eBay, why did some get 500 free promotions for Memorial Day and the rest of us didn't?

[ifyouloveit]

I am asking an eBay rep to answer this question, as there seems to be no answer.

Why did you just send 500 free listings to some sellers and not the rest?

Memorial Day Weekend is here, huge selling. We all see you have given some of your sellers 500 free listings, and others have gotten nothing all month. Like myself.

WHY??  I am a above standard seller with free shipping and free returns. I have a clean track record. I do everything you want, some of against my own beliefs, like free shipping. It pushes away International buyers but you will rank me higher if I offer it. 

So many of us GOOD sellers are watching other sellers getting 500 free listings when we desperately need them. I want to know exactly WHY I did not recieve this offer. I am sure I am not alone. Are you trying to force me into your $4.95 store, I am not buying it. Not until you prove to ME that this is a fair playing field for sellers, I do not trust you to take more of my money.

eBay customer reps or higher, please explain the truth about these free listings promotions. WHY EXACTLY did I not receive the promotion. I am a fine, upstanding eBay selling citizen.

Why am I being penalized? Please other board readers, no snarky comments, I am seriously getting very confused with eBay, it seems all I do is chase my tail here now. 

Has anyone called eBay to see if they will give them the promo? I just don't get it. I want to sell, be a good seller, eBay restricts me, for no reason other than I sell used items, i.e., collectibles.

[emerald40]

We are members here like yourself.  All I can say is that promos are given out at random.

If you want to hear it from a rep then you need to call ebay.

Or you can request that a mod come here.

@Anonymous

Called one for you.

But to add you state you have no intention of opening a store.  These promos are incentives to do so.  So that could be why.

[nobody*s_perfect]

eBay claims that the offers are sent randomly.

They certainly aren't any sort of reward or recognition.

I have several IDs and based on my own limited experience, I suspect that offers are used as an enticement, quite the opposite of a reward.  I regularly get them on idle selling IDs or even on two IDs that aren't even registered for selling.  So it's possible that the best and most active sellers are LESS likely to get them. At any rate, not getting a promotional offer is not being "penalized."

As noted in the other post, this is a member-to-member board.  eBay staff will come to threads if summoned but you can be sure that you will not get a personalized answer about your special situation.

[nawlinsron2]

Perspective is your friend...if you're selling $9.95 items, 25 cents is a potential big deal.
If you're selling $29.95 and up...not so much.
And they are random...and non-sensical. Just got one limited to categories I NEVER list it.

[tamaralea]

I sell $ 29.95 items, but they take a while to sell, so $ .25 is still a big deal to me.  That's my perspective.

[ednkarens]

Please don't feel that you are being penalized.  The free listings are random and like you we did not receive any except for our 50.    We remember back in 2001 when there were no such things as free listings.  We always paid the .30 for each listing.  We thought of it this way: Instead of paying $1.00 for a lottery ticket, you have a better chance of making money by listing 3 items. 

[orangehound]

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@ifyouloveit wrote:

Why am I being penalized? Please other board readers, no snarky comments, I am seriously getting very confused with eBay, it seems all I do is chase my tail here now. 

Has anyone called eBay to see if they will give them the promo? I just don't get it. I want to sell, be a good seller, eBay restricts me, for no reason other than I sell used items, i.e., collectibles.

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It is my belief that these free offers go more frequently to sellers who are listing items that eBay believes are in demand and have low inventory levels.  It is my understanding that low-priced collectibles are overstocked on eBay (high inventory levels).

I say this because as a store subscriber, the only offers I get are for targeted categories of items.  For example, the last offer I got was restricted to things like Small Appliances, Automobile Lamps and Brake Parts, Electronics ... they are giving me that offer because they say that these are items that are in low inventory on eBay.  The list of eligible items did not include collectibles.

[Anonymous]

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@ifyouloveit wrote:

I am asking an eBay rep to answer this question, as there seems to be no answer.

Why did you just send 500 free listings to some sellers and not the rest?

Memorial Day Weekend is here, huge selling. We all see you have given some of your sellers 500 free listings, and others have gotten nothing all month. Like myself.

WHY??  I am a above standard seller with free shipping and free returns. I have a clean track record. I do everything you want, some of against my own beliefs, like free shipping. It pushes away International buyers but you will rank me higher if I offer it. 

So many of us GOOD sellers are watching other sellers getting 500 free listings when we desperately need them. I want to know exactly WHY I did not recieve this offer. I am sure I am not alone. Are you trying to force me into your $4.95 store, I am not buying it. Not until you prove to ME that this is a fair playing field for sellers, I do not trust you to take more of my money.

eBay customer reps or higher, please explain the truth about these free listings promotions. WHY EXACTLY did I not receive the promotion. I am a fine, upstanding eBay selling citizen.

Why am I being penalized? Please other board readers, no snarky comments, I am seriously getting very confused with eBay, it seems all I do is chase my tail here now. 

Has anyone called eBay to see if they will give them the promo? I just don't get it. I want to sell, be a good seller, eBay restricts me, for no reason other than I sell used items, i.e., collectibles.

