Would you use Social Media to drive traffic if the FVF was 2.45%?

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Last week the ebay for Business podcast concluded a 3 part series on using Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, etc) to drive traffic to your ebay business. At ebay Open Online this year, ebay mentioned that there are plans to release a new fee for sales made via Social Media. There were no details given, but basically it sounded like, if your sale could be traced to your social media post, the Final Value Fee for that sale would be (sorry, I don't remember the exact figure offhand) something like 2.45%...which would be a nice savings for many of us.

So, my questions:

Do you currently use Social Media to drive traffic to your ebay business? If so, what channel(s) do you use, and has it been successful?

If you don't currently use Social Media to drive traffic to your ebay business, would the reduced FVF be an incentive to try it?

[glasser]

Have to have more details. If it really is 2.45% of course that would be great and sellers should be rewarded if they bring traffic to eBay. We already do most of the heavy lifting 🙂

Whether social works for you would probably depend on what you sell and how you promote on social. I do promote on social but only groups that have formed around the kinds of items I sell. Not all allow sales or only on limited days. I do believe it drives views. Hard to know whether it drives sales or higher prices (I mostly do auctions). One has to assume that many of the people in those groups peruse eBay as well. Have had comments on my posts like already watching or saw it.

I know some of my sales are people in those groups but how did they first find? I have yet to have someone sse my item on eBay, know I am in a group and make an offer off of eBay. But assume that happens.

If they are encouraging cross promotional say from FB marketplace to eBay, how would that work. Also, many people post items on one then more site some dealers have different price points by site. On more than one occasion I have seen a seller have an item on etsy and eBay and different prices on each platform or taking offers on eBay that they can't on etsy. 

Currently, FB has waived selling fees but I think fees were like 5%.

[downunder-61]

Any answers or clarification on this topic?

tyler@ebay

velvet@ebay

travis@ebay

jasmen@ebay

[dbfolks166mt]

     Not only no, but h**l no. I already have a presence on a lot of social media sites especially Facebook marketplace. Why would I direct a buyer from the marketplace posting where I pay minimal or no fees to eBay and pay eBay a fee for selling my item through that venue. 

     It sounds like to me eBay has figured out how much merchandise moves across other social media sites and is trying to figure out a way to tap into that market and skim a little bit off the top. Maybe a desperation move to compensate for what appear to be declining sales over the last several months. I already move more merchandise across social media postings than I move through eBay mainly because I can list it for less, in most cases there is no shipping, lower or no fees and most transactions are in cash. If it ain't broke don't try to fix it. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@glasser I don't have time right now to look it up, but 2.45% is in the ballpark...maybe 2.54% or 2.37%, but the number was in that area....

I'll return to this thread later today when I get a chance. Good points everyone! Keep 'em coming!

[sextons-sweet-deals]

your comment: The advantage to ebay is : ebay spends a lot of money to drive traffic to ebay.

Show me where they are spending money for advertising to help their customers (the sellers).

[valueaddedresource]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

Glad to hear it's working well for you.  Do you have any insight into why eBay would push for more sellers to use it, even going so far as to offer reduced fees?  

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@soh.maryl  my educated guess would be at least one thing in it for eBay is not only would it be driving traffic to your listing, it could also drive traffic to the many other listings eBay will be displaying there via Promoted Listings. 😉 

I recently did a count and found on average eBay stuffs about 25-30 promoted listings ads immediately viewable on the listing page (52 if you count the ones visible by scrolling through the ad carousels).  That's a lot of valuable real estate!

And that is honestly why I probably wouldn't use this feature, especially if I was already selling directly through social media and/or a direct website.  As others have stated, why send someone to eBay when you can get the sale directly? Add to that - why send someone to eBay where eBay will show them a competitor's ad to buy instead?

[sextons-sweet-deals]

Social media has just become nothing but data collection and reselling of personal information for revenue!

Ever joined a social media platform or downloaded a new app? What happens? You start getting junk e-mail, txt, mail, and phone calls based on what information was given. 

[toysaver]

The eBay community is as far as my social media skills go but if money is involved I can learn.  

[Anonymous]

Yes, it would help with my sales.

[katzrul15]

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@toysaver wrote:

The eBay community is as far as my social media skills go but if money is involved I can learn.  

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We did an instagram page for over a year, updated it 2-3 times a week, showcased new listings.  Had about 40 followers only.  I think 1 sale.  It takes a lot of work to build "followers".....anyone can build a page.  Many have been at this for quite some time.  The average website takes 2+ years to build traffic to it from a selling source.  Many still fail.

Good luck.  Everything can be worth a try. 

[valueaddedresource]

There wasn't much info given, but here's a timestamped link to where it was mentioned at eBay Open.  https://youtu.be/FLenhJ4QqL0?t=329 

[memorymarielane]

NO NO NO. The ONLY Final Value Fee Ebay will ever get from this seller is the one they already take. If I choose to post something on social media that is my business and they have no part in that sale as they did NOTHING to bring that traffic from my social media page to my listing on their website. 

Can we not see the corporate takeover that is taking place around the world. Who else is completely disgusted with these greedy CEOs trying to get their hands on every $$$ that we make. STAY OUT OF MY BUSINESS!

[mrdutch1001]

Most small selling venues "Need" the use of social media to drive traffic to sellers' store/shop as otherwise the overall low traffic to these sites would never sustain them.

I suspect eBay is going in that direction, that is leaving all the promoting to the seller, and that may explain the low views, lack of visibility of eBay listings over the past several months...

[mrdutch1001]

not a fan of social media, don't use it for any venue to drive sales...but if I were to do so, I'd just list on FB Marketplace and save myself ALL the hassles that eBay has created for sellers as of late. Why would I give eBay any fees at all if I have to fully promote the listings to sell them. If eBay is not going to do it for me, lesser fees isn't going to entice me to stay with eBay. There are way too many problems/issues with eBay to warrant remaining on a site that doesn't give a rat's ass about its sellers...

There are choices outside of eBay and that seems to be what eBay is doing these days=sending sellers elsewhere...

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@memorymarielane  Just jumping in here quickly to respond to this....the 2.5% (or whatever) is not in addition to your regular FVF, it would replace your regular FVF for that sale. So if your regular is 12.5%, it would instead be 2.5%....a pretty dramatic reduction in FVF. (As the video notes, the 30 cent transaction fee would not be changed)