selling

[mellonpatch4]

I have been selling on eBay for 20+ years why now do we need to pay more money to get our items highlighted? 20 years ago eBay was happy sellers were listing on their site, today they want 8 to 14% to place my listing where more buyers will see it. What is wrong with this picture? Why can you just do what you did and keep us all even, or are you that greedy? Have you grown so big you can now just _______ whoever you want? thank you

[dbfolks166mt]

     You don't "need" to do anything. Promoted listings is a seller choice one I have never personally utilized. It is a death spiral. Putting the items in front of the buyers is nice but it means nothing if they do not purchase. There is no way to prove that the use of PL actually improves sales in fact it may hurt them if the seller is having to raise prices to cover the cost of the PL in order to maintain a decent ROI. I seldom buy anything on eBay these days simply because I can find it elsewhere cheaper either online or in a B&M store. When I do search for an item I stack the results by Price + shipping lowest first. 

[tobaccocardyahoo]

There are many more sellers for almost everything on Ebay than there were in the past.

Buyers spend less time buying on Ebay.

Promoted listings are intended to optimize your opportunity to make a sale within the current buyer's attention span.

Some times they work. Place your bets in the Ebay casino.

[dentalsales4u]

I just got a survey from eBay asking about promoted listings.

I told them I don't use and won't use.

I don't like seeing all the ads on everyone's pages. It clutters the page and confuses buyers.

eBay already makes more profit than I do and I can't keep raising prices and stay competitive.

Most of my items are already high priced. I can't raise prices 5% more just to promote and then give that over to eBay.

I already pay them thousands every month just in FVF.

[klhmdg]

@mellonpatch4  You are not "speaking" to eBay here.

This is all buyers and sellers like yourself.

eBay will never see this post.

I personally am not "greedy" nor do I  ..... whoever i want.

I sure hope you dont speak to all strangers this way. 

I also will never "pay to play" AND I dont buy PL listed items. I go right past ...

[luckythewinner]

why now do we need to pay more money to get our items highlighted?

You don't have to pay more.

Why can you just do what you did and keep us all even, or are you that greedy?

eBay is a for profit company and the directors and officers have a fiduciary duty to look out for shareholder interests.

[coolections]

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@mellonpatch4 wrote:

Why can you just do what you did and keep us all even ? 

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Please return with the magic formula to keep everyone even. Someone always has to be in first place and someone always has to be in last place.

[mr_lincoln]

@mellonpatch4 

A lot has changed in 20 years ... 

[soh.maryl]

Please -- you have been here long enough to know that posting here is not addressing eBay.

[monica-sells]

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@dentalsales4u wrote:

I just got a survey from eBay asking about promoted listings.

I told them I don't use and won't use.

I don't like seeing all the ads on everyone's pages. It clutters the page and confuses buyers.

I agree, somewhat....

eBay already makes more profit than I do and I can't keep raising prices and stay competitive.

Seems like everything I buy is getting more expensive...dunno....

Most of my items are already high priced. I can't raise prices 5% more just to promote and then give that over to eBay.

I already pay them thousands every month just in FVF.

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That final statement is extremely contradictory. If you are paying them 1000's every month, you must be making respectable sales. Maybe you are priced to low to make that many sales?

(just thinking out loud)

[monroe67]

"I have been selling on eBay for 20+ years why now do we need to pay more money to get our items highlighted?  . . . .  today they [eBay] want 8 to 14% to place my listing where more buyers will see it. . . . " 

I think you may have misread eBay's advertisement of the Promoted Listings offers.
Nowhere does it say "need."   No sellers ne-e-e-ed to promote their listings, and certainly not at a 14% rate.  
eBay does not just "_______" whoever they want.   If you think that signing up to Promote your Listings equates to "_______", you may have more issues than literacy or selling on eBay.

Speaking only on behalf of my selling ID, my observation is that the success of my listings depends on the item itself.  I have things that have been collecting dust as BINs for months, one or two of which have a couple watchers but no action.  The items will eventually end up at Goodwill or in landfill.  

However -- I just came into possession of an item that turned out to be somewhat rare, which was a real surprise to me.  Based on the prices on past eBay sales of that item, I listed the item on Friday for $99.99 as a 7-day auction, without the "benefit" of Promoted Listings.  I already have one bid and there are currently 15 watchers presumably biding their time to start placing bids on Friday morning.  

On Sunday, 9-3-23, I listed a different item as a five-day auction with a BIN price of just a penny more than the 30%-over-opening-bid minimum, again without the "benefit" of Promoted Listings.  To my amazement, that item sold at the BIN price within the first hour.  I'll be taking the package with that purchase to my local post office soon.  

[chapeau-noir]

If you've been around this long, surely you recall eBay's featured listings - you paid extra to have your listings put in front of everyone else's - that was in the early oughts. The promoted listings is nothing new, nothing other sites don't do, and no reason to stamp one's foot and say "I'm not playing!" or "I refuse to buy!". Just ignore it if you don't want to use it.

[sumsum70]

Just say no to Promoted Ransom. If your stuff can't sell without paying ransom, then don't sell it here. When other marketplaces grow while eBay falters, that is the only message eBay will hear.

Also, don't believe anyone who tells you eBay doesn't read the messages on this board. They may not read every post, but they are definitely getting a report about the topics and replies on this forum and many others. They are always aware of what is being said here, youtube, twitter, FB, AuctionBytes, etc.

[retro_entertainment_collectibles]

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

@mellonpatch4 

A lot has changed in 20 years ... 

