mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
After a horrid September month and sales falling to lowest they been in a year I called EB MP, who connected me to Sales Team and what did we find? Promoted Listings dropped from the time I told them sale plummeted. Check your Performance -> Traffic and see if this affected you. Eb reported it to Tech Support to look into because - there is Nothing we can do about it, it's Ebay's job to promoted listings and generate traffic to your listings/store. Either something happened on the account or there is something wrong with the Promotional Campaign ebay has your listings in, mine is " Listing Campaign - US - 64"
@zamo-zuan
The real joke is look at their "suggested rate" you'll notice two things, 1. their "suggested rate" is LOWER the LOWER your elected rate is, if you raise the elected rate their "suggested rate" goes HIGHER then it was previously. 2. Their suggested rate isn't even correct to begin with, why and how? Because I have stuff no one on ebay has, I'm the only one with that title, so how can rate be 8% or whatever like is below I show when I'm the only one with the title? But before when I had 1% elected their "suggested" rate for title was 3%!!! IT'S A SCAM - PERIOD. There is no research on items to back up their "suggested" rates - it's simply ebay trying to make more money off sellers livelihood's!
@nuclearomen wrote:@zamo-zuan
The real joke is look at their "suggested rate" you'll notice two things, 1. their "suggested rate" is LOWER the LOWER your elected rate is, if you raise the elected rate their "suggested rate" goes HIGHER then it was previously. 2. Their suggested rate isn't even correct to begin with, why and how? Because I have stuff no one on ebay has, I'm the only one with that title, so how can rate be 8% or whatever like is below I show when I'm the only one with the title? But before when I had 1% elected their "suggested" rate for title was 3%!!! IT'S A SCAM - PERIOD. There is no research on items to back up their "suggested" rates - it's simply ebay trying to make more money off sellers livelihood's!
Yep it's the same as the "peer rates". The numbers simply don't make sense. They can't POSSIBLY be legit with the things you see in there. The fluctuations is a part of it.
We've had of our OWN BRAND that had NO COMPETITION and it claimed trending was 8% rates! Meanwhile items with competition were recommended at lower rates. Absolutely no items were "sponsored" in the search except ours. The rest of the category was at 4-5%. Yet somehow, this item with no competition was supposedly "trending at 8%"???
Same happened when we had a brand of SnowChains and we were the only official retailer in the US for them. Somehow they were "trending" higher than the rest... When we're the only ones with the brand!
Sales for me are the point it wouldn't matter if listings are promoted or not. Been plagued with issues since entered Managed Payments, they have been both weekly and daily. Went from multiple sales every single day for months straight to sale every 3-4 days (maybe) and it's just getting worse with this promotional listing crud. The term "nothing to loose" applies at this point - again, for me, sellers like yourself with employees can't make decisions like that so easily. However I have heard from many (not just now with this situation) who do not promote listings at all are doing fine...that maybe because they never subjected their sales to it but how long will that last if ebay is taking these new measures with promotional listings, they will certainly knock any listings not promoted out for sure. There is a word for this and a law, it's called "Pay to Play"
The problem is aside from never be balanced is it's simply not fair or professional. Market values don't ride on ebay greed, what ebay deems as OK to just raise prices to compensate fee hikes the actual markets rise and fall all the time, but not on ebay, prices only rise, never fall, they can't because sellers have to pay fees that are rising as well. Again, there is something called Fair Market Value - every business runs off it, if there wasn't this everything would be price gouging, this creates healthy competition in market place, but when something on ebay cost buyers $20-$30-$50 more, lol, no one is going buy your product in order for you to pay ebay. They will leave and shop elsewhere, period, unless they are stupid...and sure some of those buyers exist but surely not enough to make living from.
I can tell you that promoted listings make up for at least 50 percent of your traffic, now that traffic does not relate to sales when place it in terms of impressions promoted listings charts were registering prior at 1% i mean 13,000 impressions but 1 sale... doesn't work out to actual sales... but, at least I can see the view count different, items I've had up a week now sit with low view count... 23 or so... that number would be way up prior with the 1% election, so in sense it's not just promoted listings we're talking about here, we're also talking turn around rates will plummet here.
