We had to start testing Promoted Listing Advanced... Now eBay wants us to pay for off site ad's??

[zamo-zuan]

Saw this pop up today when checking our campaigns:

Is eBay serious with this?! 

Part of the reason they gave for increasing fees and encouraging us to advertise was so they could invest in marketing... Now eBay wants us to pay for eBay's marketing??? Even though eBay will be getting the sale and FVF anyway...?

So we have to pay to even get traffic on eBay, and then must pay to bring traffic TO EBAY in order to get sales...?

The last paragraph was the most outrageous part:

"Once you've created an offsite ads campaign, your listings can only appear in Google Ads through that campaign. They won't be eligible to appear in Google Ads via your Promoted Listings Standard campaigns."

So our PLS investment will be shut down and we'll have to fully pay for our own off-site impressions?!?!

The amount of investment eBay is trying to suck from sellers is approaching the level of insanity. As I'd posted about in the past, first they take away impressions unless you pay in PLS. Then even our organic impressions drop unless we pay in PLS. Then they make the 2% requirement to get PLS impressions (which had been a "test" that eBay did to us since 2020) standard across the entire site. Then their changes are causing drastic reductions on impressions to a point where we have to start testing PLA... And now they're exploiting us more???

Why on earth should we be expected - or even encouraged - to pay to advertise EBAY on Google...? Especially when the PLA pay per-click rates are HIGHER than Googles! 

In other words, it seems eBay is now going to charge us MORE than Google does for clicks... Just to spend that ad money on advertising themselves on Google. Rather than the PLS payments being used to advertise us on Google as we were told it was designed for. And they will pocketing that extra "per click" money since their rates are higher than Googles...

This is insanity. Pay more, more, and more, just for less impressions and sales. EBay's GMV is falling, and the top sellers of our category are at a fraction of what they were a month ago, a quarter ago, and a year ago. Why is now the time they try to take MORE from us, without giving us anything more?

[mybigsale]

Is eBay serious with this?! 

if eBay_Profit > 0 Then

     Serious$ = "Yes"

else

    Serious$ = " No"

end if

[flyingmvp]

Wow,

They are seriously running out of ideas of how to milk more from the sellers. it can't get much more ridiculous then that, or maybe it can, it is Ebay 🤔

[dbfolks166mt]

Of course they do what else would you expect?

[frugality_inc]

eBay has found a short-term plan to grow revenue but still has no answers for declining market share. eBay's market share of eCommerce is now less than 5%.

Source: https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/ebays-market-share-slips-to-below-5

They know they must abuse promoted listings, service metrics and charging PLs and 10%+ FVFs on sales tax to fund the life rafts. How's that -$1.08B bag feeling after buying back shares near the high eBay? Great use of shareholder capital ($4.121B) instead of investing in the business while your cash shows $1.798B as of March. eBay should be thriving in this environment, yet it is the largest underperformer. 

Promoted listings are a requirement on eBay now if you want a fraction of the sales you had before. I've given up trying to fight it and will just provide slower shipping and higher prices. It's what eBay wants and I'm happy to contribute to their downfall while I grow Amazon and Walmart which are now far above eBay sales.

This aged well from eBay's Senior VP @jordan_sweetnam 

Source: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-Me-Anything-Jordan-Sweetnam/Promoted-Listings-are-Ruining-Quality-...

‎12-22-2019 01:29 PM

Wrapping up for today so I'll keep this one short, but I agree with the concerns raised.

It's something I saw pretty quickly after my return... great sellers (top rated, amazing feedback, great prices) were ranking below sellers with 0 (!) feedback or (even worse) feedback scores of 94%, 96%, etc...

I think promoted listings is great tool for sellers when used correctly. Have a new product and want to have it rank up in search quickly? Use PL. But if you are new to the platform and haven't proven that you can deliver the buyer experiences of our best sellers it doesn't make any sense to have those items appear at the top. I certainly *do not* want someone taking $s out of shipping faster or packing better to invest in paying for a promoted listing placement instead. 

Conversations on this topic are underway - I can't commit to a specific date or change - but don't be surprised to see us testing some things in the new year and announcing changes by Q2. 

---

I've spent too many hours on phone calls, emails and Zoom calls giving my feedback and showing data to backup problems I bring up. The people running eBay have no idea what they're doing. I ignore the emails and calls requesting feedback now because they never take action. Why should I waste my time further?

[dhbookds]

"Once you've created an offsite ads campaign, your listings can only appear in Google Ads through that campaign. They won't be eligible to appear in Google Ads via your Promoted Listings Standard campaigns."

Maybe I'm not understanding.........but if they didn't have something like that .........wouldn't (couldn't) the same listing be shown twice?  Doubt Google wants that......

[zamo-zuan]

---

@dhbookds wrote:

"Once you've created an offsite ads campaign, your listings can only appear in Google Ads through that campaign. They won't be eligible to appear in Google Ads via your Promoted Listings Standard campaigns."

Maybe I'm not understanding.........but if they didn't have something like that .........wouldn't (couldn't) the same listing be shown twice?  Doubt Google wants that......

