Promoted Listings Changes - You Must Be Joking, eBay

[superchallenge]

Email from eBay this morning. 

If I read it correctly, from 24th June, if you use promoted listings and ANYBODY clicks on the ad one time...if the item then sells to ANYBODY ELSE within the next 30 days, you get charged as if the first guy bought it.

That means that if Bob in Scotland clicks an ad and doesn't buy, but Steve from Wales rolls in 29 days later and finds the item in search and buys it without clicking on a promoted listings ad, you get charged because Bob clicked it almost a month ago.

It's all well and good saying "You'll still only pay when your items sell" eBay, but that isn't the point. We pay for promoted listings in order to help find A BUYER, not a browser. If somebody comes in and buys an item organically, then the ad hasn't done its job and we're not paying for it.

We'll be removing all of our promoted listings campaigns later today, as this starts in 32 days, which is extremely underhanded. The reason being that there's a 30-day attribution window, so if Steve clicks on one of our ads this Sunday, on June 24th when Bob buys the item without clicking an advert, we'll get charged.

[thealuminiumshop]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the reply — but to be perfectly honest, this update is extremely disheartening.

We've worked hard to scale multi-variation listings with up to 250 variations, carefully managing our bidding and performance on a variation level. With the new attribution changes, it appears any promoted click on a single variation now locks all 250 variations into the promoted fee — regardless of whether those variations had impressions, visibility, or sales influenced by the ad.

This fundamentally breaks fair attribution and penalises sellers who use eBay's own listing tools to offer choice and efficiency to buyers.

A few urgent questions I need answered:

1. Where is the transparency?
Why hasn’t eBay officially communicated this in a detailed way, especially given how significantly it impacts high-variation sellers? A few lines in a community thread is not adequate.

2. Where is the data?
Can the Ads team provide evidence that multiple variation listings receive truly shared visibility from a single promoted click? Or are we simply being charged promoted fees across the board without actual ad delivery?

3. How does this benefit sellers — at all?
Sellers are now incentivised to break out variations into dozens of single-item listings, which clutters the marketplace and creates a worse experience for buyers. Is this really the direction eBay wants?

4. Will we get control back?
Will there be a future feature allowing variation-level ad attribution and bidding — especially for large catalogues where margin varies dramatically by variation?

5. Who advocates for high-volume sellers when these changes are made?
We can't escalate while "the person who knows is out of office" for 4 weeks. That’s not a system. We need accountability, not silence.

To say this is frustrating is an understatement. We need real answers and representation before more sellers abandon multi-variation listings or reduce promoted listings entirely.

Looking forward to a proper response — not vague assurances.

I have added this post to eBay community weekly chat. Hopefully we can get some answers?

[*barryburito*]

I have a question repalting to this.  If you are promoting your listing and promoting jusing promoted listing advanced would you still get charged the promoted listing percentage as well as the pay per click?

I think this is the case now but not 100% sure.  If it is then its double bubble for ebay!

[therenewalworkshopltd]

If you are using both, then yes, you will be charged the fee for standard promoted as well as the fees for advanced.

Assuming of course that at least one person has clicked on your listing.

[nutrafituk]

therenewalworkshopltd is correct - once someone has cliked on yours it becomes irrelevant as long as you have it promoted - you wil get charged extra fees for nothing really.

[*barryburito*]

So may as well have a similar listing for promoted advanced that isnt promoted as standard!

[lupo-store]

I have spoken to eBay concierge and they confirmed there's no double charge

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Well, there wouldn't be a double charge as such anyway.

One is charged as a percentage of the sale and the other per click.

But what can/will happen, is that if you have the standard on, then when actually purchased you will be charged whatever percentage that is set at.

If your also running the advanced, then your going to be charged for however many clicks it took to get that sale, irrespective of which advert actually got the sale.  Or even if it was an organic click.
I can't see any way of avoiding those costs if your running both.

[valueaddedresource]

@therenewalworkshopltd  is right, eBay can and will charge both the Priority and General ad fees in some scenarios if you have an item enrolled in both kinds of ads.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/listings/promoted-listings-overview?id=5295

How will I be charged for listings that are promoted using the general campaign strategy and the priority campaign strategy?

The priority strategy uses a cost-per-click model, and you will always be charged for valid clicks on these ads. You will only be charged for listings promoted using the general strategy when the item sells.

For listings promoted using a general strategy, the ad fee is charged when a buyer purchases the promoted item from a general ad that any buyer clicked on in the most recent 30 days. The ad fee is based on the ad rate in effect at the time of the sale.

If you have listings promoted via both the general and priority strategy, you will be charged for Attributed Sales from general clicks even if your ad received a subsequent priority click. Reporting will be updated accordingly to include sales for both campaign strategies.