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Hi @ifyouloveit, many of our promotions are not sent out to every seller on the site and different promotions may be offered for different types of sellers. New sellers, occasional sellers, sellers with moderate volume, sellers who may benefit from a store, sellers in certain categories, sellers who are not in certain categories, a random section of the Community - the list goes on and on for the segments of our Community that may be targeted for a certain promotion, but this would not mean that you are being punished or singled out in some way when you find you have not received one of the offers we have sent out.

Seller promotions are not a reward for certain behavior, but instead are an incentive to promote the growth of a business. To reiterate, these are most often not offered to the entire site and we discourage sellers from counting on promotions as a part of their business. These are not guaranteed and cannot be manually given to specific sellers upon request. 

[keziak]

That is one dang good response from Trinton, worthy of being printed out and stuck to the computer monitor. I'm not being snarky, I mean it.  He's laying it out for you. 

Promotions simply do not always make sense. For example I will get promotions for a large number of Fixed Price listings but I already pay for 1000 and never come near to using them up. What do I  need 500 more for? What is ebay trying to get me to do with this? Who knows?

[fern*wood]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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Hi @ifyouloveit, many of our promotions are not sent out to every seller on the site and different promotions may be offered for different types of sellers. New sellers, occasional sellers, sellers with moderate volume, sellers who may benefit from a store, sellers in certain categories, sellers who are not in certain categories, a random section of the Community - the list goes on and on for the segments of our Community that may be targeted for a certain promotion, but this would not mean that you are being punished or singled out in some way when you find you have not received one of the offers we have sent out.

Seller promotions are not a reward for certain behavior, but instead are an incentive to promote the growth of a business. To reiterate, these are most often not offered to the entire site and we discourage sellers from counting on promotions as a part of their business. These are not guaranteed and cannot be manually given to specific sellers upon request. 

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I think this proves what I thought all along---promos are anything but random.

[kathieskorner]

I have four accounts - each listing different types of items.  Sometimes I get a promotion on all four - sometimes less, sometimes none.  Sometimes I get promos I don't activate like the one requiring Best Offer.    I got the 500 free listings promo on just one of my accounts - the one I sell books on.  Sadly there is no way I can list 500 books when I have only about half that in inventory, especially in five days.

As for Memorial Day weekend being a huge selling time on ebay - that has never been my experience in 18 years.   I'm always surprised if I get sales on long holiday weekends when people are travelling or getting together with family and friends. 

[fern*wood]

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@ednkarens wrote:

Please don't feel that you are being penalized.  The free listings are random and like you we did not receive any except for our 50.    We remember back in 2001 when there were no such things as free listings.  We always paid the .30 for each listing.  We thought of it this way: Instead of paying $1.00 for a lottery ticket, you have a better chance of making money by listing 3 items. 

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Were listings really .30 back in 2001?  When I started the minimum for a $9.99 item was around .75.    It cost more if my starting price was over ten bucks.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@fern*wood wrote:

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 ... Were listings really .30 back in 2001?  When I started the minimum for a $9.99 item was around .75.    It cost more if my starting price was over ten bucks.

Insertion fees were based on the opening bid price, and started at 30 cents.    And NO free insertions, except the annual post-Christmas Free Listing Day, which would crash the servers by noontime.

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~magnus/ief248a/eBay/history.html

[newview]

You’re aware how the neighborhood crack dealer on the corner operates, right? He gives you a taste every now and then until he sees you’re hooked, then he cuts you off abruptly, leaving you desperately wanting more until you finally cough up some ca$h to feed your addiction.

eBay works the same exact way with their “free” listings.

[Anonymous]

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@fern*wood wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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Hi @ifyouloveit, many of our promotions are not sent out to every seller on the site and different promotions may be offered for different types of sellers. New sellers, occasional sellers, sellers with moderate volume, sellers who may benefit from a store, sellers in certain categories, sellers who are not in certain categories, a random section of the Community - the list goes on and on for the segments of our Community that may be targeted for a certain promotion, but this would not mean that you are being punished or singled out in some way when you find you have not received one of the offers we have sent out.

Seller promotions are not a reward for certain behavior, but instead are an incentive to promote the growth of a business. To reiterate, these are most often not offered to the entire site and we discourage sellers from counting on promotions as a part of their business. These are not guaranteed and cannot be manually given to specific sellers upon request. 

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I think this proves what I thought all along---promos are anything but random.

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Hi @fern*wood, I'm sorry if something I said in my previous response has raised some confusion for you; the individuals who receive a promotional offer are randomly selected, but they are often times from a specific segment of the eBay Community. As an example, we don't send selling promotions to Buyers unless they are designed to encourage trying out selling. Another example would be some a promotion for discounted fees when selling in the Parts & Accessories category - while we have sent out promotions to all registered sellers for this, we have also sent promotions for those sellers who frequently or occasionally sell in these categories.

As I'm sure you can imagine, marketing is a complex topic, but it should come as no surprise that there is a strategy to the offers that we send to members of our Community. Again, many offers are applied across our user base randomly, but even when we target a specific subset for a certain objective, those within that subset are selected at random. There are not specific members who are singled out or others who are incentivized. I believe you are concerned that there are some who are receiving some kind of special treatment, and I can assure that this is not the case