Unless you pay to promote your listings you're not going to get viewed or sold. PERIOD

[4-peepsandpaws]

Some time ago I stopped listing much on eBay because I wasn't getting views or sales.  I didn't know anything about this promoted listing stuff except I glanced once and they wanted some ridiculous amount, like 7%, before I even posted the listing so I just ignored it.

Recently I started to list a few items again and after many weeks and months of getting no views and chatting endlessly with eBay Representatives about why I'm getting no views, I'm still getting no views and no sales.  

I paid to promote a couple of items just to see what would happen and I got a couple of views and I mean literally one to two views...

This pay to promote makes NO sense!  If a buyer is looking for an item it should pop up, PERIOD!  I have had other people go looking for my listings and they cannot find them!   

eBay should just come out and call it what it is.  Either you pay the fee or your listings aren't going to get viewed.  PERIOD.  eBay just needs to advise that they have changed their selling platform and that unless you "pay to promote", as they call it, just forgeddaboudit.  

[trueblueelegance]

Seriously one of the most helpful replies in this thread. Sellers: read that reply….and then…read it again, for the truth is here. We will all admit we hate promoted listings, but if you don’t promote at any rate (which I don’t currently but times are rough right now and I am considering it which is why I’m here) you are definitely shooting yourself in the foot and relying on your repeat buyers who have you saved as a seller. I am fortunate to have been able to rely on my repeat buyers up til now but in this currently challenging market for sellers of high end jewelry I am not sure how long repeat business will carry me. I have been a seller for 17 years this year, and this is my second recessive market so far.

That being said there ARE other ways to make your listings more marketable such as

1) offering items which are popular on the secondhand market (duh)

2) offering a return policy, and

3) being a top rated seller

Time to get creative 😉

3) 

[mam98031]

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@trueblueelegance wrote:

Seriously one of the most helpful replies in this thread. Sellers: read that reply….and then…read it again, for the truth is here. We will all admit we hate promoted listings, but if you don’t promote at any rate (which I don’t currently but times are rough right now and I am considering it which is why I’m here) you are definitely shooting yourself in the foot and relying on your repeat buyers who have you saved as a seller. I am fortunate to have been able to rely on my repeat buyers up til now but in this currently challenging market for sellers of high end jewelry I am not sure how long repeat business will carry me. I have been a seller for 17 years this year, and this is my second recessive market so far.

That being said there ARE other ways to make your listings more marketable such as

1) offering items which are popular on the secondhand market (duh)

2) offering a return policy, and

3) being a top rated seller

Time to get creative 😉

3) 

---

No one here can speak for what is the correct thing to do for the 6+ million US sellers or the over 19 million worldwide.  Those on the threads are a small fraction of the number of sellers on this site.

While promoted listings may work for you, they don't for others.  I'm unsure why some have a difficult time accepting that.  The fact is that about 940,000 sellers are using promoted listings.  So no where even close to half the sellers use this option.

https://www.oberlo.com/blog/ebay-statistics

There are likely other stat sites out there as well.  But this is just an example.

For those that promoted listings work well for, they should use them.  For those that it doesn't, they shouldn't.  For those that haven't tried them yet, they should test it out and see if they can get it to work for them as it would only increase their sales.  There is room for all types of sellers here.  We all don't have to do things one way.

[2013grotz]

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@trueblueelegance wrote:

That being said there ARE other ways to make your listings more marketable such as

1) offering items which are popular on the secondhand market (duh)

2) offering a return policy, and

3) being a top rated seller

Time to get creative 😉

Truth be told, this stuff (and the last half of the referred to post) is the more important part.  It's amazing how many come in here and gripe rather loudly about low sales that fail on one of the more basic parts of this.  In other words, you can have PL but if you don't get everything else right, you still won't get sales, period.   Every time I post it seems people have their rationales to keep doing it, but every time I point out someone's $15 item and ask why I should buy theirs when a large number of people are selling it for $6 never seems to get a solid honest answer.  (Granted, that's my problem - more from a product dumping standpoint - along with some of #1 because I don't have a lot of choice of what needs to go out of my closet) but Or think they can dictate their own return policies.  Or a whole host of other things like not keeping products "moving" through the site via posting new listings all the time (admittedly magnified by Ebay's GTC policy).

Granted, it does seem PL is a requirement to get more sales for some of us, you don't have to have PL to *get* sales on here.

[mam98031]

If you have read the thread, there are also many sellers not complaining about their sales and they aren't using promoted listings either.  It is a mixed bag.  For some PL is great, for others not so much.

[patmos-8]

All brands pay for promotions.  Mulit-billion-dollar brands spend significant percentages of their yearly budgets on promotions.  Whether it's television commercials, ads on social media, celebrity endorsements, or a promoted listing campaign on eBay, promoting items you'd like the public to purchase is the cost of doing business.  I'm not sure why any of us would think we're exempt from that fundamental of participation in commerce.  