[thelittlediystore]

I spent some time over the phone with an eBay rep yesterday, explaining how I'd noticed a general promo fee charge for every item sold over the last 3 weeks and how this was very unusual - historically 70% of our sales are organic and 30% are promoted. She didn't have a clue and could not explain why, but escalated it to the billing team who are suppose to be getting back to me. A quick Google search and this thread has appeared, which has answered my question. I am now going to cancel all of my basic campaigns to see what impact this has on sales. Standard eBay fees, in conjunction with ever increasing postage costs, are making it very difficult to make any proper money out of this platform. Our margins keep shrinking and it is difficult to increase pricing as the ceiling regards this has been reached. My loyalty to eBay is now wavering and we are looking at alternative platforms. eBay really need to start looking after excellent business sellers such as ourselves via reduced fees. It is all 'take, take, take' at the moment... Not good eBay, sort it out, otherwise we, and I guess many more like us, will be gone! 

[wootton-industries]

I have turned off all promotions and I can confirm a significant reduction in sales.

Fortunately, I do have other platform accounts that I 'choose' to work with. 

I have had an A*****n account for about 10+ years and E**y for about 4 years BUT I have been 100% guilty of neglecting these other platforms.

I mainly focused on eBay because I was happy'ish' with the eBay platform up until now. But with declining sales and increasing fees I have chosen to re-think our business relationship, for now.

I am now ramping up and turning my attention to the other two platforms and my own website.

I actually allowed a percentage of my items to be ONLY advertised on eBay. eBay has had the monopoly on advertising these items for years and in return they got a fee, it was a win win scenario.

However, I have now started listing these selected items on both A*****n and E**y. So these platforms now have a chance of advertising, selling and getting a cut of my order fees.

I am also in the process of heavily reducing my listings on eBay and I have reverted back down to a basic store.

Its a shame after 22 years of co-operation with eBay but you have to work with the cards we are dealt with.

I will keep my eBay store active but my attention will now be turning more to my other heavily neglected advertising platforms and our own website.

[darth_baggins]

Pretty much the same for me. eBay has always been my main priority and best selling platform. But I refuse to pay more so I also cancelled all my promotions and sales nose-dived. It's corrupt behaviour in my opinion.

I put most of my efforts into Etsy and Amazon now and I'll just let eBay diminish.

On a side note, I keep getting missed calls on my work phone from eBay. I bet they're wondering why I suddenly stopped using promotions.

[wootton-industries]

Not had a call from eBay, but I don't answer the phone if I don't recognise the number anyway.

Just to add to my earlier post, I look at eBay as one of my suppliers, just like my other suppliers of materials, accountants, electric, gas etc.

eBay and the other online platforms are my 'advertising' suppliers.

eBay, A*****n and E**y, all supply advertising platforms and sales come from that advertising for which they get a % in fees.

If a material supplier came along and said we are increasing prices then I look at what they are offering and make a decision. I either stick with existing supplier or I move  to another supplier and give them the chance of supplying my business with the same products or services at lower costs.

eBay at this moment in time has become too expensive  to supply my business adverting needs for my products.

I have reduced my listings on eBay from approx 1700 down to about 300 in the last month. I have decided to move to my products to other advertising suppliers.

I do feel for the support staff, they must be getting a hard time from some sellers due to the changes on the platform.

Nobody likes change but it is inevitable and you have to adapt to the changes.

[valueaddedresource]

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@thelittlediystore wrote:

I spent some time over the phone with an eBay rep yesterday, explaining how I'd noticed a general promo fee charge for every item sold over the last 3 weeks and how this was very unusual - historically 70% of our sales are organic and 30% are promoted. She didn't have a clue and could not explain why, but escalated it to the billing team who are suppose to be getting back to me. A quick Google search and this thread has appeared, which has answered my question. I am now going to cancel all of my basic campaigns to see what impact this has on sales. Standard eBay fees, in conjunction with ever increasing postage costs, are making it very difficult to make any proper money out of this platform. Our margins keep shrinking and it is difficult to increase pricing as the ceiling regards this has been reached. My loyalty to eBay is now wavering and we are looking at alternative platforms. eBay really need to start looking after excellent business sellers such as ourselves via reduced fees. It is all 'take, take, take' at the moment... Not good eBay, sort it out, otherwise we, and I guess many more like us, will be gone! 

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@thelittlediystore  I'm not sure which would be worse - that the support rep really had no clue eBay had made such a massive change to attribution that would directly cause exactly what you are seeing or that they played dumb and passed the buck to get you off the phone - but either way, yikes!

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Unfortunately, it seems to be the way of the bigger companies.

Support is farmed out to multiple other countries, but other than some training on how to answer a phone, I don't think that they actually train their staff at all.

Fortunately, you do get the odd one that knows their stuff, usually those in Ireland.

I asked for the reduced fees on a different account 8 weeks ago now and spoke to someone in Germany, who promised that it would be sorted.  I'm still waiting.
They were also supposed to sort out the payments, as it would not let me add my bank account.  Still waiting.....   
And it's not unusual at all for that kind of thing.  Need to get around to sorting it out again and try to get someone in Dublin.

[edeltashop]

It is truly disgusting frankly. That's a harsh way to put it but it is. It is completely unfair.