Promoted Shops - My Experience

[darth_baggins]

I recently received an offer from eBay for £200 worth of Promoted Shops advertising. As I couldn't see a catch I accepted the offer.

For those that don't know, you pay to get a banner shown on other sellers' listings, something like 'This shop has similar items'.

I set up my 'smart' campaign, selected five categories and a budget of £10 per day (it's pay per click, default budget is £30 a day!)

Within about 40 minutes the £10 was already gone with zero sales. I actually laughed out loud at this.

I let it run for 6 days. Each day, the £10 was 'spent' very quickly with absolutely nothing to show for it. I had quite a lot of clicks and the cost per click peaked at 42p. Yes 42p for one click of a link.

Not only that but I had 10s of 1000s of impressions which is probably detrimental to my listings in Best Match. In fact, sales did nosedive while the campaign was running.

Once it got to £60 with zero sales, I ended the campaign. Sales immediately picked up.

Conclusion; your experience may differ but in my opinion it's a total rip-off and the only benefit is to eBay, who are charging money for literally nothing. As usual with these promotions I'm also now wary that they won't honour the promotion as I've seen before on the forums.

I sell mostly low value items so maybe if you're selling higher priced stuff, it might be different.

[custom-giftsuk]

A cautionary tale and one i wont be accepting even if it *free* - thanks 🙂

[bravergrace]

That's interesting, and pretty much confirms my expectations on the scheme.

I have noticed that many sellers who swear by the scheme, seem to measure their success by the number of impressions or clicks, rather than by sales or profits, which is worrying - it's like a shopkeeper measuring his success by counting the number of window shoppers, or customers entering the shop - even if none of them ever buy anything.

[fatbobfan]

Good post

While I know PL works for some, whats going on with the ramping up of PL costs just smells of desperation

The new PL Listing Changes and your example of 42p a click are good examples for what in my opinion is a blatant money grab, genuinely I can not see who thinks these charges are value for money. is it value for money?

I find it sad that the platform is treating its customers this way, its just driving away professional sellers into the arms of others, at the cost to the platform and its loyal customers, the bottom line is this is all extra cost on top of the extra costs, will be paid for by our customers, some will not accept it and go else where. Only the platfom wins at our expense

Genuinely dont get it, its not a good customer practice, seems a desperate action when its competitors are taking a larger piece of the market, shameful.

[darth_baggins]

I ended all PL when they introduced the change where you're charged if anyone clicks on a listing. I'll never use them again.

But I do think eBay are getting desperate with all these discounts and promotions.

I remember when Best Match came out and they removed a lot of the paid features and said it's not right that people can pay extra to get more visibility. Now it seems it's the exact opposite.

[custom-giftsuk]

Its super simple. eBay's plans are simple in the extreme. Make money. In fact because they have to make the maximum money for their shareholders (its part of their fiduciary duty as per US law) each year - its a simple policy.

Make as much money as possible. (the long term health of the company.... well not so much)

Now they can ramp up the site, lots of advertising, get things working better, attract lots of buyers but that take a lot of effort and is a gamble at best. But what they can do is tighten the screw on the existing buyers & sellers to make more money for eBay at minimal effort and tighten & tighten & tighten until things start to crack and maybe then ease off until they can tighten it again.  We've all seen this over the years and their minor recent rowbacks on SD and BPF are at best, marginal movement of the deckchairs. 

So expect more ways to claw more money out of sellers and soon. Those share buy backs and investor dividends dont happen without lots of lovely cash. 

Expect SD for business sellers in the next 12 months as that is the only available option to make some easy cash under the guise of  "buyer protection". They wont go full on, straight away. It'll be caveats and get outs for the big boys but it'll come. Its too good a cash cow to ignore

[moldosgifts]

That basically mirrors my experience, i set a very basic of £6.00 a day my items are very low cost, promised a 40% lift in sales, received less sales, virtually zero with just one or 2 items daily, ran it for 2 weeks , with my account never getting into positive, after i paid my shop fee account was in minus sometimes happens but you swiftly recover, not this time after two weeks turned off promoted off site , sales are now recovering and better then expected for this time of year. I now just offer a basic promotion of 2% my fees are back to a sustainable level.

They sent me an offer promising the same uplift they promised last time "no thanks"

[fatbobfan]

I was slowly removing, but yet again this morning, this platforms hacked me off with its double standards I pulled the remaining 500 listings today.

The years of atrocious CS, poor help and the increase of blatant money grabs, its out of principle now,

I have other baskets and lines elsewhere, will pay what Im due and no more, if the platform fails me, it fails me, will continue best practice and good service in the good ol days that stood you well, if it doesnt then so be it, not paying the platform extra for sales when they cant back it up and no service.