---

As a software developer myself, a simple solution would be to flag if it's added one way or the other. Or simply have the "per click" fee override the standard one if it's higher than they would be spending on standard in the first place.

But don't forget to combine that with the earlier part of the statement:

"we’ll calculate a unique CPC for each seller’s inventory. You’ll see that CPC while you’re setting up your campaign. This is the CPC we think will deliver optimal performance, based on factors like competition, relevance, and quality."

Reading between the lines that they've drawn here, they're deciding how to invest your money. Which means they'll obviously be investing more of it than they would otherwise. If this wasn't the case, their same old PLS ads would be more than enough.

With that said, a more likely reason for them to separate ad campaigns is they probably don't want your paid Google Ad campaign to bring in traffic, and then ALSO have the PLS promoted fee charged in addition to the per click charge. Not that this isn't a problem that could be easily solved either - but it's a quick band-aid solution that will prevent any confusion. But can you really trust them not to tack on additional sponsored rates anyway? Their rates per click are ALREADY higher than Googles, so they're already banking profits off of the feature with each click...

[zamo-zuan]

Looks like this story is being picked up off of eBay now.

Pretty shocking that they didn't do any official announcement that this feature was starting to be released now, either. It seems it was mentioned in passing a long time ago, and silently released.

And looking over again... So the minimum investment is $300??? To even test this feature out? And it will disable some of your PLS benefits???

Who on earth thought this was a good idea? And what possible incentive if there supposed to be to use this feature?

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@zamo-zuan When ebay first announced PLA, I thoroughly reviewed it and recognized what ebay has since basically acknowledged: PLA is NOT for sellers of single quantity, long tail items. So I have basically ignored it.

As I understand it, if I had my own website, with multi-quantity listings of newer, more in demand products, I could set up an Account with Google to create a Pay Per Click campaign. 

I could be mistaken, but I don't think an ebay store seller can set that up for an individual ebay store.

If that's true, then I imagine there are some ebay sellers who would like the ability to do this through ebay.

I do not know how the rates compare to doing this independently....it is possible , even likely, that ebay has cut a deal with Google that actually makes the sellers payment competitive with Google itself, since ebay has economy of scale leverage. In other words, an independent seller might pay Google 5 cents a click, and an ebay seller pays ebay 5 cents a click, with ebay taking 1 cent and Google willing to take 4 cents instead of 5 because of ebay's economy of scale. (I only say that something like that is possible, I don't know if that is the case or not, and since I don't see myself ever using PLA, on or off ebay, I'm not going to spend a lot of time researching this)

As far as your general complaint, that ebay is taking more and more from us and providing less:  Nothing new there, and , while ebay I'm sure would argue that they are providing more, ebay has not exactly tried to hide the fact that they are using levers to increase their revenue via seller advertising and managed payments. Obviously, it is easier to double the PLS minimum from 1% to 2% than it is to increase GMV. Sellers don't like that, but , if etsy's recent Q2 report and the reaction to it is anything to go by, stockholders are happy with it.

As an ebay seller I long ago accepted the fact that keeping the shareholders happy will always be Priority #1....sellers are not and never will be at the top of that list. (And ebay is not the only platform to which that rule applies.)

[zamo-zuan]

---

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@zamo-zuan When ebay first announced PLA, I thoroughly reviewed it and recognized what ebay has since basically acknowledged: PLA is NOT for sellers of single quantity, long tail items. So I have basically ignored it.

As I understand it, if I had my own website, with multi-quantity listings of newer, more in demand products, I could set up an Account with Google to create a Pay Per Click campaign. 

I could be mistaken, but I don't think an ebay store seller can set that up for an individual ebay store.

If that's true, then I imagine there are some ebay sellers who would like the ability to do this through ebay.

I do not know how the rates compare to doing this independently....it is possible , even likely, that ebay has cut a deal with Google that actually makes the sellers payment competitive with Google itself, since ebay has economy of scale leverage. In other words, an independent seller might pay Google 5 cents a click, and an ebay seller pays ebay 5 cents a click, with ebay taking 1 cent and Google willing to take 4 cents instead of 5 because of ebay's economy of scale. (I only say that something like that is possible, I don't know if that is the case or not, and since I don't see myself ever using PLA, on or off ebay, I'm not going to spend a lot of time researching this)

As far as your general complaint, that ebay is taking more and more from us and providing less:  Nothing new there, and , while ebay I'm sure would argue that they are providing more, ebay has not exactly tried to hide the fact that they are using levers to increase their revenue via seller advertising and managed payments. Obviously, it is easier to double the PLS minimum from 1% to 2% than it is to increase GMV. Sellers don't like that, but , if etsy's recent Q2 report and the reaction to it is anything to go by, stockholders are happy with it.

As an ebay seller I long ago accepted the fact that keeping the shareholders happy will always be Priority #1....sellers are not and never will be at the top of that list. (And ebay is not the only platform to which that rule applies.)

