You lose all control over your Promoted Listings to Ebay in June, but retain full responsibility

[rugerskick]

https://pages.ebay.com/sell/pl/termsofservice.html

If you read the terms to the changes in Promoted Listings, all your rights as a seller are out the window IF you use Promoted Listings after the June changes.

Here are just some of the things in the above changes.

They can add or remove your specifically chosen key words.

They can change your item prices.  They can change your ad rates.  They are going to allow third parties (brands, larger competitor sellers) access to your confidential sales data without your permission.  In order that they either file a complaint and say we don't want this seller selling here, or to find a way to take more sales away from you.  You won't be able to access others sales data this way as a typical, smaller seller.

After the June changes, there is now nothing in your Promoted Listings they cannot change or modify.  There is nothing they cant simply remove now for any reasons.  They can make any changes to your listing and if their changes run afoul of any third party issues/complaints/violations, its still going to be your fault and the damage will be placed on your ebay account.  They don't have to notify you of any changes they make to anything in any of your Promoted Listings.  You as the seller are responsible for everything but they can control every aspect of your Promoted Listings.  If Ebay makes a charging error to you, if you do not catch the error within 6 days of the charging error taking place, they won't fix it and you are out that money.  If you do catch it within 6 days and write them to correct it, they have a full 60 days to make the proper payments to you.  They give themselves ten times the amount of time to correct their problem than than they give sellers to notice a problem.

Have your attorney friends look over the ebay page above and get their honest opinion. Don't just take my assessment of their page statement above.

The rational advice is to no longer use Promoted Listings.  Your listings won't be yours anymore to control, but all the responsibility and risk are all yours.  Plus you could wind up with huge bills, removed listings, and defects to your account for things ebay did to your Promoted Listings that you had no idea they did.

Everyone who does not want this to have this mpotentially happen to them needs to stop all their Promoted Listings before these June changes take effect.

[valueaddedresource]

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@gracieallen01 wrote:

@valueaddedresource 

I think one of the most amusing things of the facebook response is that I can't think of ebay doing anything on the site 'in the moment'.

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@gracieallen01  that is a good one! I also found "if more questions persist" amusing....with a word salad answer like that, questions are pretty much guaranteed to persist.

[amricons]

We asked eBay to clarify the terms of the program and got a reply back from eBay. We posted the re[ly today on this board and when we get a reply we will post it as it seems many sellers have asked eBay to make the programs terms black and white.  No way, no how will we participate in any program that will allow eBay or unknown 3rd parties ti make any changes to our listings.

[flyingmvp]

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@ry91214 wrote:

I don't know about the rest of you... But with as slow as sales have been, fewer and fewer views on my listings, I'm about ready to sign up for whatever might help achieve a few sales! For the first time in years, I have been experiencing days without a single sale. Where/what do you want me to sign?

That's exactly what the venue is hoping for, hand them even more money while you are desperate for sales...

[farmalljr]

Hate to tell you all I told you so, but, I told you so. eBay has made it clear enough, they are going to change anything about your listing they want to. And let's be real here. It's probably NOT going to be a person changing ANYTHING, it will be bots. 

I have already found several listings where the promoted rate has mysteriously been doubled from where I set it. I use only the SAME percentage rate, so it's no mystery as to what is going on here....

Secondly, I have to edit 100 listings in bulk at a time. Any more than  and it will NOT change the promo. When I am done with 100 of them, only about half are actually changing. Nah, eBay would NOT be trying to make it MORE difficult to end promos, right?

My suggestion to those of you who will be bailing on promoted listings, get to work NOW or it will be too late to end them if they keep messing with stuff. 

I would have been on board IF eBay would ONLY adjust the promo rate, IF I could put a ceiling percentage on it. But, in order to make those "profits" for the quarterly reports, eBay is in it's final grab to take whatever it can to keep investors happy. Too bad that it's going to cause them much more harm then good. They can't see the forest for the trees.  I don't know any sellers with an ounce of sense that would tell eBay "take whatever you want, I just want sales. Who cares if I make a profit."

I'll never promote again under these terms. If the sales go away, so will my store subscription and my spending here. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I'll be setting up a new campaign...maybe several....today or tomorrow. I'll report back if I notice any irregularities. 

[farmalljr]

FWIW: I ended ALL of my campaigns a few days ago. All that is left to do is end all promotions on my items. I happened to be looking through some listings and found my ad rate has been doubled. Not on all, or loads of them, but some here and there. I have no idea how long they have been like that, but over the last week I have had sales that sold for the higher promotion.

Just took me a minute to investigate my listings to see what was going on. It's not worth my effort to raise a stick with eBay over it at this point. AFTER promos are all ended, and 30 days have past, there better NOT be any promo rates on ANY sales. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I just set up two PLS campaigns, each is set to end on May 10th. I chose two different rates, both on the low side, so don't necessarily anticipate a lot of lift from this, but will be curious to see if there are any irregularities.

[flyingmvp]

Currently,  sellers are charged when buyers click on their promoted listings and purchases the promoted item within 30 days.

How long before Ebay  announces about the change from 30 days to 60 or even 90 days after the buyer clicked?

Go for it Ebay 💩 !