[guymafo]

@darth_baggins 

Thanks for that info. 
Haven’t promoted on my business account, since early April, closed shop, just pay as I go for 20-30 listings a month now.

I get a pop up every single day on the seller hub telling me to promote, plus the emails for you lend and how to reach more buyers. 
Gone from paying eBay £350 a month to around £25 whilst I build on other platforms. I know I’m small fry, so I’m no great loss. 

A beneficial offer for myself (to return in any volume) would be 3 months free shop subscription, or something that has actual value in its action. Not paying for a box ticking exercise to infiltrate someone else’s listings, and a bar chart to show how much I haven’t sold. 

GM

[banditfrenzy]

Ebay is no longer enjoying a growing market by attracting new customers, so it must look to increase its revenues by extracting more from its existing customers.

Sellers are ebays customers. Expect more & more financial pressure to be applied to selling accounts, expect more & more of these "often bizarre" schemes to transfer sellers profits into ebays coffers . . . !

[jlovie]

eBay Consolidates Ads, Stores, Shipping, Payments & Financing Services In Monetization-Focused Reorg.

eBay Consolidates Ads, Stores, Shipping, Payments & Financing Services In Monetization-Focused Reorg

[custom-giftsuk]

Oho...... the plot thickens.

The UK is just a test bed for the US/rest of world. Expect to see all manner of experiments.

I did like the rampant sexism though - "We’ve diversified how customers pay, get paid, and engage on eBay and expanded our reach into new demographics such as Gen Z, Millennials, and women"

I have said for months that SD would be rolled out to business sellers ever since the eBay presenter @ the Edinburgh roadshow "mis-spoke" saying that SD was for private sellers for the moment and here it is "Iannone told investors eBay is seeing strong results from the managed shipping program, making it even more likely it may soon be expanded at least on a voluntary basis to UK business sellers" & "And clearly that's not all they have planned for ways to monetize shipping with a currently open job position for a Director of Product Shipping Platform based in London to "design a multi-year roadmap" in "alignment with eBay's strategic goals around driving GMV and revenue.""

[auctiongabble]

Same happened with me, I had exa t same offer, accepted it and £10 went in minutes and nothing to show for it.  Sales have completely dried on here for me, just low ball offers.  

[pegr-834437]

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@custom-giftsuk wrote:

Its super simple. eBay's plans are simple in the extreme. Make money. 

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I agree but they are going about it so badly, take this promo, it only really brings in money if the free trial shows it works, theres 2 replies out of 13 already saying it failed. They wont use their own money and anyone else will get similar results wont either.

I'm far from sticking up for eBy but we all know theres a pretty big pot they could dip into if they really wanted more funds, thats businesses on private accounts, for some reason these are untouchable, eBay have annoyed genuine private sellers, genuine business accounts but don't dare touch the ones breaking policy where they really could make hundreds of thousands a day.

Has anyone had a PPC promotion thats brought in sales worthy of the cost?

[the_book_seekers]

A very interesting and quite depressing article in equal measure. 

[darth_baggins]

Interestingly I had a phone call today from eBay asking me if I was interested in a new delivery scheme run by eBay. I told him if it eBay were doing it would be a total disaster and I am 100% not interested.

He sounded surprised.

[the_book_seekers]

"... leading all our revenue-driving product lines, including Payments & Financial Services, Advertising, Shipping, B2C & Stores, and Monetization. Together, these businesses are core to our strategy of delivering relevant, scalable, and magical experiences for our global community of buyers and sellers while driving eBay’s long-term sustainable growth"

I can't get my head around how ebay thinks 'revenue-driving product lines' mean a magical experience for buyers and seller. They are driving ebay's growth whether this will be 'long-term sustainable growth' is highly debatable. As far as buyers and sellers are concerned these revenue driving product lines make us cash cows.

[fatbobfan]

Friday morning giggle, cheers DB

[fatbobfan]

That was a very interesting page, with follow on links most definitely worth a read, have added that page to my bookmarks

wow

[rhino*and*mugsy]

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@darth_baggins wrote:

I ended all PL when they introduced the change where you're charged if anyone clicks on a listing. I'll never use them again.

How did ending all of your PL's pan out?

I too am considering curbing my addiction to PL's as I am now earning less than eBay are from every single one of my ever reducing sales. Their revenue from me is maintained whilst my income from profits continue to decline which is thoroughly disheartening.

However, like most addicts I am frightened to go cold turkey in case my sales die and never recover.  So, my question is, with the benefit of hindsight @darth_baggins would you advocate a clean break from PL or do you now think that a gradual weening off over a longer period would be more prudent?