---

We ignored PLA for as long as we could, but same as increasing PLS rates did for us, PLA has become a necessity to regain traction. Without it, the drops are too much. Excuse me if I'm wrong, but I think we might have discussed similar in another thread, possibly the one about eBay advising people "not to spend if they don't have to"? But basically, we have to.

Regarding Google ads... We have to consider that the minimum for this feature on eBay is currently $300 a month! For that price, you could open up a Shopify site and add a paid app to import all your products from eBay to your site, and another app to add Google. Without any prior knowledge, just follow the steps the same way you would as using eBay.

The rates are insane. Check this out... Some average advertising rates:

Here's eBay:

The other thing is, Google bases your keywords on competition. If there's less competition you won't have to bid as much. EBay does the opposite. 

Here's what happens if you MAKE UP a keyword on eBay:

They charge higher than the average, no matter what. EBay impressions cost MORE than Google.

If they did make some deal with Google, then it's exploiting the situation even more. Because their costs are higher than Google, so if they have a deal, that extra income is being pocketed.

PLS from 1% to 2% is one thing, but the pace of monetizing every feature is accelerating. And even last year, the average PL sales was less than this year, so they're focused more on PL sales now as well. Last year 51% PL sales this year 63%. 

Of course, eBay only cares about shareholders. But those shareholders will only be happy short term if their marketplace collapses. Their changes have been making the marketplace less competitive for awhile now, and the more monetization they do with ads, the bigger bubble that will be bursting in the future. 

[valueaddedresource]

Just to add on to give some actual numbers eBay is throwing out there:

In the beta test, eBay selects the rate for you - you cannot edit that $0.22 (in this example) and the minimum budget is $10/day.

[ten_o_nine]

Really!  all gimmicks to most ebay sellers, I think this is meant for big box stores that have multiple quantity in their inventories, but as an average ebay seller will not work to spend more, if someone wants your item, they'll find it.

You can hardly make a profit as is.

[ten_o_nine]

I spent hundreds on Google ads that got me nothing, and you could spend over $200 a day on clicks that don't produce one sale. This is not beneficial to almost 90% of small sellers, but we know where eBay is going.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@zamo-zuan   Your business is a candidate for PLA, mine is not. You sell multi-quantity new (or newer) items with some clear demand, I sell single quantity, used, older long tail items. PLA is NOT designed for my type of inventory. ebay has acknowledged that.  Can you benefit from it (whether on ebay or on Google Shopping)? I don't know.  I do know PLA is more complicated than PLS, which is why many firms actually hire someone to run their PLA campaigns. If you try this (on ebay, on Google, or both) I wish you the best of luck. I'm just saying that , as interesting as I find this as a discussion, it is purely academic to me, because PLA is not and never will be in my marketing toolbox....not because I object to advertising, but because it is designed for a different type of retail model.

Ebay continues to submit my items to Google Shopping free of charge. That hasn't changed. I honestly don't recall if I'm opted in or not for the PLS to Google Shopping thing. I just glanced at a Google Shopping page, and the first row across the top appears to contain all items that are paying Google, I assume through through Pay Per Click or, maybe in ebay's case, through PLS? But I'd guess it is ONLY pay per click stuff. So, my items won't appear in that top row (or the bottom row, which I think is also PPC). And that's fine by me. I don't need the top row, sponsored slot. 

If I were selling stuff where the top row really matters, PLA might be worth it to me (assuming I had the scale to make it worthwhile). Will you likely see a big increase in your sales if your items appear in that top row? I have no idea. Obviously, it would have to be a pretty big increase to offset the costs, and if that isn't likely, then why bother?

But you know your business, I don't, and I don't sell your kind of stuff. The click costs may sound high, but it all depends on what you sell, what quantities you sell, what your net is, etc. A lot of companies pay those click rates and make good money doing so. But  it is not an easy thing to get right, and it is an easy thing to get wrong. 

Again, as a seller, I'm not happy that ebay is emphasizing increasing its take rate rather than increasing its GMV. I agree with you: that's a short sighted policy, especially in what has become a hyper competitive environment in which ebay increasingly looks like an aging race horse that really should just be put out to pasture.

But I try to separate my opinion of ebay's strategy and management from my decisions as to whether to use something like PLS or PLA. If I can make a tool work for me, I'll use it. If not, I won't. PLA isn't for me, it may be for you. You are certainly a better candidate for it than I am. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@valueaddedresource  Whether ebay will continue to choose the rates is open to question---that may be part of a deal with Google....Google may not want to be flooded with ebay sellers sending in one cent click offers, for example.  The main thing to me is, as a seller you see these rates up front, right? so you can simply say, no that won't work for me and walk away. If you think the rates would work for your business, you can go ahead and start the campaign, right?

I've said this many times before: Pay Per Click CAN work, but it is far more complicated than PLS, and even if I had a business model that might benefit from it (and I don't), I'd either want to spend a lot of time studying how to make it work, or, if I had the funds, I'd hire someone who really knows PPC marketing.

And any ebay seller who has never used PPC before should proceed with caution. I suspect most of those who are using it on ebay have used it elsewhere before and so they already know what they are doing. Learning as you go could be pretty expensive.