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.

[lovecollectibles]

Selling, Reselling or commerce in general requires the seller to have autonomy and control of variables such as operational cost. What this new Ad fee/promotion policy has done is to introduce a  new variable (MONEY) that as a seller we can no longer control. My solution was to no longer promote all of my 500 plus items and to begin migrating my good to other e-commerce platforms. 

[finderzkeeperz-treasureseekerz]

Hello everyone! I only read a few of these posts - (about 7) -Yeah - I am pretty sure there is much confusion over some wording! Ebay MAY need to consider changing a couple of words in this one - to avoid confusion!
I am no lawyer, however, I have a pretty good ability to read & understand legal documents as well as notice words thrown in to make you think you are agreeing to something you are not. I am NOT giving legal advice or insinuating I know it all - I am just saying Let's look at this realistically. Aside from the fact that it would not be beneficial to eBay for them to release these awesome new marketing features - then say OH BUT WAIT! You have to allow us to make un-solicited changes to your account whenever & however we want, including PRICE AND the icing on the cake : You have to take responsibility for those changes!! This would mean if your listing is $193.54 + $25.00 shipping They can just decide - meh - This is too high! We are changing it to $50.00 & $0.00 shipping! Someone buys it & with your promotions, fees, & shipping you are not in the negative! Oh well! I do NOT think that is happening here! Would anyone EVER want to list with them again? I think not! It does not make sense. Instead of just blabbing, here is my technical reason(s) this is incorrect: 
"Without prior consent" insinuates they do not have to have permission -which is why it clearly states ONCE YOU OPT-IN. They are simply saying: By writing them or selecting "ok" in marketing tools, you automatically give the CONSENT prior to requesting any changes you want eBay to make at a later date - which is why they do not have to ask again every single time you request another modification! It is NOT saying they will do it without permission - rather IF you request a modification - They may then modify it because you consented by opting in when you accept the terms as well as submit a request for them to specifically modify what it is you are requesting them to modify!! 

In a nutshell: By changing/adding new Marketing features, IF you request them to change something, they are covering themselves by saying you consent to it once asked. In other words, If  I launch a sale for 25%  of of 1/4 of my store's inventory - but made a mistake which I cannot edit on my end but could fully affect the amount of profit I earn & how my store flows - I decide to make a change or write eBay requesting them to make a change - I have already agreed to allowing these changes by opting into using the marketing tools! It is NOT saying they will just move into your account and change prices or modify items without any prior permission! They have you opt into this agreement upon your initial use of marketing tools, so you do not have to opt in again every time you request something! I do not know about everyone else but when things get chaotic the last thing I have time for is to have to wait for my request to be processed because they have to have me opt into an agreement every time I change something in marketing! It is the equivalent of needing the boss's permission before micro-managing each and every part of a project! If everyone already agrees people from the marketing department can make these changes prior to the project beginning, it avoids having to stop the boss mid-work every time something else needs to be modified! Ebay is having us agree ahead of time - How could we expect them not to make such an agreement?? Imagine them allowing us (sellers) to create a sale or coupon, then make changes later - but EBAY is responsible for potential consequences of those changes?! That is insane & just bad business!!  only other 2 possibilities would be A: Do not offer any added features/benefits/ways for us to boost sales & only look out for themselves as some other platforms OR B: have us opt-in to an agreement every time we attempt to make change(s) to our advertisements/coupons/etc. 

Anyway - I am not saying this to argue with anyone or push any buttons!! I am just giving my insight & do not want people randomly abandoning eBay & all of their hard work because they get scared! Any posts should be respected but also researched & thought about thoroughly before panicking! There are positives & negatives on EVERY platform you chose to sell on! However, I just do not think this falls into one of the negative categories. I think some people are simply misunderstanding the context! I also respect the fact that a lawyer read/talked to you about it, however, again, context is important! Even a lawyer - when not understanding the surrounding situation(s) & or context, can mis-understand the details. Not that you intentionally did not provide these details - because I do not think you did! I just think you should take some time to cool down & read it line by line & process ANY document, terms, policy, etc. you are given &/or read. Try not to let surrounding negativity affect you while reading. It is easy, when already upset about something - to take the next situation out of context or automatically go into it with a negative mind-set!              🙂 

[valueaddedresource]

@finderzkeeperz-treasureseekerz  You might want to add at least one more post in this thread to your list - this one from one of the eBay employees here in the community who got the answer directly from the eBay Ads department. 😉

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/You-lose-all-control-over-your-Promoted-Listings-to-Ebay-in-Ju...

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.

TLDR: 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 explicitly opting in to specific managed account services - they do not apply by default to all sellers who use Promoted Listings.

[rugerskick]

Sellers are banned here and not told why.  Can't fix it because no info will be told to them on what the problem is.

Out of everyone on this platform sellers are treated the poorest.

Sellers get conned here and most of the time are screwed with the assistance of ebay helping the fraudsters.

Sellers are just looked at as a source for endless fees.

Sellers are denigrated if they are "low value" sellers by the current ceo of ebay.  Despite low value sellers providing the majority of sales and revenue for ebay.

The site has deliberately made listings here more difficult by making changes NOBODY wanted.

Given this,

Of course it makes logical sense to read ebay legalese about upcoming changes in the most negative terms as possible.  To not do so is to be caught off-guard and then be chided, "well, we told you this was going to happen."

[patch-it-up-buttercup]

lol

[valueaddedresource]

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@patch-it-up-buttercup wrote:

lol

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LOL - my thoughts exactly as almost a year later the specific piece of sky discussed in this thread has still not fallen. 😂

[kh-stanley1]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.