Sunday Discussion - Hypothetical Question - Sending Offers while Promoting Listings

[hotwheelsbum]

I posted this in another thread just a minute ago. Now I'm going to start a Sunday Discussion over this....

Here's a Hypothetical Question in regards to Sending Offers......

If you have a listing you've been promoting for 2 months now, has had 15 views total in those 2 months, 3 watchers, ALL 15 views were viewed within first week you put listing up, ALL 3 watchers clicked Watch Item that first weeks also, but since then you've had NO ACTIVITY on that listing whatsoever. No views, Nothing. 

7 weeks of no activity even with Promoting item. Promoting doesn't seem to be working since listing is NOT getting any new views whatsoever. Now you SEND OFFER to all 3 of those Watchers, and one of those Watchers BUYS ITEM from the Offer you sent them. Should ebay still get their 12% Promotion Fee? Ebay's Promotion didn't get the item Sold. Ebay's Promotion wasn't even bringing people looking at your listing. Item was SOLD because you as the Seller lowered the price and manually sent the lowered price to The Buyer you sent the offer to. 

Now that item is SOLD, does ebay still deserve that extra 12% for a gimmick, "Promoting", that wasn't working to get item sold, but yet you were still Promoting that item when you sent the Offer out to that Buyer. 

Something to think about.

[mr.emk]

Think you're stuck paying the promo fees as you agreed to it.  Maybe opt out of the promo, if you can, before sending offers.  No promo = no promo fees.  

[ebooksdiva]

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@mr.emk wrote:

Think you're stuck paying the promo fees as you agreed to it.  Maybe opt out of the promo, if you can, before sending offers.  No promo = no promo fees.  

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That won’t work due to the halo effect.

When a promoted listing is removed, it no longer receives the immediate boost from paid advertising, but a "halo effect" may still occur if the seller continues to receive attributed sales. A halo sale happens when a buyer clicks a promoted listing but then purchases a different item from the same seller within 30 days. Even if the initially clicked item is no longer promoted or the seller removes it, the sale is still attributed as a halo sale, and the ad fee is charged based on the sold item's ad rate at the time of purchase

[ebooksdiva]

Yes, eBay still gets their promoted fee regardless of how it’s sold. Offer or not.

[jdbelt1960]

The promotion may have brought them to the item in the first place and your offer may have sealed the deal. I have several promoted items in the category "eligible to send offer" which only means there are watchers. Regardless once we agree to have an item promoted we are bound to that fee.

[reallynicestamps]

If the item sells the Promotion worked.

EBay gets paid.

It doesn't matter if the Promotion is one day old or one year old.

You are not paying for the Promotion during the time it goes unsold. 

That's FREE ADVERTISING.

My opinion is that Promoting draws attention to my Store and my listings, not just those which are Promoted. 

That  a customer put a Watch on your item you seem to agree is because it was Promoted.

That the customer had a price point in mind, and didn't buy until you lowered your price, is irrelevant , because they would not have found your listing without the Promotion. 

Another thing. 

How do you know that the buyer was one of those Watchers or Viewers ? (Noting that Views are never more than 30 days old).

Both Watchers and Viewers are anonymous.

My items are long-tail, and it's not unusual for a listing to sell after two or three years. 

I also notice that while I use Best Offer on my listings, I am as likely to sell with a targeted Best Offer (to eligible viewers) at a higher price than I would have accepted with BO.

I use PL on about 1/3 of my listings, usually on very old listings.  And only at 2% to get the Views for advertising. 

[meme6253]

I raised this same question some time ago, I know exactly how you feel, But if we sign up for promoted Listings, This is how it can go sometimes & we have to accept it or stop promoting.

[meme6253]

I did not know about this Halo effect, I do not like this Halo effect.

[bashort]

I would end the listing, make a new unpromoted listing and lower the price by the promotion amount + the best offer discount. This will net you the same amount with a lower price to attract a  buyer

[gurlcat]

It's not a foregone conclusion that the sale to that watcher started with a promoted view; could be organic.  A good amount of my sales come from sending offers to watchers and some of those are attributed to promotion, others not.  Overall the majority if my sales tend to be organic, and that's even with a 6% ad rate which I think a lot of people would call "high."  



