New Changes to Promoted Listings programme - June 2025 - What a scam!

[westminster_dental_supplies]

Anyone else seen this? Just received an email detailing their promotion changes from June.

So basically, if you promote an item as a seller, regardless of whether the buyer is a lead acquired through the promotion, you will be charged the advertising fee, because someone else clicked on it within the last 30 days.

What a scam!!

Ebay squeezing yet more out of sellers.

As a user of eBay Advertising, we want to make you aware of an update to general strategy campaigns on ebay.co.uk, ebay.fr, ebay.it, ebay.es and ebay.com.au. Starting from 24 June, items promoted with a general strategy will use the following attribution definition when reporting sales and charging ad fees:

An attributed sale will be when any buyer purchases the promoted item within 30 days of any click on the ad, regardless of whether the buyer themselves clicked on the ad. The item must be promoted at the time of click and the time of sale. The seller will be charged the ad rate at the time of sale. Learn more

You’ll still only pay when your items sell, so this will remain the same. As always, we recommend monitoring your performance and adjusting your strategy accordingly.

[vinylscot]

Disgusting!

[iceblue_uk]

If this reads correctly then it means ebay either simply wants more even money from their members for doing basically nothing, or they want sellers to use pay per click instead. Standard promo ebay recommended percentages are now in the TWENTIES, this is a RIDICULOUS level already and if we don't promote at near to that we simply don't get sales. With this new rule, organic sales will be a thing of the past so they may as well be honest, SCRAP the standard promo altogether and start charging us 35% selling fees, because that's what we'll be paying if we use it. Pay per click simply is not an option for low price items, it's impossible to make a profit. Margins were bad enough already with a standard promo/organic combo, if this announcement is correct we would have to increase prices by 25-30% just to make a tiny profit.

[janor_1302]

I have been removing my listings and donating them to a charity shop. This latest change means I will be doing it faster. EBay has taken away the enjoyment of selling online. I am now using my skills to sell online for the charity where I volunteer.

[threeeight-3d]

We actually prefer the idea of Pay Per Click, as it gives more control over spending but the enforced £0.20 minimum per click makes it completely unworkable for us. We wouldn't have an issue with PPC if it weren't for that floor.

[iceblue_uk]

If it were only  20p per click it might be just about workable, but ebay is now recommending over £1 per click for some of our items. Also, conversion rates on PPC have been inexplicably dropping, we used to get 50% but now it's 25% or less, whilst the same listing on standard promo (where conversion rates don't affect seller costs at all) still gets 50% plus. That means ebay are showing PPC listings to the wrong buyers, but that's ok for them since they get more click fees. Pay per Click is now useless for us and now it seems so will standard promo.  After 17 years on here this is the last straw.

[stephen3dcreations]

I dont think is pay per click, instead if "someone" clicked the ad within 30 days, EVERY sale need to pay ad fee, personally I think this is just a start, soon not long they will proceed to next step, which is pay per click or even private seller need to subcribe to sell

[iceblue_uk]

Yes that's exactly how it reads to me, I mentioned PPC only for comparison.

[iceblue_uk]

Concierge are now looking into this, hopefully the wording is wrong!

If not, it means the end of organic sales for anything that you need to promote to sell. It also means eBay don't even have to try to efficiently promote your item, they simply need to show it to a wide enough audience; if just one uninterested person clicks on the promoted ad then EVERY subsequent sale of that item from ANY buyer who sees the item via your organic listing or shop counts as though ebay found that buyer for you through extra promotion, even though that sale had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Surely, this would be so far beyond what anyone in their right mind would consider to be reasonable and fair that it just cannot be correct?   

[jonatjonatjonat]

Heck - why should ebay stop at charging ad fees on non ad sales on their own platform? Why don't they request that we supply our sales off other platforms as clearly ebay had a hand in those as well!

[the-nutwood-collection]

OK.  I'm sure I'm being incredibly thick, but I've got to ask the question.

When a listing is promoted, any sale from that listing attracts the promotion fee.  It may be an immediate sale, or it may be a sale from a buyer that clicked on it within 30 days.

There is (or I think there is, maybe that's where I'm going wrong) only one listing on eBay.  It doesn't matter whether that listing is in a shop or on someone's watch list, it's the same listing.  Therefore, if that listing is promoted, the PL fee is payable.

