Ep 249 || Effective Summer Promotion Strategies

[podcast_team]

Summer selling can be a challenge. eBay Sr Product Manager Evan Swanson joins us this week to talk about building effective promotion strategies to help boost your summer sales. Griff and Brian discuss the new USPS Ground Advantage service and answer questions about how to create detailed promoted listing campaign reports at the listing level, and default search result settings as well as easing one seller’s concerns about using eBay International Shipping for certain formerly-problematic shipment situations.

Episode Links:
2023 Summer Seller Update
Extended Producer Responsibility for business sellers listing on eBay.fr (France)
USPS introduces the new ground shipping service: USPS Ground Advantage™
Promotions Strategies
Download a Detailed Promoted Listing Report
Recurring Links:
eBay for Business Podcast
eBay Seller Spotlight Podcast
eBay for Business Podcast Listener Survey
eBay Seller News Announcements
eBay for Business Facebook
Community Chat with eBay Staff
eBay Seller Center
eBay Help
eBay Local Seller Events
Seller Hub
eBay Events

Brian: I'm Brian.

Griff: I'm Griff, and this is the eBay from Business Podcast. Your source for the information and hopefully the inspiration to help you start manage and grow your business on the world's most powerful marketplace. This is episode 249. Welcome back Brian. How was Arizona?

Brian: Arizona was excellent. The List Perfectly Camp Listing Party as they called it, called their two day event was really, really energizing. 200 plus sellers, some great speakers, a lot of energy in the room. So really, really good event.

Griff: Was it more than one day?

Brian: It was Tuesday, Wednesday and then on Thursday I did not go to this, but on Thursday they also did some thrifting in the afternoon.

Griff: In Phoenix?

Brian: In Phoenix? Yes.

Griff: In the heat.

Brian: In the heat. But I did something that was probably crazier and I'm gonna tell all our listeners, don't do this ever. I got on a 5:25 AM flight back to San Jose. So you know what time you have to wake up to catch a 5:25 AM flight?

Griff: I don't dunno.

Brian: Why, did I do that?

Griff: Were you out the night before?

Brian: Not too late. I was actually disciplined on Wednesday night, which is pretty good for me. I must be getting mature.

Griff: Yeah, because I've been to events with you and you like to stay out and have a lot of beers.

Brian: I do. I had one glass of red wine. Yeah, it was last night. It seems like a week ago. Wow. That's what happens when you get up at three something in the morning to catch a 5:25 AM flight.

Griff: Such a trooper!

Brian: I swore off red eyes and I've been really good. I don't do red eyes anymore and now I think pre 6:00 AM flights. I think I'm gonna swear those off next.

Griff: Yeah, well you'll, you'll, you'll find this out as the years go by that it gets a lot harder to get yourself up in the morning to do that sort of thing.

Brian: But I will say this, you know me like I like to be at in-person events and it was great to see some old friends and some new sellers meet some new folks that I had never met, but it was just a overall, a really good event.

Griff: Well that's great. That's great to hear. I'm glad you're back.

Brian: I am too. Who's on deck this week? Who's our guest?

Griff: Well, I'm glad you asked because our guest this week is eBay Senior Product Manager Evan Swanson. And we'll be talking about effective summer promotion strategies. But first, without any further delay, there's a lot of news this week. So in your estimation, what's the top news story?

Brian: Well, it was close but clearly the top news story this week is the announcement last Wednesday of the 2023 Summer Seller Update. This update contains several new features to help you run your business on eBay. The update includes an improved payment dispute experience, an added report button for inappropriate messages from members, information on keeping your listings compliant with EU and UK. So European and United Kingdom regulations, new Promoted Listing standard features and more seller resources for resolving issues with unpaid items. You can learn more at Seller Center under Resource Tab, that's ebay.com/sellercenter resource tab updates. And you can also find it on the Announcement Board.

Griff: Well, obviously yes, our audience is very savvy about the Announcement Board so you can, always go there. And it's actually if you read through it, it's mostly very good news for sellers.

Brian: It is indeed. However, there is going to be some consternation about the EU and UK regulation compliance.

Griff: Yes. This will definitely impact some sellers and every seller needs to read through the FAQs for this update, especially the ones for the regulations what are called the Extended Producer Responsibility Regulations for the EU,, specifically Germany and France. And there is a UK set of regulations regarding hazardous material. So, let's talk about this a little bit cuz we did the research, we read through this and I think we've got this down pretty much.

Brian: Yeah. So in brief, and as we've mentioned in recent episodes, eBay covers extended producer responsibility or EPR regulations regarding packaging requirements for shipments to Germany when a shipment is set through eBay International Shipping.

Griff: And the eBay International Shipping Program will also cover compliance for the UK United Kingdom hazardous materials regulations. So those two specific regulations that a seller using eBay international shipping doesn't have to worry about. Hooray.

Brian: Oh that's great news. Yes. However, there's always a however, isn’t there? Shipments through eBay international shipping are still subject to any and all EPRs for France.

