What do other sellers have to say about the Promoted Listings option?

[jlskooch]

I'm curious to hear from other sellers who have used the Promoted Listings option? Is the extra expense worth it? Does it lead to more sales and faster? Not interested in a debate. Just your experience.

[chapeau-noir]

It works fine for me, but I'm in a ridiculously supersaturated category.  If I sold more unique items I wouldn't bother.

[12345jamesstamps]

Some of the other sellers here have like 65,000 listings as to what I sell. So I promote some of my expensive stuff at 10-15 per cent rate to get buyers to look at my stuff. I have been selling some of the cheaper promoted stuff. I think the more listings you have the better luck you have. If I had 65,000 listings I wouldn't have to promote anything. 

[slippinjimmy]

It's only an expense if it brings you a sale, I use the 2% rate on selective listings (pretty much dead listings), I don't get many sales (a big bump in Impressions).

I'd rather have a sale and make 98% of "normal" than keep 100% of a mirage.

Of course the results or lack of are different for every seller so really the only thing to do is experiment. If you feel your sales should be better test out using Promoted Listings and see if they work for you or not. Any test that will return useful info needs to run for a reasonable period of time, use a variety of rates and some analysis of the numbers.

The version for Auction listings is different, you pay up front regardless of the results, I would suggest experimenting with Fixed Price version first.

[gotta-have-it-collectables]

I list evary DAY!

[yuzuha]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

It works fine for me, but I'm in a ridiculously supersaturated category.  If I sold more unique items I wouldn't bother.

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Yeah, I've honestly never seen a point to using them for what I sell since in most cases there are fewer than 50 other sellers selling the same items I have, meaning my listings are pretty much guaranteed to be on either the first or second page of search results. Promoting would just be a waste of money.

[reallynicestamps]

I have found that when I have PL listings I get more Views , but what sells is as likely to be other stuff.

I do put a link to myStore into every Description in addition to the standard links eBay gives us. (The little blue book and the See Other Items links.)

So for my the PL are the milkshake bringing the boys to the yard, but some of the boys are buying sundaes, or a banana split.

Since PL (at 2%) only costs me when the PL listing is purchased, it's cheap advertising.

A Canadian seller has been experimenting.

He has some of his older lots at 10% PL and some similar lots at a 10% Markdown sale.

He does not really have a lot of data yet, but it looks like the 10% PL listings are doing better than the Markdowns.

And of course the effect on his bottom line is identical - he gets 10% less than he would have liked for either kind of promotion.

But he reminds us, anecdote is not data.

[evry1nositswindy]

Have never and will never use it.  

[allen1853]

I too use the standard 2% on all of my 2200 mostly unique listings. I completely ignore eBay's recommended percentage. I started at 5 or 10% with some listings. Then I just went to 5% for all, then each time eBay let a buyer commit fraud I dropped everything a point. (Not really related but my form of "protest".) I got down to 1%. Then one day when I created a new listing I got a flag that the minimum was 2%. No notice from eBay, they just were not promoting my other listings. So everything is now 2%. Not sure how much it works. Seems about half of my sales incur the promoted listing fee. I will NOT do Promoted Advanced and pay up front. It is a shame eBay does not actually advertise (except eBay Motors) and instead charges us to eat our own. 

[5594shelleys]

Is the extra expense worth it? Does it lead to more sales and faster? 

No.

[chapeau-noir]

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@allen1853 wrote:

I too use the standard 2% on all of my 2200 mostly unique listings. I completely ignore eBay's recommended percentage. I started at 5 or 10% with some listings. Then I just went to 5% for all, then each time eBay let a buyer commit fraud I dropped everything a point. (Not really related but my form of "protest".) I got down to 1%. Then one day when I created a new listing I got a flag that the minimum was 2%. No notice from eBay, they just were not promoting my other listings. So everything is now 2%. Not sure how much it works. Seems about half of my sales incur the promoted listing fee. I will NOT do Promoted Advanced and pay up front. It is a shame eBay does not actually advertise (except eBay Motors) and instead charges us to eat our own. 

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They announced the rise to 2% in one of the updates.  I think the mandatory 2% and the reasons they gave for it were specious, but they did announce it.

[inhawaii]

It works for some.

It doesn't work for others.

Some of us (like me) do not use it.

That's kind of like asking people "Is an extended warranty worth it?"

Some will say yes. Others will say no.

[reallynicestamps]

@evry1nositswindy 

Have never and will never use it.

Which is a perfectly valid choice. No argument.

And here comes the argument- because there was bound to be one.

Many sellers have a gut reaction to raised fees which lead obviously to lower profits.

My Canadian stamp dealer friend is able to overlook the gut reaction and is trying to see if paying the landlord for a better shop sign works better than lowering his prices by the same amount.

Which is why he went for a higher PL fee- a buyer will ignore a 2% discount, so he needed a discount that a buyer might take and therefore a fee that costs him the same.

It will be months before he has a useful dataset, but he is persistent.

I'm not sure.

My own gut reaction is that lowering prices lowers the value of the products still at regular price.

We (well DH mostly) never had markdown sales.

He used trade dollars to entice customers to return. (If the customer spent $100 on a purchase, he got the sales tax , which we had to charge and show on the cash register, back in the form of trade dollars - Canadians could think of Canadian Tire Money  , Americans of Green Stamps- which could be used on the next sale.)

This rewards the customer , and encourages him to use them on the next visit.

[jlskooch]

Thank you all for your input. It's much appreciated.

[redlinear]

Promotion stands a better chance of getting your item seen. 
My items not being seen seems to be my biggest issue. 
So, I promote with the hope that it helps them be seen.
eBay seems to hide my listings for a long while, and then lets them be seen for short while.   
When seen, they sell.