I'm completely confused about these 'organic' listings that are featuring in the posts.  To me, there is one listing.  It doesn't matter whether the buyer found it via the eBay search, or Google, or a link, or a watch list.  It's the same listing, and it's promoted, and it attracts a PL fee.

I'm sure there's a simple explanation that's eluding me, and I need to know what it is.

[thetimetower]

Thing is its not even 20p a click. That's the minimum max rate u can put. It was 5p and now they just threw it up. They also now require min £3 a day. This is the start. Be 50p a click min in a few weeks. They are on the way to absolute self destruction. Tbh I'm about 90% sure half of this is illegal in UK law anyway. Espesh the enforcing of simple delivery. Its too similar to their old paypal hustle when they forced u to use it and made double their money.

[thetimetower]

Yeh well its both. I mean tbf i always think they charged u the promo fee on every ad cuz it was too coincidental how u got charged it on ads u rarely ran campaigns on. Whats worse is I'm almost positive if u have priority on and general, they charge u both per click and the percentage. But the issue is the new "feature" where the ppc will get the top spot on the searches.

Then itll be the top 2 results

Then it'll be "only PPC gets the first page of results"

They are spiralling and someone in that board is patting themselves on the back for being so clever as the company liquidates. Obv drinking from the same coolaid as the EVRI ceo who has slashed rates so hard u need to do 30 drops an hour to make min wage, all while showing off the robot dog that can carry 1 packet"..

[tub-at-home]

Hi, Yes I've only just been able to get around to reading the email from eBay about this, what a flipping cheek. I'm a private seller  & occasionally have used the promote bit, reluctantly I might add. From June I will no longer use this at all. Probably will give up soon once the cupboards are a little more empty as once they put the buyer protection fee on sales slumped dramatically.

[elecandtec]

Total scam? Yes, completely! I'm open mouthed and furious that Ebay think this change is OK. I'll be cancelling all promotions on my listings as there's no way I'm paying a blanket promotional fee like that.

[sandyt2123]

Yes I read this new missive from eBay, and thought I was misreading. I have used promoted items in the past and was a bit surprised to see that the fees I pad were higher than expected under the old system. But this new system would appear to be totally open-ended in eBay's favour. Am I misunderstanding the change? As it seems to me that if I promote an item and then get tens of views and it sells, and my item is a low value item, I may end up paying eBay and I would end up losing money! This cannot be true - can it? 

I just don't understand what eBay is doing making these constant changes to a selling model which has worked for both sellers and buyers in a simple way for years. Now it is a mess of pottage which is driving both sellers and potential buyers away. 

Given that I don't want just to throw away stuff that I no longer need, eBay has offered a very useful and valuable way of making sure that my unused stuff finds a new home and so is saved from the rubbish bin. eBay's actions are deliberately undermining this sustainable model of self help. 

When will this state of affairs end? 

Who owns eBay and runs it and who is responsible for this? 

Surely we need to know?

Thanks 

[the_book_seekers]

ebay needs to plug the hole in revenue streams left by switching to fee free selling for private sellers. It's why there has been a raft of new money raising schemes. These schemes may have the opposite effect as users stop buying and sellers stop using promoted listings. 

[sandyt2123]

To be honest I wouldn't mind a return to paying fees for my sales as at least I would know where I stand! The endless changes to both buyers and sellers just destroys trust in the process. And I just don't see what the buyer is getting for the "protection fee" - it just sound like a mafia tactic! 

So perhaps eBay just needs a reset!

[vinylscot]

At the moment, if you promote a listing, and I click on one of your promoted adverts, and then buy, you will pay the promotion fee. That will remain the case.

However, NOW, if you are one of my favourite sellers, and I find it through your listings, you won't pay the fee, because I didn't find it through the promoted listing. Likewise, it I just happened across it in some search results, or by some other method, say a friend's recommendation, you would not pay the promoted fee, as the promotion had no part on the sale.

That's what's changing in future. If buyer X has a look at your item through a promoted ad, but doesn't buy it, then buyer Y comes along three days later, NOT from a promoted ad, and does buy it, you will now be charged the promotion fee, because SOMEBODY looked at the promoted ad, even though it had nothing to do with the eventual sale.

I simply can't see any way that can be justified.

[gjalp]

Hmmm, something has got lost in translation because this https://www.ebayinc.com/impact/ isn’t the ebay I know today!