@grand-and-glorious-purpose If I recall correctly, when PLS (now general Ads) began, you could advertise for 1 or 2% (calculated only on the item price) AND ebay provided a $30/month fee credit. Adoption was SLOW, especially among long tail, single quantity sellers, most of whom dismissed the whole idea because they knew their relatively hard to find items would show up on the first page of search results regardless.
However, some long tail sellers realized the value proposition had nothing to do with the first page of search results....it was all in the fact that ebay was showing PLS items on other listings. (But, back then, not nearly so many as now).
The thing about long tail items is, they tend to sell in two situations: 1 Buyer is searching for that very specific item. But the very definition of long tail means an item that is not being searched for by many people. So it can be a long wait for that buyer to actually be searching. 2 Buyer is searching for something else, and stumbles across your item---which he might not even have known existed---and buys it because he is thrilled to have run across this. Basically, the difference between actual search and something closer to browsing.
PLS in the early days was valuable for long tail sellers because of #2. I sold quite a few items that had been sitting a long time: no one was actively searching for that item, but they bought when they stumbled across it on someone else's listing page. At one point, ebay acknowledged that the great majority of PLS items do NOT sell from the search results page, but from listing pages etc. (and this was before ebay had really gone crazy with such placements)
Of course, it was a foregone conclusion that the more sellers who began using PLS, the less valuable the program would be. It was a typical case of : early adopters made hay while the sun was shining, but the smart ones knew the sun would eventually set LOL
And it hasn't simply been that more sellers began using it. It has also been the changes ebay made: elimination of the fee credit, 2% minimum (and now 5% minimum with dynamic), fee calculated on total price rather than item price, stuffing the listing page beyond anything like a reasonable level, the Halo Rule, etc, etc. And along with this has come increasing mistrust.
And here we are: the Value Proposition for PLS, which was actually once quite strong, is much weaker than it had been in the early days.
mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