So you would think more of my sales would come from promotion, but the reason they don't is because I focus my efforts on the FREE advantage of having new listings.  Even if you're willing to pay for promotion it doesn't mean eBay will keep promoting a listing as much as it did when the listing was new(er).  The algorithm figures something's wrong with the listing after a while -maybe your price is too high, maybe the photos suck, maybe it's just not a very sought-after item.  So then it figures "Why keep pushing this dud listing, when there are newer listings to prioritize, because maybe they have a better chance of selling?"  And so that's what it does.  

I have a sell through rate this high



by almost never allowing my listings to age past 30 days or so.  I end/sell similar them, and for some I don't even wait 30 days.  If a listing has gotten lots of views but few or no watchers, then I know it's priced too high.  I could just revise the price down, but while I'm fussing with it, why not make it a brand new listing too?  

And I used to grant the caveat that "Of course this method is easier for a smaller seller" but that was before I realized you can do BULK sell-similars of ended items!!  That's a game changer.  Anybody could do this, no matter how big their store.  

[tobaccocardyahoo]

In general I do not use promoted listings.

Most of what I sell is "long tail", and has few buyers seeking it,

I have a few promoted listings which I have is because they are entire sets of items and the search results overwhelm them with single parts of the sets.

I would not promote the individual parts because they are too inexpensive.

The promotion is not yielding many views but that is not surprising. But given the numerical situation, those few views are still potentially useful given the potential for no views. And I recognize that the cost of the complete set is beyond some of the Ebayers who are buying the individual parts.

[hotwheelsbum]

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@meme6253 wrote:

I raised this same question some time ago, I know exactly how you feel, But if we sign up for promoted Listings, This is how it can go sometimes & we have to accept it or stop promoting.

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And I guess I need add something also considering most of these comments come from people who think I started "Promoting" the day I listed the items, of which I did not. I didn't start "Promoting" until a couple of weeks ago. I picked about 10 of my $18-$20 or so items and "Promoted" them. ONLY ONE has had any new views. That DQ Ice Cream Cone Plush is the only thing I've promoted that's gotten new views, plus 2 more watchers. So if I send Offers to all 3 of the watchers and one of those watchers Buys, then yeah, it was combination of The Promoting and me sending an Offer that probably got that item sold, and ebay should get their 12% extra. 

But, now let's take the Hard Rock Cafe New York Shirt. I listed that 59 days ago. It has had 2 watchers for 6 weeks now. Had no views for 6 weeks also. It just sat. I "Promoted" it about a week ago. Traffic History shows 2 Views yesterday. Organic Views, not Promoted Views. Me Promoting it last week has brought in ZERO VIEWS. Now lets say I send these 2 6 week watchers an Offer tonight that one "cannot refuse" and Buys it. Should ebay get their extra 12%? I "Promoted" weeks it AFTER they started watching it. Promotion has only been active for 1 week with ZERO Promotion Views since I started it. The T Shirt was sold from ME sending the offer, so why should ebay get an extra 12% for a promotion that did not help get the T Shirt sold? 

All this is Hypo of course. I've got what people are calling "Long Tail" crap. I know it. If it sells, it sells. If not, ehhhh. Wait til I get the 100 or so pieces of clothing I got to list. That crap's going to sit also. 🤔

Just saying, is Promoting really worth it? No. But, if you are going to Promote, Promote from the time you list it so you get your full investment. I've only promoted for about a week now. Is it helping? Not Yet. Nope. 

[reallynicestamps]

I don't send Offers on Promoted Listings. 

Only on those without PL . I have Best Offer on almost all my listings, PL or not, however. 

That's been massaged into the acceptable BO price.

[reallynicestamps]

A halo sale happens when a buyer clicks a promoted listing but then purchases a different item from the same seller within 30 days.

I understood that the "halo effect" only affected the actual previously promoted item.

That if the PL ended on September 30th, the PL fee would still be charged if the item sold before October 30th.

Which is arguable, but almost reasonable. 

But what you are saying is that ANY sale is affected by ANY  PL listing, which doesn't make any sense at all. 

And doesn't seem to be the way it works, since I rarely see any PL fees ,perhaps one in 50 sales although about one in 20-25 listings are PL.