listing that was suppose to get you seen. It was the fact you got an extra listing that helped you get seen. Now you only get 1 at a time and while I can prove instantly that people do avoid the promoted one (not everyone avoids them) but NO ONE goes looking specifically for a promoted listing.

Nobody says.........."ooooooh this one is sponsored so Im buying it."

Sponsored ads does NOTHING favorable for a buyer. It might put you higher up on the page but it looks just like those spam ads you arent looking for when you google, yahoo, bing et al. I guarantee you that YOU have avoided those top page search links. I guarantee you that us humans of habit, some of us, will naturally do the same to these spam sponsored listings.

[cashvaluerecovery2011]

Not suggesting they shouldnt be found haha. I have a better shot of being seen than promoted listings. I keep my prices in the top 3 lowest. I ship for free, have that gorgeous top rated badge, 100% feedback, and I go to the post office every morning. My hope is people will take the certainty that they will get what is offered as a reason to choose me over the next guy along with a good price.

Promoting my listing just to get to the top of a page............where buyers have learned DOES NOT MEAN its the lowest price........would get my skipped by some buyers.

[cashvaluerecovery2011]

Bingo! Its like spam isnt it? I feel like ebay is trying to show me what they want me to buy instead of what im looking for.

[suesilly]

Yep, that's the game, and it's very old!

[suesilly]

I've tried both and the only one that seems to have any impact is the "paying for position", which is what it amounts to. There is more politicing on eBay than in D.C. these days and it's all about getting more and more of the sellers $$$$. Irritating is the gentlest word I can think of. I've already lowered my pricing to the point of barely making back my investment so making offers is seldom an option. Not to mention, with this forced GTC **bleep** nearly every one of my listings has the "make offer" option anyway so if the buyer wants to make an offer they can come to ME!