Griff: Yeah, that's true. And shipments through eBay International Shipping are still subject to the German, what's called the German waste electrical and electronic equipment or WEEE or wee EPR laws that apply to electronics and electrical goods shipped to the customers and Germany and later in the U Got Questions Segment Brian, there's a question about it. eBay International Shipping and country exclusion options that is absolutely germane to this topic and we want you to stay tuned and listen so you can hear the answer to that question.

Brian: It's good a way for a way for sellers to address that. Weee EPR Law.

Griff: Wheee! It's a rollercoaster.

Brian: I was just thinking like some little pig going, wee wee wee or something, I dunno.

Griff: Hadn't thought about that aspect.

Brian: Well the other top news story and topic of much discussion in the seller forms is the new USPS Ground Advantage Service that as of July 9th will replace USPS First Class Package Service, USPS Parcel Select Ground Service and USPSS Retail Ground Service. And the two big seller questions are, what do I have to do to adjust to this USPS change and how much will this new service cost?

Griff: Well those are two important questions. Will sellers have to make changes to their listings, Brian?

Brian: They possibly will. They will. Here's what to expect on eBay beginning July 9th.

Griff: Okay, I'm writing this down. Go ahead.

Brian: If you need to print labels on July 9th, eBay will update labels automatically. If you had a sale with a first class package or parcel select ground, the label will print and display as USPS ground advantage. If you printed your label prior to July 9th but need to ship on or after July 9th, USPS will continue to accept packages with the previous services for a period of time. It's not currently disclosed for listings or shipping policies that include either or both first class package and retail ground post July 9th. You'll need to update those listings or your shipping policies

Griff: And we say July 9th because the option for USPS Ground Advantage will not be available as a service on eBay until the 9th of July.

Brian: So that's actually really important. So sellers shouldn't worry until the ninth.

Griff: Yeah, if you go in before the ninth, you're not gonna be able to find the service and be able to change to it. It won't happen until the ninth.

Brian: So if any of your listings or business policies have parcel select ground as the sole shipping service, the service name will be automatically changed to USPS Ground Advantage starting July 9th.

Griff: And the important part of that is it's a listing or a business policy that only provides one shipping option and that option is USPS Parcel Select Ground. The name change will be automatic. You don't have to do anything. So those listings or policies don't need to be changed manually.

Brian: That's good news. But if any of your listings are shipping policies have either or both First Class Package and Retail Ground Service as shipping options, you'll need to update those listings or shipping policies to USPS Ground advantage. You'll have 30 days from July 9th to do so.

Griff: I think this is a little bit of a confusing and more to come as we learn it will post it here. But I think that's the basic set of facts. And I wanna remind everyone this is USPS mandated change. It's not an eBay change. We wouldn't have done this. It's a change of USPS service and we have to adapt as well.

Brian: We've at least tried to get some of it so that it's not all manual. But sellers should really take a close look at their business policies and their shipping policies and make sure that the services that you want to be offering are offered. Starting the ninth.

Griff: And we'll talk a little bit about this over the next few weeks, but editing your shipping policy, you can do that pretty quickly in the Shipping Policy Page. And if you're using business policies like shipping policies and you've got them down to a minimum and don't have thousands of them, which you shouldn't, editing them is not that big a deal. Well that's easier than editing each individual listing. If you're not opted into shipping policies, you're gonna have to edit all of your listings where you have either first class package or USPS Retail Ground. And you can do that in the bulk edit feature on eBay. But again, this is where shipping policies just make life a lot easier. Oh, and by the way, Brian, about those advantage rates, cuz that was the other question. How much is this gonna cost? Now I did a little bit of sleuthing yesterday, well actually it was just a bit of clicking through the USPS site and I found a PDF there that has a detailed list of prices based on weight. And now there's two rate cards in that PDF retail and commercial I double checked with our shipping team. eBay sellers will be provided with the commercial rates for ground advantage and we'll include a link to that PDF in the summary overview for episode 249. But in brief, I'm gotta tell you, looking through them, they are roughly equivalent to the current rates for USPS First Class Package. At least in that anywhere from four ounces up to about five pounds. It's not really that bad. I think there's a lot of, I don't wanna make a blanket statement that if you're a seller that has items that you've been using retail ground or, or USPS parcel select and you've got packages that are 10, 15, 20 pounds or more, you're gonna wanna see the rate card based on zones. And again, zones are not specific areas with the United States. It's where you are located and as you get farther out from where you're located, the zone number increases.

Brian: I think that table's gonna be really helpful to our sellers as they look at it.

Griff: And I don't know if eBay will adapt the table for on the website, but the USPS PDF will be available. It should be available forever. And again, we'll put a link there. That's all at the interesting and may you live in interesting times news.

Brian: I'm sure our sellers are delighted for that. Interesting USPS change. And finally, let's talk about eBay Open 2023.

Griff: Let's!

Brian: The event takes place on September 26th through the 29th and you still have the chance to join us both in-person and virtually. Our in-person. eBay Open Studios kickoff on Tuesday, September 26th in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Phoenix. This will be followed by three days of seller led sessions, category breakouts, keynotes, networking opportunities, and more from Wednesday, September 27th through Friday, September 29th. General registration begins August 1st, but you can sign up to get early access on July 31st and be the first in line to grab a spot for our in-person eBay studios. If you're not close to one of those cities, we're also going to have some seller led sessions in different parts of the country and there's gonna be more to come on that.