If you want to pay the minimum fees to the platform, you're going to get the minimum from that platform in return.  If you'd like to pay a premium, you will get a more premium service.  If you want to spend $5 on lunch, you get McDonalds, if you're willing to spend $500 on lunch you get aged kobe beef ribeye.  Just like anything else.  It's pretty straightforward.  

[mam98031]

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@patmos-8 wrote:

All brands pay for promotions.  Mulit-billion-dollar brands spend significant percentages of their yearly budgets on promotions.  Whether it's television commercials, ads on social media, celebrity endorsements, or a promoted listing campaign on eBay, promoting items you'd like the public to purchase is the cost of doing business.  I'm not sure why any of us would think we're exempt from that fundamental of participation in commerce.  

If you want to pay the minimum fees to the platform, you're going to get the minimum from that platform in return.  If you'd like to pay a premium, you will get a more premium service.  If you want to spend $5 on lunch, you get McDonalds, if you're willing to spend $500 on lunch you get aged kobe beef ribeye.  Just like anything else.  It's pretty straightforward.  

---

You are talking about two different things.  You are talking about advertising.  This is not apples to apples.   On Ebay that is not the purpose of Promoted Listings.  The only thing promoted listings does on Ebay is put your items before sellers that do not run promoted listings.  So now you are competing with the other sellers that run promoted listings.  The more fees you agree to pay the higher you are in the search returns.  It is as simple as that.

I agree that for some sellers promoted listings work very well and for others it simply does not.  Which is why it is an optional tool for sellers to use or not.  To intimate that those that don't use promoted listings won't do as well simply is not supported by the stats.  Up thread I posted a link to some stats regarding promoted listings and other stuff.  While promoted listings are popular with some sellers, it is not a majority by any stretch of the imagination, nor does it mean a seller won't do just fine without them.

It is simply a choice for each seller to make on what works best for them.  There is not right or wrong answer.

[haroldthepug2003]

Yeah, it’s quite a crock of 💩, isn’t it?  You can lower the 7% manually, but you probably won’t get any sales. 
They used to let you just do 1% but now the minimum is 2%. 

[mam98031]

Not all sellers, actually not even half the sellers use promoted listings.  I don't use promoted listings and I get sales.  This is not an either or thing.  Sales without promoted listings is very possible which is why the majority of sellers do not use the tool.

[dbfolks166mt]

You have seven feedbacks in one year. Are you really doing that great?

     Really difficult to tell how a seller is doing these days based on their feedback. I probably get feedback on less than 20% of the items I sell. Buyers just don't seem to want to take the time to provide feedback these days. 

[josephb555]

I have never paid to promote and I have always sold my items on eBay. You should try to lower your starting price and then if you get a lot of bids you might wind up with a good price.

[mam98031]

Auctions aren't that popular anymore except in some specific categories.  So depending on what you sell will depend on if auctions are the way to go.  Fixed price listings is the majority of the listings on Ebay because most buyers prefer it.

[paraquip]

This is one of the larger issues driving sellers onto other platforms.

Sell fees are 14.99% when you factor in they are charging fees on postage and taxes.

By default my suggested sell rate comes up in about the 6.1% range.....some higher and some lower.

So that's technically a 21% selling fee.

When seller sells new items there is simply not 50% margin in products.....and in many cases ebay is make for profit than the seller by a bunch.

We haven't yet seen the break point between lack of ebay advertising, poor web development,  the worst customer service (I mean that literally) I have ever experienced and a slowing economy.

I suspect we are getting close to that point now.    Shopify is the real wildcard in fighting the cabal of Ebay, Amazon, Walmart and Google............. if that shop app ever gets air under its wings.....the seller exodus from ebay will look like a plane depressurizing. 

For those of you not familiar a basic shopify store is $26/month with email.   Contractors are using cookie cutter templates that are gorgeous and you can build a fully functioning site for $1000 that works well

If you use Shopify payments.....you are on the Shop app for free.....just a 2% credit card fee.

So if competing sellers are automatically more competitive by having no selling fees....they will logically sell lower than on ebay.....and that's where it all starts.....imagine being able to compete with Amazon and Ebay directly because of their bloated fees.

It's an interesting thought.......which is also why Ebay and Amazon have decoupled from Shopify

HK

[gloryglorygifts]

I love that last line of yours: "You have to give your buyers a reason to follow you." Sums up all businesses in a nutshell. 

[laserpartshq2]

It's like paying to get into Disneyland, then having to pay to go on every ride or paying for cable and then having to pay for every show you watch.

I'm in the same boat as you, no sales for quite awhile, I feel like I'm being punished by EBAY , I guess 12.9% is just not enough for them

[mam98031]

Nope.  The FVF on Shipping and sales tax is the same as is charged on the product.  For sellers without a store in most categories it is 12.9%.