And yes, that is my primary point to all this, what has been since they started promoted listings, is the rate sellers raise prices to compensate for item promoted election rate. It's easy for ebay to say (as always) raise your price to compensate... but there is a cut off point, how much you can reasonably charge for a item before that price just becomes ridiculous and no one buys. Prices are already there at that point, I see it every single day when I add new items and do ebay check on that item to see how many sellers have it and what is being charged for it.. and my expression here is stolen from the ladies "OMG"... I see vinyls being charged $100 + for something not too limited / not to hard to find / not even first or most desired pressing... and I know for fact they are not selling them, not when I have the same thing cheaper or they can go else where out of ebay and get it.
Granted, 1% was not huge amount to give ebay from the price of item if sold on the promoted listings, however, sales conversion from norm listing to promoted listing rarely happened, for me the common promoted listing sales per month translate to 1-6 a month, there were months no sales from promoted listing happened at all. 1% of $30 is $0.30 - not too much of a sacrifice, yet take into account 1% on millions of sales... now it's a bigger picture, ebay taking in massive amount of extra fees. So to make it sellers need to elect more to sell anything and not even get the sales anyways makes no sense, ebay knows they make nothing unless sale happens... but if traffic and exposure are limited to nothing... no sale will happen anyways. But to raise elected rates...you have to raise prices on the chance that that item will sell on the promoted listing... because if you don't now your losing money, maybe you already skimmed so much you'll even loose profit for that promoted sale... and obviously business can't survive if your not making profit.
I did mine yesterday and checked my chat this morn, no change, see for yourself:
@zamo-zuan wrote:
@nuclearomen wrote:@zamo-zuan
The real joke is look at their "suggested rate" you'll notice two things, 1. their "suggested rate" is LOWER the LOWER your elected rate is, if you raise the elected rate their "suggested rate" goes HIGHER then it was previously. 2. Their suggested rate isn't even correct to begin with, why and how? Because I have stuff no one on ebay has, I'm the only one with that title, so how can rate be 8% or whatever like is below I show when I'm the only one with the title? But before when I had 1% elected their "suggested" rate for title was 3%!!! IT'S A SCAM - PERIOD. There is no research on items to back up their "suggested" rates - it's simply ebay trying to make more money off sellers livelihood's!Yep it's the same as the "peer rates". The numbers simply don't make sense. They can't POSSIBLY be legit with the things you see in there. The fluctuations is a part of it.
We've had of our OWN BRAND that had NO COMPETITION and it claimed trending was 8% rates! Meanwhile items with competition were recommended at lower rates. Absolutely no items were "sponsored" in the search except ours. The rest of the category was at 4-5%. Yet somehow, this item with no competition was supposedly "trending at 8%"???
Same happened when we had a brand of SnowChains and we were the only official retailer in the US for them. Somehow they were "trending" higher than the rest... When we're the only ones with the brand!
Yes, and I just talked to ebay (again again) and they admitted it. But said "more you elect the more views you will get" and I said "but the suggested rate isn't even factual, the suggested rate is lower when the elected rate is lower, raise the elected rate the suggested rate becomes higher...literally, in seconds it will change from 3% to 8% **bleep** is that? it's just a scam for ebay to make more potential money" and their answer seems to be that is because the more you elect the more they supposedly "promote" (yet to be seen) and so the cost is more???? lol OK.
The idea if worked like you said would be more sensible... the more items in the que (on ebay) should raise the suggested rate, not the reverse, or like said, your own brand...that makes no sense at all, there is no competition for it.
@little*blackdog wrote:"MP told me that as long as the buyer is registered in another country, and use US shipping address to a ship forwarding service the international fee applies..."
How is a seller supposed to know THAT?! Seems totally unfair.
I only ship to US addresses, but if I was charged an extra fee for shipping to a forwarding service, with a US address, that'd be the final straw between me and FEEBAY!
This isn't a new rule. It has ALWAYS been that way. In your Site Preferences and then your Buyer Requirements, you can block international buyers that do not have a ship to address in which you ship. But you can't block all international buyers. We have never been able to do that in MP or not.
As to your concern over this being unfair to sellers. You'd probably find that many of us would disagree with that. Spending an additional 1.50% in PP or 1.65% in MP for the sale is worth it to many of us. Better than not selling the item. We are only talking an additional $1.50 to $1.65 per $100 in fees. Many of us are willing to live with that. And it should be noted that the vast majority of these transactions go off without a problem.
Sellers are only responsible for the package to the ship to address. So if your concern is that you are responsible for it until it gets to whatever international location they may have, that isn't correct. This is covered in the MBG.