Griff: Ok. So stay tuned as we get closer to the dates. Where do people go, Brian to sign up early?

Brian: ebay.com/open

Griff: Yay. Okay, well that's all the housekeeping we can afford to do this week. . It was a lot.

Brian: So it was off to Evan.

Griff: Yeah, let's talk to Evan now. Let's meet Evan.

Griff: It's officially summer. Yay! Summer can be lots of fun. Summer can be the best time of year for many people. It can also be a very challenging selling season for some eBay sellers. And it's not that buyers aren't shopping, they are. It's just that the shopping activities of buyers may shift a little bit as they turn their focus on all things outdoors, but have no fear. You as a seller can keep up with these shifting shopping trends by creating and executing the right types of promotions. Strategies to give us a leg up on how to make the most of promotions is eBay's Senior Product Manager of Seller Marketing Tools. Evan Swanson, welcome to the podcast Evan.

Evan: Thanks Griff. Excited to be here.

Griff: Promoted Listings, I'm sure you know this is a hot topic, perennial, constant hot topic among sellers. Do I need to, how do I do them? Are they necessary? How much do I spend on 'em? Blah blah blah blah blah. So it's a very popular topic on the podcast. Let's start right off with the idea of summer as a retail season. How should sellers approach their summer marketing strategies?

Evan: Yeah, you know, summertime is a great time to think about how to get more buyers that shop from you. Obviously it's a time when things slow down a little bit. But you know, what I'd like to talk about today is how we can use things like coupons and sales and even Promoted Listings like you're talking about, to really supercharge your selling in the summer so that you can keep up your momentum.

Griff: One of the questions I get is I just throw coupons at everyone. I don't know how to target them. I don't know, you know, who should get what and when. So I just throw them at everyone. Is that a good strategy?

Evan: Uh, yeah. You're really hitting on something that I'm pretty passionate about is thinking about our coupons and sales events as some really precise tools to actually drive sales. I do see a lot of sellers just sort of putting coupons and everything and and hoping it works. But yeah, we want sellers to be a little bit more thoughtful about it and really be able to use the tool for what they're good at. Right. Sales events and coupons are great tools. Sales events are a great way to drive more sales, get more customers to your store. Coupons are a great way to drive people down that lower funnel. So using the right tools for the right thing is great. And things like having shorter durations for your sales events are a great way to push urgency. So yeah, thinking about what the tools are for and really focusing on the inventory that you're featuring so that it connects with buyers is a great way to kind of build a overall strategy.

Griff: I have used myself sales events in the past and I discovered over time that that you're right about the urgency factor, that if you have a sales event that looks like it's gonna go on forever, people will say, oh well I'll be back. You know, I don't have to stick around.

Evan: Exactly.

Griff: It looks like it's gonna end in five days. I've noticed an increase in sales when I've done those. And I feel the same way as a buyer. If I go someplace and it says the sale is going to end in two days, then suddenly it's like a call to action. I got to check my wallet, get in there and buy something. So yeah, it is really important. eBay does a lot of work for sellers when it comes to explaining where we are in the retail calendar and what people should be thinking about. What's the best way for eBay sellers to align their marketing strategies using promotions with constantly evolving, uh, shopping trends. Not just the summer. Summers are example de jour, but it's all year round too.

Evan: Yeah. And right now we are having a lot of rising prices, right? We're all feeling that with inflation cost goods sold for sellers going up, buyers are also seeing increase in prices across the board. Yeah, I think when we're looking at promotions, often we're thinking about value shoppers, you know, folks that are looking for a good deal and we're known for that at eBay. And you know, I think we, we do wanna lean into that. Things like sales events and coupons are a great way to kinda counteract that feeling of rising prices, getting buyers to feel like, Hey, I can get a great deal today. We know that a lot of our buyers are looking to trade up to better brands. They might have to trade down and maybe it's last seasons or maybe not new, but uh, we know that uh, eBay buyers are looking for great value, a great deal and we wanna make sure we're thinking about a deal not just in price, but all the different aspects. Maybe that item's hard to come by right now or it's unique item, but really thinking about that deal across the board and making sure that we can kind of highlight the value tour our buyers.

Griff: Yeah, like packaging or merchandising is what I'm thinking of. Bundling a bunch of items together. The sales event is a great way to do that cuz if you target the, the type of inventory in your sales event, like for example if it's all summer related, somehow you're more likely to get me as a buyer to actually think about putting two or three more things in the shopping cart I'm buying from you.

Evan: Yeah, absolutely. We have, uh, coupons that allow for discounts on volume, whether it be order volume or volume pricing is a great way to do that. But using these tools to increase your cart size is great for the buyer, but it's great for the seller too because it reduces the cost of you making that delivery. Packaging things up costs you money, shipping things cost you money. So being able to increase your order size is a win-win.

Griff: Yeah, I agree. I love it when I can get two or three things in a box out to a buyer.

