eBay

british-ceramics-and-paintings · ‎20-12-2022

In the early stages I think promoted listings were generally a success for sellers however as more and more sellers started using them they seem to have become a little pointless and very expensive.

Many of the items I sell are one off items however buyers generally find them in a general search, i.e. oil paintings or paintings which can return thousands and thousands of items. Despite selling one off items Ebay often suggests promoted ad rates of 11% !!

10.9% plus VAT plus 11% plus VAT comes to not far off 30%.

Promoted listings do give you an uplift in impressions however I often believe they are pointless impressions where potential buyers don't even see your items unless they really look for them, i.e. low down on the page of another listing.

Promoted listings clearly helped a couple of years ago however like many things on Ebay they have become saturated.

Are they now worthwhile ?

All opinions welcome as I may well be wrong.

tribalgiftsuk · ‎24-01-2024

Something just dawned on me this morning about promoted listings.

When we used to do promoted listings the promo listing would be high up the search, then further down the search would be the listing again as it would appear organically. (So the item again in its correct position where it could sell without the promotion fees).

The organic position no longer or hardly ever gets displayed anymore, so if you look through your sales for the last few months only those purchased via your shop front or repeat customers will be the ones not incurring the promo listings fee's.

Now that seems really shady, i understand they dont want the searches to be full of duplicate listings but that means your item/s are only likely to ever sell if they are promoted. Unless you have a large returning customer base who scroll through your shop and dont inadvertly click on one of the promoted listings in your shop. Or you have an in demand item with few competitors.

No wonder the searches are now all a mess, the organic posítion of the listings has more or less gone unless you dont promote at all and then your item/s might not be seen at all 😞

I have also seen the additional charge now for promoting items in USA and Canada..... is it ever going to end.

tribalgiftsuk · ‎24-01-2024

Something dawned on me this morning..... when we used to do promoted listings the promoted listing would be higher up the search and the organic position would be further down the search in its relevant organic position after all the promoted ones had passed.

I have noticed that is no longer the case and i am finding only my promoted listings in the search and the organic ones not there. Was something changed? It seems then people will only find the promoted one and not the organic ones. Checking my sales just from the last few weeks its mostly promoted apart from the odd one from a repeat customer or someone who had purchased off a non promoted one in my shop front.

Our shop fronts also show some promoted listings, so its luck of the draw which one the customer clicks on.

I understand this stops 1000's of duplicate listings showing in the search but it means we will always be paying the over priced promoted listing fee's. We know the search is broken but will that be fixed, where are our organic listings that we also pay for?

tech-tonix · ‎24-01-2024

It will never be fixed as long as sellers are fixated enough to keep paying ever-higher %s of their potential profit to Ebay in Promo fees. Obviously an equilibrium is reached, where it;'s cheaper for the punters to buy on Amazon or elsewhere. Only if Amazon etc hiked their fees accordingly could the pointless leapfrogging continue. Not to consumers' benefit, of course.