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.

[pegr-834437]

Also not everyone is a business, a private seller can promote at 4% and with bpf included all fees are less than you pay so can charge less than you, you're basically playing on a sloped pitch constantly facing a battle. 

[modelrailwaysales]

Time for honesty to come along set up a better sales platform then ebay and see how ebay collapses and dissapears. I see it coming.

[tribalgiftsuk]

I switched off promoted listings in June and my sales for July and August were within 5% of the previous year. So it barely made any difference at all. Its only since end September when all the budget scare mongering started that the sales have dropped badly. I have taken a few more days off than i have previously too.

So all in all i don't think the promoted listings were really giving me more sales, yes more clicks and impressions but not converting as they were probably not properly placed or it was bots or competitors clicking a lot on them.

But also my faith in Ebay has been smashed and consequently i have been putting more effort into other things that will give me a more secure income. Its such a shame, Ebay used to be my favourite selling platform and it used to be straight forward to sell on here and the delivery dates shown used to be sensible.

One too many bad moves towards sellers in the last few years and its just getting too expensive to sell on here with the increasing posting costs also.