Evan: Sales events are a great way to compete with other sellers out there. There's a lot of folks out there that are selling, so you know, it's a great way to stand out, be thinking about bigger sales, higher discounts for shorter periods of time might be able to stand out more without costing you anymore. But also these are times that you can really stand out by having focuses on what's seasonal. You might have a summer adventure sale that really appeals to a certain customer generating excitement. But you know, overall I'd say think about sales as a way to drive repeat customers. If you get somebody to purchase from you, getting them to purchase again is, is a great way to build trust with them. It's costs you less, you don't have to promote to get a repeat customer usually. And yeah, thinking about building that buyer base, building your relationship with your buyers is a great way to increase your long-term efficiency and reduce your costs long-term.

Griff: What are those elements of a successful promotion?

Evan: Thinking about a sales event or a coupon? You know the three things I think about most are urgency, which we talked about before, offering real value, actually having a sale, feel like a sale, um, and relevance. So to think about those a little bit more closely in terms of urgency, I like to think about a two to three week sale being a really good sweet spot. If you look at retail standards, you see that a lot in retail stores. It's short enough that it does feel like you better take action now, but it's long enough that a buyer might come back a couple times and then make their purchase limited inventory. Being able to think about items that are running out. But yeah, you can control coupons pretty well in terms of your overall spend. Thinking about sales events, shorter duration will increase the urgency with your buyer.

Griff: That is an important one. I know we've already talked about it, but nothing gets me shopping faster than knowing the sales about to end.

Evan: Yeah, absolutely. And tying that to seasonal event holiday, whether it be July 4th, back to school, something like, that's a great way to reinforce that urgency.

Griff: What about offering real value?

Evan: Yeah. Real value. Think about this as the quality of the promotion. I think I see a lot of promotions out there that might be 5% or I've seen some that are $10 off purchases of $300 or more.

Griff: Oh that's not much.

Evan: Yeah and those are, you know, they might get some visibility to buyers but buyers might question the overall purchase, right? We wanna build trust with our buyers, you know, thinking about a rule of thumb around 20% that's different by category. Electronics have smaller margins than say fashion. Really think about what is in your category, who you're competing against with these. Think about a significant discount and maybe you shorten the duration or set of max spend so you're not putting too much into it, but make sure it's a real value to our buyers.

Griff: I can think of very few times when something like a 2% off ever presents real value. I suppose if I was buying a $30,000 item. Because that is, you know, we're not talking chum change, but for most of the inventory in eBay, when I get a offer for example, or I see a sale price and it's 5% or less, I'm thinking it just doesn't thrill me so I usually don't buy. And then the third element relevance, let's talk about that.

Evan: You know, I've worked all across eBay on the buyer experience, homepage deals page. And what we've learned again and again is that relevance really drives conversion with buyers. So you know, first I'd say think about your target audience. Maybe it's if you're doing home and garden, maybe you're thinking about somebody, somebody buying outdoor furniture or maybe um, you're into the outdoors then thinking about discounts on fishing gear, whatever that is, think about who might be buying from you and then thinking about inventory sets that makes sense for that customer. And then try a few different things. You might create a bunch of sales and maybe they're more focused, but launch the sales and measure how impactful they are and iterate on it. Try different things, measure performance and then update your strategy for future seasons,

Griff: Right? Just like we say all the time on the podcast is test, learn and repeat and if you need to make changes because maybe it wasn't a successful, that's what you do on the next go round, but never stop, never be static.

Evan: Absolutely.

Griff: So urgency, real value and relevance. And we've talked a lot about coupons so far, but I really want to give you the chance to talk about how about targeting because like I said earlier, I find that most sellers that use coupons just go, here's a coupon, here's a coupon, here's a coupon, here's a, and they're just handing them out and I'm thinking, seems like it kinda devalues the coupon.

Evan: Yeah, I think you're right. When we think about coupons, they work great in small quantities. When see someone, a buyer sees those, they feel like they have something in hand that they need to use right now. So it is driving urgency but we wanna make sure they're not overwhelmed with too many. Also all the other things we talked about, they should be real value. But coupons work really well to get buyers to take that action to make a purchase once they're on a item or they see maybe it's a collection of items but you really want to be targeted with them. There's private and public coupons. Public coupons don't force a buyer to copy and paste it private you do. But private coupons are a great way to reward your existing customers. So if you have buyers out there that have bought from you in the past, you can give them a really great discount with a private coupon and send 'em a note and get them to purchase again from you. And we see great repurchase rates with private coupons. It's great to be focused on that.

Griff: It's a good way to get a past buyer who's now gonna be a repeat buyer, to be a loyal, I want to check you out every week, repeat buyer. Cause those are the best, the ones that check you out every week, see what you put up that's new. We now provide a way for sellers to actually see which buyers are repeat. So this is something new that started a year or so ago. You're not just operating in the dark. You can tell this buyer has bought from you before though you can then use that information to focus your coupon or anything that you're doing that's promotions.

Evan: Right? And if you're communicating with your buyers through your social channels or other ways, you should really encourage them to save you as a seller. Hopefully everybody's tried this, but if you save a seller then you go to my eBay saved sellers, you'll see their content there and there's some great content there in save Seller it, it's more shop-able today than it was a year ago. It's a great way to get your inventory in front of buyers who have shown interest in you in the past or bought from you in the past but you know, really push them to save you as a seller if they've found your inventory interesting.