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Spot on not to mention the last five years, some bullet points as I like bullet points:

• Far far more folks shop using cellphones now than any other devices combined.  There is far far less digital real-estate and paid promotions put vendors atop that real-estate not all that different from prime retail store space or for that matter Google searches.
• Pandemic gifted folks quite a bit of money and hordes of folks shopped online.
• Many a retailer who's Brick & Mortar stores suffered in the Pandemic with their pants down (per se) have realized the web is mainstream, no longer a sideline and have fully embraced it.  This makes for HEAPS of competition in eCommerce.
• Walmart has been extremely aggressive in recent years now sweeping into the #2 position in eCommerce.  They have embraced the liquidation/delisted merchandise channel and literally require those vendors have lowest web price against main competitors or they will hide the listings.  Their online business has been booming due to their ship to store model, cheap national freighting and guarantee's just like Walmart retail.  They just opened one of largest facilities EVER BUILT towards managing their sized online growth.
• Shipping costs have continued to rise and consumers are not daft to it.  When it costs $8 to send something that cost them $20 they can do the math, near 30% of the total going out the window.
• Heaps of Americans and others around the globe are struggling financially due to inflation, housing, energy and more costing and contrary to common statements, no, it's not our current leaders fault as Miss Haley recently pointed out, $8 trillion dollars of debt built in 4 years by the prior administration.  That's more than his predecessor spent in eight years and three times as much as our current administration... That's what "Blew up" in part inflation.  There are other factors, a war in Europe impacting many commodities around the globe.  Commodities as the term sounds means "Common things,"  fuels, oils, foods, wheat, on and on and on.  The WORLD competes... Some say American ought isolate more from the world, they apparently never read a history book nor have lived in what might deemed an overpopulated, over lifestyle third world nation as that's what we'd be.
• Fear, there is much fear among consumers and many penny pinch but still buy but are not daft to finding best values.  Sellers here tend want set "This is my price" as I need to make real money that makes this worthwhile.  That's changed in a whole ton of merchandise as now eBay sellers need to COMPETE with other points of sale online be that Mercari, Poshmark, Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, Macy's or Temu the latter of which is booming due to low price scoring 8.8 billion in first year revenues.  Here, 10 billion in revenues... That ought tell you something, if you can't make enough via low prices against sellers ON THE WEB not just HERE then you're in loosing battle, change up what you're selling.  The online aggressive sales environment is not going to magically change, its here to stay... In fact, its far far more likely it's going to become even more price/service aggressive.
• America has a huge disparity in employment, whilst current the nation has the lowest unemployment rates in near 50 years that doesn't tell the entire story.  Many places folded up over the Pandemic, many others had people work from home and have embraced that.  The nation has a worker shortage, a large one and we've been not renewing many work Visa's of both skilled and unskilled labor.  That's everything from people who do you're regular car maintenance, to carpentry, electrical, masonry workers, apprentices and more including software engineers and the full gambit.  This has resulted in not enough skilled/unskilled workers.  Its been said if we just allowed unskilled workers at the border to fill the near 5.5 million open unskilled jobs in America now it'd result in 10 trillion dollars of new productivity over the next 7 years.  Instead we're not renewing many existing work Visa's and Canada is taking full advantage of that.  They've immigrated in excess of half a million this year alone and have vowed over the next three years to immigrate another 2.5 million.  Why?  Because America's history shows time and time again, when we immigrate the country booms.  In Canada its been so effective that their model has been adopted by the UK, Australia and Germany is now looking at it.
• Lifestyles...  All the way back in the late 1980's numerous highly credible think tanks projected where we would be in 50 years... We are ahead of that curve as the American lifestyle was deemed unsustainable.  It is the RESULT of Trickle Down Economics which in reality is "Trickle Down Lifestyle."  Back in the 70's two adults work, kids can go to college, families could make gains and CREDIT took off as they knew they could pay it.  Come Trickle Down it was all about folks going off the deep end in CREDIT.  Trickle down gave RISE to the New Progressive which sounds like "Progress" and who isn't for progress?  Except term doesn't mean that, it means Progression of Governance OVER the people.  Hence why they get deemed, "Socialists" as yes, social support programs which means big government... However, all the time "Trickle Down" has fleeced the Middle Class of it's wealth having now spawned over 22 million millionaires in America controlling a WHOPPING 158 Trillion dollars versus Billionaires (all 750 of em) who control 5.7 Trillion dollars. The former is what now runs "the right" and WHY it's been deemed "The Country Club"for some 25 years now and WHY for the most part a household now with two adult workers even with far better wages than 50 years ago has problems making ends meet. 

Now I could go on, all this stuff is out there...  Folks need to start paying attention to FINANCIAL ACADEMIA where PARTISANSHIP plays no roles.  You will rapidly find out IF you take the time to LEARN that this two party system which has sequestered so many citizens is our undoing AND our forefathers WARNED of it.  Stop PLAYING the "Game" and be independent.  Instead of trying to figure out which of two are WORSE start demanding better and getting fresh YOUNG citizens into public service and leadership.

[dentalsales4u]

@monica-sells

"That final statement is extremely contradictory. If you are paying them 1000's every month, you must be making respectable sales. Maybe you are priced to low to make that many sales?"

I never said I wasn't making any sales, I said eBay makes more from the profit than I do.

Yes, I can raise the price, but then I would lose sales since I would no longer be the lowest priced.

Most of my cliental, which are dentists,  are very cheap and price shop for the lowest price (I don't blame them for that as dental equipment has gotten very very expensive over the last few years).

Example, one item I sell for $2,995.00. The FVF for that sale is $296.72 out of the $417.30 profit.

I was just saying, I won't pay to promote and give eBay even more of that profit. I feel I already pay them enough.

If you're priced high, you would probably pay to promote and try to get sales. I would rather be the lowest priced, not promote and get the bulk of the sales which I do with this specific item 🙂