[velvet@ebay · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone! I received this from the Promoted Listings team to share with you all: 

We understand there has been a lot of discussion surrounding the recently announced updates to our Marketing Program Terms.  We appreciate the feedback and want to take this time to clarify.  Some sellers have expressed concerns about provisions relating to a Promoted Listings account optimization program we introduced last year. Specifically, those terms are intended to help us manage sellers’ Promoted Listings accounts, but only when a seller has asked us to do so. Currently, we only offer the service through our account managers, and no seller has been or will ever be opted in by default.

[farmalljr]

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velvet@ebay wrote:

Hi everyone! I received this from the Promoted Listings team to share with you all: 

We understand there has been a lot of discussion surrounding the recently announced updates to our Marketing Program Terms.  We appreciate the feedback and want to take this time to clarify.  Some sellers have expressed concerns about provisions relating to a Promoted Listings account optimization program we introduced last year. Specifically, those terms are intended to help us manage sellers’ Promoted Listings accounts, but only when a seller has asked us to do so. Currently, we only offer the service through our account managers, and no seller has been or will ever be opted in by default.

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And how is a seller going to "ask"? From the language of the announcement, it seems you opt in just like anything else. You just use it. We don't have to ask to join managed payments, PLA's or PLS's, or any other thing. 

Also the post on Facebook that is now gone, according to others, does not mesh with your statement. Will there be a TOS change that we can review? As it stands, it's less than 30 days from implementation of this new change.  For me, I want to see clear language explaining the terms clearly, before I use promoted listings again. I don't want someone else having control of how much I spend, my pricing, or any of the terms or keywords of my listings. 

[frodobagginskennedy]

@velvet@ebay

IF that statement is true then it should be CLEARLY pinned, posted at the TOP of that announcement.   Then and only then will  believe it.

Been with Fee Bay since 01ish.  I used to think it was a nice place where people traded items, etc.  NOW I am afraid to sell anything(no worries about selling anything recently) thinking something nefarious will happen because e bay stuck their fingers in the mix.

[valueaddedresource]

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@farmalljr wrote:

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velvet@ebay wrote:

Hi everyone! I received this from the Promoted Listings team to share with you all: 

We understand there has been a lot of discussion surrounding the recently announced updates to our Marketing Program Terms.  We appreciate the feedback and want to take this time to clarify.  Some sellers have expressed concerns about provisions relating to a Promoted Listings account optimization program we introduced last year. Specifically, those terms are intended to help us manage sellers’ Promoted Listings accounts, but only when a seller has asked us to do so. Currently, we only offer the service through our account managers, and no seller has been or will ever be opted in by default.

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And how is a seller going to "ask"? From the language of the announcement, it seems you opt in just like anything else. You just use it. We don't have to ask to join managed payments, PLA's or PLS's, or any other thing. 

Also the post on Facebook that is now gone, according to others, does not mesh with your statement. Will there be a TOS change that we can review? As it stands, it's less than 30 days from implementation of this new change.  For me, I want to see clear language explaining the terms clearly, before I use promoted listings again. I don't want someone else having control of how much I spend, my pricing, or any of the terms or keywords of my listings. 

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@farmalljr the managed ad service they are referring to is not something that is offered publicly for anyone/everyone to sign up for at this time as far as I know - it is a service that is available to select accounts (usually larger ones) through their account managers.

Those terms regarding the ability for eBay to change your listings only apply to accounts which have agreed to allow eBay to do so through participation in specific features or services - they do not apply by default to all sellers who use Promoted Listings.

I don't think there will be a TOS change because in fact, that's what the terms *actually* said - despite what anyone may have heard on YouTube.

velvet@ebay  - I do think it would be good to put that statement from the Promoted Listings team in a sticky topic separately so it is easy to see and reference instead of buried in this thread. 😊

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

velvet@ebay  So, would it be correct to say: This statement : "Specifically, those terms are intended to help us manage sellers’ Promoted Listings accounts, but only when a seller has asked us to do so. Currently, we only offer the service through our account managers, and no seller has been or will ever be opted in by default."

currently refers ONLY to everything AFTER "Self Service" on this page from ebay's Ads team blog:

 https://www.ebayads.com/ad-solutions/ways-to-advertise/

As for me, I'll just continue, as I've said all along, to use PLS as before ,with adjustments in June for the upcoming fee calculation change.

[simply-the-best-for-you]

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@farmalljr wrote:

FWIW: I ended ALL of my campaigns a few days ago. All that is left to do is end all promotions on my items. I happened to be looking through some listings and found my ad rate has been doubled. Not on all, or loads of them, but some here and there. I have no idea how long they have been like that, but over the last week I have had sales that sold for the higher promotion.

Just took me a minute to investigate my listings to see what was going on. It's not worth my effort to raise a stick with eBay over it at this point. AFTER promos are all ended, and 30 days have past, there better NOT be any promo rates on ANY sales. 

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If you used, intentionally or accidentally, PL Standard AUTOMATED, that is the way it works.  Intentionally.  It's one of the features of PLS, Automated, that the rate changes once/day.  

That program has nothing to do with the announcement, it's been available for at least a few months.  I started using it a few months ago & I love it b/c the daily rate changes automate a process I was doing manually.   I suspect that that may be what you did without realizing it.  

[buyologist-3]

 ..."What's the problem?"

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The problem is: Few want to believe it and I don't blame them.  I read where a guy said it's happening to him right now and he's NOT in PL or anything.  My guess is, the first time a seller has a boo-boo, WHAM!  

Buckle your seatbelts....