Griff: Yeah, in fact I'm always surprised what I get in the mail when I buy something on eBay. I still get a lot of printed collateral that says your five star feedback, positive feedback is important to me. Please leave us five star positive feedback. And they go on and on about this and I'm thinking, what a waste of space. Instead of asking me to leave you feedback, you should be providing me some incentive like saying go and save us as a store so that you'll come back and buy from us again. Because if you have a store and you utilize the newsletter, your newsletter's gonna go out to all the buyers who have saved you. So now you're super targeting though. Don't ask for feedback, ask them to save you. It's a lot smarter business.

Evan: Yeah and you don't have to pay to promote it with those repeat purchases. They save you. You're gonna show up on homepage for them. You're gonna be in the newsletter like you said, you're gonna be in My eBay Saved Seller. So there's great touch points out there for them to find you again. But yeah, that first step is to get them to save you as a seller.

Griff: Important I think. Well like we said at the start, it is kind of the summer, we're in the middle of the summer shopping season and I thought maybe you might be able to give us some examples of how a seller might best tailor their promotions to target this audience who's doing all this summer shopping.

Evan: eBay is a place of community, right? It has been since the beginning. And we know that buyers are interested in your expertise as a seller. You know, think about what you offer that's unique. So yeah, maybe you're in fashion, think about trendy, fashionable, summer clothing, crop tops or wrappers, that sort of thing. Or maybe you sell outdoor gear. So think about hey maybe there's specific items that make sense for the summertime, whether it be camping equipment, hiking gear, that sort of thing.

Griff: Wheeled coolers! I need a wheeled cooler. I just thought of this. I better go shopping.

Evan: I actually do too. I've been thinking about buying one. Absolutely. Just think about what makes you unique as a seller. What are your passions and can you focus on that and let your uniqueness show through.

Griff: So whether it's it's tech gadgets or travel wear, you know, a lot of people traveling, they've been antsy for the last couple years, not being able to actually travel and there's a lot of people on the road. So anything related to that as well I suspect would be good too.

Evan: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, travel is a great category. I'm gonna be going on a trip here soon and yeah, stocking up, it's great to plug in into those kind of seasonal activities and sometimes this might be your busy season, but otherwise you know, if it's your slow season, think about what unique inventory you might have to bring to market and get it in front of our buyers with promotions.

Griff: Evan, I want to thank you so much for stopping by and talking with us today. This has been really great. Like I said at the top of our segment here promotions is and will be forever a real popular topic with our sellers, any information that we can provide that will help them better utilize more efficiently the promotion tools that eBay provides is a good thing. So Evan, thanks again for stopping by.

Evan: Thank you. Have a great summer.

Griff: Evan Swanson is Senior Product Manager of Seller Marketing Tools. You can find a lot more ideas for successful summer marketing strategies on eBay Seller Center. Just go to Seller Center under the Growth Tab, that's ebay.com/sellercenter. Under the Growth Tab there's a link for Promotions. We will put those links in the summary overview for episode 249.

Brian: You got questions?

Griff: We've got answers. And Brian, we have three questions to address this week and as usual, why don't you start us off by reading the first one?

Brian: Love to our first question. This week was sent to podcast city ebay.com by eBay seller Tom who asks, my boss wants to see performance reports for our standard Promoted Listings that show the individual order linked to the matching campaign click through. The reports in eBay only show the total number of sales linked to a campaign. Where in the eBay Seller Hub can I find a report that shows this metric so we can attribute the CPC to the specific order. Thanks Tom. Isn't this information available in Seller Hub Griff?

Griff: Well Brian, it is indeed though it isn't all that intuitive when it comes to finding it. So in the interest of full disclosure, Tom, here's how you locate the campaign metrics per listing. First you go to Seller Hub and the quickest way to get there is via my eBay link on the top of any page, hover on it and then select selling from the dropdown menu and there you are on Seller Hub.

Brian: Next, click the reports tab and then click the downloads link in the right hand column.

Griff: Right. And from there you click the Download Report Button, then you're going to configure your reports. So you're gonna look for source, you're gonna select your marketing option and for campaign type you're gonna select either promoted Listing Standard or Promoted Listing Advance.

Brian: And keep in mind that these are two separate report types. So the subsequent options displayed are different for each one. They are the steps we are outlining here are for APLS or Promoted Listing Standard Report.

Griff: Right, exactly. So once you're there and you've done that, you select the options of your choice for additional details. And finally you click download. Your report will start to generate and when finished will automatically download

Brian: Tom the download report is a CSV file. Open it and reformat the column widths to display all the texts and the headers. There are about 40 columns of data. Look for the ones labeled clicks, impressions, Ad fees, et cetera. And to the far left, there is a column for all the listings in any of the campaigns you include in the report.

Griff: Yeah, and if I remember correctly, cuz I don't have it in front of me, it's, it's each listing's title and the item number. So you can actually find a listing on this report based on the time window that you've used. So you know, as it go back 30 days, 90 days and you can read across and find those columns and you can see how many clicks, how many impressions, what were the total ad fees, et cetera, and get that information to your boss. So that's how you do that.

