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.

[messier44000]

Yes, its not easy to differentiate between malicious clicks and otherwise, such

as web browsing.

Was not suggesting you was advocating it. Sorry if it came across that way.

I know google has things in place to monitor unusual behaviour with regards 

ad clicks and take action.

I do not use PPC or PL on here but do PPC on the website which is paying off.

[custom-giftsuk]

I wonder if eBay would differentiate between a logged in user clicking on an item, which would therefor log it as "clicked" for ad fee purposes or an anonymous user clicking on an item. So what I mean is that if there is no active account behind the "click" would this be considered for ad fee purposes or would eBay just ignore it?

My thought is that search engines regularly trawl sites like eBay etc to populate their own search results so therefor *every* item would in theory be "clicked" if its an anonymous click

[palison_123]

You best stop PL now otherwise you`ll be paying the extra on all your listings for at least 30 days after that because of the 30 day rule .

[therenewalworkshopltd]

No worries, I didn't think you were.

I am curious though, if your not logged into Ebay and you click on something, does that count?

And if it does, then how can Ebay monitor that kind of thing or even stop it from happening?

If you were trying to be malicious, it's fairly easy to disguise your location and such like, which again means it's very easy to abuse.

[valueaddedresource]

---

@custom-giftsuk wrote:

I wonder if eBay would differentiate between a logged in user clicking on an item, which would therefor log it as "clicked" for ad fee purposes or an anonymous user clicking on an item. So what I mean is that if there is no active account behind the "click" would this be considered for ad fee purposes or would eBay just ignore it?

My thought is that search engines regularly trawl sites like eBay etc to populate their own search results so therefor *every* item would in theory be "clicked" if its an anonymous click

---

@custom-giftsuk  it does not have to be a logged in click, so yes anonymous clicks do count as well, but it does have to be a click on a sponsored Promoted Listings ad.

Search engines are typically not physically doing searches/clicking on items on the site like a user would - they use automated methods like robots.txt files, sitemaps, APIs etc. to crawl and index pages on websites.

In some scenarios with very new technology like AI agents, or not so new technology like scraping bots, you could potentially see automated processes that could be clicking on your ads but that is something completely different from the normal search engine indexing that Google, Bing, and others do.

[bwalton123]

I once loved selling on eBay but they've turned it into a stressful nightmare. Every major change they've implemented in the last 6 months or so has made the site more expensive and less user-friendly without providing any value to buyers or sellers.

These changes are especially baffling to me since eBay is haemorrhaging both buyers and sellers to competitors. Shouldn't they be trying to make the site more attractive, not less?

The underhanded nature of these changes is what irks me the most, I thought the "Buyer Protection" Fee was bad but this change to Promoted Listings takes the cake. It would be more honest if eBay increased the Final Value Fee, rather than adding all of these "hidden" "optional" fees that will inevitably become mandatory.

I'm tempted to turn off all promotions or significantly reduce the percentage but I know that sales, which are already slow at the moment, will plummet. Promoted listings are more or less mandatory now and eBay's recommended percentages have increased dramatically.

[cobwebcottage]

I'm interested to know why a private seller would want to pay for PL?

Unless you are in a hurry to sell your items or have another account?

[bwalton123]

That's a strange question. Private sellers have to compete in the same marketplace. It's impossible to sell most things without using promoted listings because nearly every other seller is using them. Do you think private sellers should be banned from using promoted listings or something?

[cobwebcottage]

No, not if they wish to but if they are undercutting business sellers who pay full fees and selling multiple new items then it's not a fair playing field as a lot of businesses pay around 20% in fees with ( optional) PL on top.

Private sellers shouldn't need to 'compete' when selling their unwanted items as it's free to sell.

[pulseofthedead]

It’s sad that people would/could  resort to those sort of tactics. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I agree entirely, but the fact of the matter is, that people do exactly this kind of thing.

In fact in a lot of cases, they will do everything that they possibly can to win!

Which is why this kind of thing needs to be thought through properly before it's implemented.

[goodibags]

"Private sellers shouldn't need to 'compete' when selling their unwanted items as it's free to sell."

Why shouldn't private sellers want to sell their unwanted items? There's not much point listing items for sale if you weren't trying to sell them.

I agree that private sellers will always undercut business sellers, usually quite easily. But there is only the one website, so by definition all items must be in competition with each other.

And while it may be 'free-ish' to sell their buyers (including business buyers) still have these ludicrous platform usage fees to deal with.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Why not if you are selling something with a lot of competition.

even second hand there are thousands of say game boy advances on eBay at any one time. If it promote mine to shift it quicker, I’m fine with that.

[cobwebcottage]

'Why shouldn't private sellers want to sell their unwanted items?'

You have missed out the word 'compete' which takes it all out of context.  A private seller should be selling their own unwanted items and not, for example, multiple bottles of shampoo so why would they need to compete with business sellers ( selling the same items ) by using PL? 

A genuine PS wanting to use PL then go for it if you want to waste money.

[honeymonster007]

Did try it for a little while just to try and understand how it worked, but just came away more confused about it and a bill when something sold. 

[fatbobfan]

Its a common busines practice for Private and Business sellers who contact Customrtr Service to be told to use Promoted Listings.

Ive seen posts where PPC has been used innocently not understanding the costs on the advice of CS

Shameful practice

[cobwebcottage]

As I said in my first post:

'I'm interested to know why a private seller would want to pay for PL?

Unless you are in a hurry to sell your items or have another account?'

PS don't have to pay any fees so if they want to promote and give Ebay more money, then that is their 

prerogative. But I would think most PS selling their own items would not choose PL.

[goodibags]

But the items themselves are clearly in competition. Basically, sellers HAVE to compete. Otherwise you don't sell. Some sellers reduce their prices while others may throw money at promoting them instead. It's losing either way.

As it happens, Ebay has certainly tried to get me to promote my items too. Why would they do that if they knew it was a waste of money? And why would ANY seller promote their items knowing that?

[custom-giftsuk]

I wonder if any of this was mentioned at the Liverpool roadshow yesterday? I bet you it wasnt. 

[theidguy]

I have also read through the change and it's appalling behaviour from eBay. 

I have now edited and stopped promoting all my Listings. If eBay did the work to help make the sale, then the fee was fair, but this new policy is a money-grab.

Bulk Edit 👉 Select All 👉 Promote Listings 👉 "Stop Promoting".

Good luck all.

Ebay - you need to do better.