promoted listings

[verdaviolavintage]

I see that I now have to increase my promoted listing fees for you to above 2%.  I feel like we sellers already give quite a bit of our profits to eBay.  Every time I turn around,  eBay has figured out a new way to decrease our profits.  Why do I have to change all of my promoted listings to double the present amount?  Shouldn't it be my choice?  As I see it,  I have zero choice in this new requirement.  I try to keep my prices down for my customers to as low as I can go but I guess that I need to up those very same prices to increase eBay's bottom line.  I love selling on eBay but things like this make me feel less proud to have an eBay store within this network.  Promoted listings were to me a scam thought up to increase your profits.  Why aren't ALL items on your website lifted equally and/or shown equally?  You are now a pay to play and if that doesn't take the fun and magic out of our selling sites, I don't know what does!!!!

[bargaincat4u]

I 100% agree. Not ok. 

[daisymen2009]

Fully agree

[cobalt327]

Death by a thousand cuts...

[collectfest]

On the positive note, they at least announced it before I renewed my store contract for the year, I can lower it accordingly.  

[longhorntruckparts]

On top of the 11% I already pay to sale used auto parts, so now they get 13%. Ever notice it's not just your product they get a percentage of, the tax and shipping also gets charged a percentage. It's like going to the shark tank "Yes I would like you to be my partner for 13% of everything and you can buy your way in for no money."

[femmefan1946]

I just did a test listing and was allowed to chose my usual one percent.

So I checked my Messages.
No requirement about PL promotions.

Then I went to my PL listings List.

Nothing.

I list on both dotCOM and dotCA.

Neither seems to have any such demand.

Could you post the wording you received from eBay telling you which PL listings must be redone?

[2013grotz]

>Could you post the wording you received from eBay telling you which PL listings must be redone?

@femmefan1946 :First paragraph of the e-mail they sent out today, which is enough to get the gist.

We're continuously evaluating the performance and impact quality of Promoted Listings Standard as a tool to drive seller success. As part of this work, effective July 11, we’ll be changing the minimum ad rate for Promoted Listings Standard from 1% to 2%. While we recognize this impacts your business, this change will ensure your campaigns remain competitive in reaching buyers in our growing marketplace, and also allow us to deliver products and services that drive best-in-class returns for eBay sellers.

The gist of the rest of the long e-mail is effective July 11, anything not promoted at least at 2% immediately becomes unpromoted.  So basically if you want to keep promoting after that, it's gotta be at 2% and not 1%.

[femmefan1946]

Thank you.

I haven't received that email, but since I am located and registered in Canada, it may not apply to my dotCA listings.

If it comes through I will probably drop PL on my books, which already are at 14.5% FVF, but continue with my sewing patterns.

We'll see about the categories on my other iDs.

While anecdote is not data, I have noticed that PL vastly increased the number of my Views, but the increased Sales were not of the PL items.

It looks to me as if PL was attracting browsers, who didn't necessarily buy the PL title, but did buy something else.

After nearly four years, using PL at 1%, over four active selling accounts, I don't think I've given eBay even $500 in PL fees.  I'd have to do a deep dive on that though since it's not something I break out for income tax deductions, all eBay fees are lumped for that.

[2013grotz]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

While anecdote is not data, I have noticed that PL vastly increased the number of my Views, but the increased Sales were not of the PL items.

 FWIW, I've tried a trial of running PL on every one of my items, and notice about 50% of the sales have been associated with that over the last couple of months.  Which seems to indicate the PL functionality is useful, if not required in my case.

Of course, for someone that's basically closet cleaning / doing minor thrift purchases,  and running about a max of 125 items, it does make it hard for my items to even be *seen* let alone bought.  As I've said, if I had a store on here I'd be complaining to high heaven at the poor performance I'm getting.

That said, my plan was to just try to sell down my items  and quit, but I may have to revise that if this keeps going on much longer.

[luxgoods]

It's greed. Ebay knows that a lot of us are not selling anything and that our sales are way down. Ebay rarely ever gives us anything that could really help us. Maybe offering us ten more letters in our listings so that we could give more info. But no, the executives sit in the board room trying to figure out how to make more off of us.  Paying more for promoted listings does nothing but put more money in ebays pockets.  It never stops!

[simply-the-best-for-you]

@femmefan1946 

I'm in the US & I haven't rec'd it either.  But my category demands I promote WAY higher than 1 or 2%.  Jealous of those who can get away with such low numbers.  

[2013grotz]

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@simply-the-best-for-you wrote:

I'm in the US & I haven't rec'd it either.  But my category demands I promote WAY higher than 1 or 2%.  Jealous of those who can get away with such low numbers.  

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Hard to tell, but they may have just targeted the e-mail to people who were promoting at less than 2% instead of just everybody.

[mycheaperstuff]

WHAT A SLAP IN THE FACE. 

 EBAY consistently claims 1/2 of my sales are due to PL. That isn't supported by traffic data. 

More and more things I put aside from selling because buyers won't pay the fair price PLUS eBay and USPS.

[oldwestgold]

100% agree. I have been here for over 22 years and am getting tired of all the increases, especially when sales are slow. My selling costs exceed 15% now. I am debating whether to box everything up and send it to a large auction house as I probably would do better in the end. For myself, I'm just getting too old for "change". I am still trying to figure out Quickbooks since getting the GoDaddy notice of them shutting down their software app. Good luck all. Hope they don't have eBay in Heaven. More likely eBay will be in the other "H" place. 🙄