Brian: And as a CSV file he can manipulate it any way he wants like in Excel if he so chooses.

Griff: Yeah cuz you can, if there's columns you don't want, you don't need the data to be displayed, you can hide them. Like I said, you're gonna need to, or Brian said, you're gonna need to expand the width of some of them so you can read the titles on the top of each column. But I will always love Excel. I will always love spreadsheets because of this particular reason. It's just a really easy way to get all that data compiled. We have to admit this is not a self intuitive journey to find this information and we're glad that we were able to locate it and then provide it to you. Our next question, Brian was emailed to podcast@ebay.com by seller James and he writes, my question is two parts. First, every time I look something up, whether on my iPhone or desktop, I have to subsequently swipe left or click advance to filter for sold items. Is there a way to just make my default setting to show sold items instead of having to take that extra step? That would be very convenient. And question part two, I was listening to episode 247 where I learned about the little camera icon and looking things up using either a barcode or taking an image or picture. I noticed that if you look something up this way on your phone, if you then swipe left, you don't even get the option to view sold items. I think we're seeing this guy really likes to look at sold items. You have to copy the description and reenter it as if you typed it in the search for anything box. You can then swipe left and get to sold items. This is a real hassle, especially when you're at an estate sale. Am I missing something or doing something wrong? Love your podcast. I just started reselling in May and I learn a lot from your show. Thanks for reading my email James, whose user ID is Pine Acres three all one character string.

Brian: I hope you're gonna send him a mug even though he doesn't ask for one.

Griff: Well he has to send me his address. So James, if you want a mug, you have like anyone when you ask a question if you don't include the address, we can't send you a mug because we are many things on the podcast but mind readers ain't one of them.

Brian: We're not. Well James, we're gonna start with your second question. It's the easiest one to answer and the answer is alas, no. There isn't an option for a sold filter of items returned in an image search on your mobile phone eBay app. Not sure why but there it is. And it's so interesting that this question came up because when I was in Phoenix at the round table I was asked the exact same question from a woman in I didn't know the answer till I got back.

Griff: And we can always ask the uh Product Team to consider it but that doesn't mean it'll actually ever get adopted.

Brian: And then James, as for your first question though, it isn't possible to make a sold the default for a search results list. There is kind of a solution. If we assume that you happen to make the same searches over and over, you can filter one of those searches for sold and then save it as a favorite search which you can easily access in the future.

Griff: Yeah, but of course if our assumption is wrong, which I think it might be because he is doing this at estate sales, that is you do every search and it's a brand new one that you haven't done prior and you don't wanna save the search since you probably won't be using again then your only option is to filter the search results for sold as you're currently doing. It's not ideal. We wish we had better information to give you, but sometimes here on the podcast we do have to deliver not so great news. And the not so great news is the two things you're asking right now don't exist and we're so sorry. We are sorry.

Brian: But I will make the promise that we will send this to the team because it's interesting if you think about someone who's in like a thrift store or at an estate sale and they use the image cuz that's gonna hopefully bring back stuff and they wanna understand, gosh is it priced at a point where I can make money on it? What a easy thing if we could do sold, but I don't know how complex that is because it's going up the image as opposed to like the keywords.

Griff: My guess is it's not complex. Think the thinking here was that the image search tool was not for finding sold items but for finding items that are currently for sale. So ooh, I want one like this. I don't think the team responsible was thinking from a seller

Brian: That it was purely buyer. Exactly.

Griff: So we just have to make the suggestion, hey,

Brian: Selling team, Selling Product Team maybe could you think about sellers using this tool for research? Thank you.

Griff: And for other listeners out there who were asking the same thing, send in the requests and the more you guys post...

Griff: Oh Wait, wait. What are you doing?

Brian: Post it on the forum. I'm soliciting all kinds of input to drive our Product Team crazy.

Griff: But that should go to the tech issues board or somewhere else because you don't want to become a conduit.

Brian: Not to us. I meant like go post it on the forum and say, when can eBay have this feature?

Griff: Can you imagine what would happen to the podcast inbox?

Brian: Oh yeah, it would explode with ideas.

Griff: It would have to change. The show would have to change from it's the eBay for Business Podcast to the..

Brian: It would be the, here's another reason why we don't have that feature week .

Griff: Yeah, we don't want to do that.

Brian: No we do not. Well our third and last question for this week was emailed to podcast@ebay.com by seller Sandy. And our questions are all about eBay International Shipping. Sandy writes, hi guys. I'm a big fan of the new eBay International Shipping. It really is hassle-free. The problem is that unlike with GSP does not appear to be a way to exempt individual items from International Shipping if you are otherwise opted in. I do have a few items that I do not want to ship internationally. They fall into three categories. Oh boy. Items that are gonna have to be shipped in more than one box for me. These are large sets of books for us shipping. This is not a problem as I can calculate media mail for each box and then either charge a flat rate or do free shipping. The problem is that there will not be a way to accurately calculate the shipping for international customers beyond what it costs to send to the US hub. I don't want someone getting a nasty surprise. Vero is number two. Prior I received a Vero on a vintage Max Factor solid bubble bath set, but only for the EU.. It apparently was fine to sell in the US. I removed GSPN international options, had no further issues and then sold the item.

