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.

[smarts-gaming]

Im not sure what these guys are talking about.... maybe eBay representitives muddying the waters?

Other platform has no fees... you name your price, and receive that price in your bank account. 

No such thing as 10% 30% 40% etc. 

You get all of the money. If you list something for £20 on ebay, you get £15 back. On other platform you get £20. Simple as that. 

[technthread]

Nothing is truly free.

It takes patience to get the maximum price over there as buyers expect lower pricing. If you end up caving in and accepting an offer of £10, is that better than paying eBay fees because it is free? I sell on Vinted but I take it for what it is.

[smarts-gaming]

I think you fail to see the point. Lets forget that other platform will get you more views for a moment... 

You want to sell an item for £50. Thats your "maximum price". 

If you list it on ebay at £50, you will recieve £40 back after sale. 

If you list it on other platform, you will recieve £50 in bank account. 

Buyer pays near enough the same, give or take a few pennies. 

If you are losing out on other platform, you must be doing something seriously wrong.

[technthread]

I’m not missing the point, there is a lot more to this as far as buyer expectations go. I’ve sold the £50 items at full price on Vinted plenty of times but it is harder to achieve than on here.

In reality what happens is if someone comes in and offers £35-£40 it is likely to be accepted and I’m in the same position.

If you’re a buyer do you pay £50 for it on eBay with the money back guarantee or £50 for it on Vinted with a much less reassuring returns and customer service setup. Assuming the item isn’t one of a kind and not available in both places. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

If you want to sell something over there for the same price as Ebay, then you will be extremely lucky to do so.

However, if you take into account the difference in costs and postage, and remove them from your price, you can achieve very similar prices overall.  And in fact, more often than not make more money on V.

But the offers you get over there are ridiculous.  The average offer is a 40% discount.  And very rarely do they want to negotiate.

It's fine if your just selling off something that is sat in your cupboard, but not so much if your selling to make a profit.  I refuse more than I accept, by a fair old margin.

[technthread]

Yep they have just taken a promoted listing fee off me today for a sale that happened yesterday. My available balance didn’t look right but I could as easily have missed it.

The days of the PL fee registering within 10 minutes seem to be over. Maybe it is just me, but is a horrible look from eBay this. If you’re going to go back and dip in for more money please at least take it like you did before rather than leave sellers guessing what their fees are for over 24 hours.

[technthread]

So basically this is as blatant as can be then isn’t it. If the PL fee gets applied within 10 minutes it is probably a legit promoted sale. If they take it the next day then it’s an organic sale with a PL fee applied later under the new policy. At least you’re making it obvious eBay I’ll give you that. 

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@technthread wrote:

Yep they have just taken a promoted listing fee off me today for a sale that happened yesterday. My available balance didn’t look right but I could as easily have missed it.

The days of the PL fee registering within 10 minutes seem to be over. Maybe it is just me, but is a horrible look from eBay this. If you’re going to go back and dip in for more money please at least take it like you did before rather than leave sellers guessing what their fees are for over 24 hours.

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@technthread  again, just to be clear - what you are seeing with the PL fee registering the next day isn't specifically related to the attribution model change that went into effect on June 24th.

Reporting and policy pages for eBay's various Promoted Listings offerings have said for several years now that attribution may take up to 72 hours to reconcile, or longer in some cases.

You may have previously not experienced it taking more than a few minutes, but it was always possible that it could take longer according to the policy/help pages and nothing about that has actually changed.

[technthread]

I accept that their policy pages say that but it seems a bit odd to me that I haven’t had it happen this way in a few thousand sales previously and then it happens 1 week after their policy change. If I’m wrong I’m wrong but I’m also swayed by other people on this thread mentioning it as well. 

This is a reflection of my old fashioned way of recording sales I accept that but it is another block of time needed on eBay now to cross check numbers are correct. I’m just on one but this bothers me more than paying the extra fees ever did. 

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@technthread wrote:

I accept that their policy pages say that but it seems a bit odd to me that I haven’t had it happen this way in a few thousand sales previously and then it happens 1 week after their policy change. If I’m wrong I’m wrong but I’m also swayed by other people on this thread mentioning it as well. 

This is a reflection of my old fashioned way of recording sales I accept that but it is another block of time needed on eBay now to cross check numbers are correct. I’m just on one but this bothers me more than paying the extra fees ever did. 

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@technthread  totally understand where you are coming from and not saying you're wrong, just that you may be right about your specific individual experience but that doesn't necessarily extrapolate out - that old correlation doesn't equal causation thing. 😉

I can tell you that over in the US community we have seen sellers frustrated about delays in ad attribution for years and for all of that time, the answer those sellers have received from support is that it is "working as intended" because eBay says it may take up to 72 hours or more for attribution to reconcile.

I haven't searched here, but I'd be willing to bet it's come up before for other UK seller as well.

I can also personally attest that back in 2021, I had direct contact with eBay's VP of Ads and asked him about this exact topic and he confirmed to me that not all attribution is done in "real time", which is why they have that stated in the policies.

But every sellers' experience may be different and some may have experienced occasional delays in attribution going that far back while others have not - which is why you may be right about your experience (and others here may be right about their experiences as well) while it's also still true that there has always been the possibility for there to be a delay in attribution, even if you didn't experience it previously.

So that part has not actually changed - but since the new attribution model exponentially expands the number of sales which will have ad fees assessed, that could also mean sellers who previously never experienced delays might start seeing them more frequently now.

In fact, just from a technical/systems perspective, delays may be even more likely now simply because eBay's system are now processing more data due to that expanded attribution definition.

I don't blame you for being bothered by it and please don't mistake what I'm saying as a defense of eBay (there is absolutely no defense for this insane money grab), I'm just trying to help cut through some of the confusion about how it all works.

[planet78]

Well after a few days of no promotion my sales had effectively stopped, so I was forced to either return to the dark side or to stop selling on eBay to avoid the recurring costs.

Yesterday I put the promotions back on, but at a lower rate than before, and I reduced my prices by a little to reflect the saving I was making versus the old promotion rate. Within a few hours the sales recommenced.

To me it looks like unless you are the only seller of a particular item sales will take a big hit or perhaps cease altogether without promotion.

[nutrafituk]

Money grab, nothing else. You should only promote if it makes sense and is worth it, not being forced to otherwise lose sales completely.

[kickin.assets]

@planet78 

Would’ve recommended you give in more than just a “few days”. That is not enough time to determine whether your lack of sales is just ebb and flow or lack of promotions.

With that said, yes, I believe when you end all promotions, there is somewhat of a “punishment” for doing so, but sales do come back! Especially if you’re doing all the things … great service, good titles, photos, descriptions, listing regularly and fair prices. Most people tend to cave after a few days of slow/no sales and eBay is counting on that.

Patience, my friend. If you can take the hit for a couple, three weeks, your sales do come back!! I can say this confidently because 2 weeks ago today, I ended all promotions. The first two days I had better sales than usual, but things did slow down. Now keep in mind, this is my slow season, but comparing to last year at this time, I’m right on track and now without jumping through all the hoops. Of course, eBay isn’t my only platform, so taking the leap to not promote, though a bit nerve wracking, isn’t as terrible. Diversify if you haven’t already.

If sales are back to normal for you with promotions, and you’re good with that, great! If you’re still questioning to promote or not and end promotions again, just give it more time for sales to catch up to the change.

Wishing you much success!

Kiks

[nutrafituk]

It's fair to say that you would at least expect to have your organic sales kept at similar level. Somehow, it is not the case and everything falls off the cliff with the moment you stop promoting completely. That says it all.