Griff: So that was parallel imports.

Brian: Yes. Or like yeah and that could happen with media and other types of things too. And then the third issue is US military items. Obviously we're not talking about restricted items, but I'm not comfortable selling military surplus out of the country. I know that many people do and buyers could always use a freight forwarder, but this is a personal preference. Are you able to help? Is there a way to exempt specific items from international sales that I am missing? If not, could this feature be added like it was for GSP prior? There simply was a box for GSP that was pre-checked and you could uncheck it if you showed. Thank you Sandy username. RPB- round two. Well Griff, I believe it's possible for Sandy accomplish what she wants using eBay International Shipping.

Griff: It is and in fact it's not that hard. Sandy, let's address your three scenarios in order starting with the first scenario. That's scenario number one regarding books shipped maybe via Media Mail in two or more boxes. So we assume that you have the books packed in boxes prior to listing on tape so that you know the dimensions and the weight. And all you'd have to do is indicate the weight in total dimension of the boxes in the listing. eBay would show the international buyer a total for shipping in the listing the same way it did for GSP. There isn't a chance the buyer is gonna get a nasty surprise. The buyer pays what they see in the listing that eBay shows them. So I think your concern there, I know your concern there is totally unjustified, you don't have to worry about it. That's the first scenario.

Brian: Probably good idea to send the buyer a note that it's gonna come in two packages, two boxes so that they know to expect a couple boxes and and not panic when they get one in case they don't get delivered at the same time. And Sandy, regarding your scenario number two, for Vero or more specifically Parallel Imports, again, you would not have to worry about receiving a Vero notice if an item is subject to Parallel Import rules, eBay would block that item from appearing to international buyers in search. The international buyer would never see it. And even if an item did make it through, the onus would be on eBay, not you. So no Vero mark, no return eBay covers at all. I don't think we can stress this enough. With eBay international shipping, your responsibility ends once you have delivered the item to the hub at Illinois and eBay has shipped it on.

Griff: Right. In the case where it is a parallel import rule that got through, we might ship it back to you, but you're not going to have to worry about it. I just think that there's a lot of sellers out there who just don't believe it when we say this. And of course there is an exception as we talked at the top of the episode with some of the EU regulations for Germany, France, and the uk. Or at least not well for Germany and France.

Brian: But once we've taken it and once we've shipped it, that's on us then.

Griff: Absolutely. You don't have to worry. And finally, Sandy, scenario number three regarding military surplus and you're not wanting to ship it outside the country. This one involves a little bit of work on your part. If you're opted into business policies, what you'd have to do is create a special shipping policy that has the domestic shipping services you would normally use for these items to sell them domestically. And when creating the policy, you would then create an exclusion list, which is available as one of the last options on the create a shipping policy form. And you would exclude every country in the world to which you don't want the item sold. And in your case, I'm gonna assume that's every country. And the way it works is when you're in that exclusion LO box for exclude shipping locations for international, there's nine top areas. They're Africa, Asia, central America and Caribbean, Europe, middle East, north America, Oceania, south America, and Southeast Asia. You can just check all of those and you do North America. If you don't want to ship to Canada, if you check all nine of those and then save that new shipping policy and maybe you're gonna give it a name saying special policy for military surplus, when you list those items, you would apply this shipping policy and this is gonna work for you.

Brian: I think a lot of our sellers would like that.

Griff: Yeah. So this is for shipping policies though. Yeah. Not everyone has opted into them even after we've expressed it for years that you should be, hey, every seller's different.

Brian: fAnd if you're not opted into business policies, you would create this exclusion list for each listing of military surplus and include all of the international locations. This is how a seller opted into eBay. International shipping can specify on the listing level countries to which they will not ship the item in the listing,

Griff: Right! So if you're using policies, you have to create a specific policy that has that exclusion list. If you're not using business policies, then every time you list the item and you set up shipping, you just have to create that exclusion list for that listing. So the upshot here is you have nothing to fear with International Shipping. You have nothing to fear with International Shipping. Third time, nothing to fear, nothing with International Shipping. , The only call to action for you in these scenarios is regarding the category of items you don't want to sell to the international buyers. You just set up that exclusion list. The exclusion list will override eBay, international shipping. You know, it might be a case where you don't wanna ship to some countries in Europe like maybe Germany and France, maybe this is an electronic item and you're just not gonna go and get a wee number and you don't wanna go through all that. So you'd open up the European show, all of the countries, and you'd find France and Germany and you would just check those for your electronic item. You'd save that policy. Or if it's you're not in policies, you're doing this on the listing level, there's an exclusion list. You check the boxes for France and Germany, your listing will sell internationally, it'll be available. I don't know if it'll sell, but it'll be available to all the other countries in the world except those. So you don't have to worry about being in compliance with those specific EPRs for Germany and France.

Brian: Yeah, and the nice thing about that, that section within the shipping policies is you can get really granular with countries you want to limit or not ship to.

Griff: And there's not just the international, so there's domestic locations. Some sellers don't want to ship to Alaska, Hawaii, or to US Protectorates or FPO addresses. You can have those boxes checked and there's additional locations like PO Box. Now that's an interesting one, and I forgot this was here, but if you're shipping U P s for example, you may want to, for your UPS shipping policies, check that box and exclude PO boxes. That way if somebody tries to buy your item and they've got a PO box, which UPS won't ship to, they'll be told, Hey, seller does not ship to PO boxes. Please add a street address. Make it easy for you.

Brian: That's actually a really good tip for anyone who solely uses UPS.

Griff: Exactly. So that's it.

Brian: Lots of flexibility for sellers out there.

Griff: Yes, there's just tons of it. And you can explore these and find just how robust these options are and you can tailor them for your business.

Brian: We put the choice in seller's hands.

Griff: That sounds like a brand logo slogan. ,

Brian: You don't want me writing brand logo anything.

Griff: You just did. I thought it was pretty good.

Brian: Do you have a question for us? If you do, why not? Call us on (888) 723-4630. That's

Griff: (888) 723-4630. You can call that hotline any time of the day or any day of the week. You can leave your questioner comment on the recorder and who knows, we just might put it on the air.

Brian: And if you're not a call on the phone person, you can always email us podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com.

Griff: And now it's time for your weekly three point podcast checklist.

Brian: Check the Announcement Board at ebay.com/announcements for UpToDate News every day.

Griff: We know you're a busy little bee of a seller, but no seller is ever too busy to take a few minutes and read up on the news that impacts their business. For example, we throw down the gauntlet and we want you to read through the 2023 Summer Seller Update and all of the seller center pages on eBay International shipping. That's your homework. There will be a test

Brian: Need to review anything in this episode? It's easy. Check the transcript for this and all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and define the links we referenced during the episode.

Griff: And on our next episode, we'll continue with our summer selling theme with eBay's Chuck Van Pelt. He's gonna rejoin us here on the podcast to give us some suggestions for a summer refresh of your eBay store.

Brian: We'd like to again, thank our guests this week,Senior Product Manager, Evan Swanson.

Griff: The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed in part by Libsyn and podCast411.

[valueaddedresource]

Correction on USPS Ground Advantage - Parcel Select does not have to be the sole service offered in order to automatically update to Ground Advantage.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Shipping/USPS-to-replace-First-Class-Package-Retail-Ground-Parcel-Sele...

Previously, it was set up where Parcel Select was required to be the sole service offered, in order for eBay to automatically update the listing to reflect Ground Advantage.  This is no longer the case.  Now, your listing CAN offer multiple shipping options, and still have Parcel Select automatically updated to Ground Advantage.  

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Related to Summer Sales efforts.

Griff, you have frequently said that a competitive price is a factor in Promoted Listing Standard placement, perhaps even more important as the PLS rate I choose.

So, generally speaking, and assuming a good quality listing (good photos, return policy etc) , if I reduce my price by, say, 20%, it should improve my PLS placement. Is that correct?

And would this also be likely to reduce the recommended PLS rate that ebay suggests I use?

And this twist, since today's discussion was about running sales, etc: If I run a 20% off markdown manager sale, would that have the same effect (for the duration of the sale) on PLS placement as an actual 20% price reduction?

TIA!

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Oh, and yes, please add photo searching of SOLDS on the app. I know many, many sellers who would welcome that!

[griff@ebay.com]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques

Item price is not a factor in Promoted Listings' algorithm.  We apologize for any confusion. What we have said about item price is that it should still be competitive, that is, a PL placement for an item that has a higher price than identical items returned in a search is less likely to sell. All too often I see listings with PL placements that are significantly more expensive than non PL placed listings for identical items on the same page. 

And we have an additional bit of information regarding image search and SOLD listings in ep 250 so be sure to listen to that one. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Thanks Griff! OK, so the PL algo does NOT look at price. That's good to know.

So, I guess the way I should look at is: make sure my listing is a good quality listing (good photos, competitive price, etc) before putting it into a PLS campaign---this won't necessarily improve my PLS placement or the number of my impressions, but it should improve my chances of making a sale (just as it would without PLS as well)

A PLS campaign can improve my impressions, but doesn't do much for my views or conversions unless the listing is a strong listing to begin with.

I do think this is something many sellers don't really grasp. I see sellers who will use, say, a 50% PLS rate and then complain because they didn't get a sale. A 50% rate might lead to higher impression numbers than a 15% rate (but not necessarily high enough to make it much better than the 15% rate), but that's all it does. And of course, those sellers who increase their item price to make up for the 50% PLS have actually reduced their chance of making a sale.

I think this is part of the problem with PLS....too many sellers assume the higher the rate, the better the chance of a sale, but it doesn't work that way. You need a good listing to begin with. 

Does that sound right?

And thanks for the tip about episode 250----looking forward to it!

[podcast_team]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques 

You are correct on both counts. PLS won't help you sell an unappealing listing, and a competitive price is always important.  High PLS placement won't "fix" the issue of an item price that is too high.  Another concern is demand.  If an item is not in demand, PLS alone won't get it sold.
And you are right about seller adoption of PLS. Too many sellers are not strategic with PLS. As we've said recently, Promoted Listings is never a "set it and forget it" type of marketing tool. You have to research, test and adjust as needed.