Priority Advertising Strategy promoting listings. I'm bleeding money and profit

[bgoodstradingscot]

I have most items on a dynamic rate promotion but put a load of stock on priority with campaign budget £3, the lowest rate. It is bleeding money daily. I notice there are much more views but not particularly driving sales. I have sent a few offers. However offers I've sent are to buyers with no feedback. Am I paying for bot's? Shouldnt everyone have an equal fairness when they post their items for sale or is this additional help for unsavvy sellers where advertising isnt their forte. Really dont know what to make of this. Whats your thoughts. Is it worth it? 

[pegr-834437]

Fully agree, I'd love to see what people sell who can make the priority campaign profitable. Lots of accounts received the £300 'free' credits recently so you'd have thought if it was indeed a great success the board would be flooded with good news stories about the great improvement. 

£500 in sales for £200 in priority fee's is one that I have seen, if you then add in eBay fee's, purchase price, storage, they'd be better off throwing the £200 on the euro millions.

[style_wise]

Only you can decide if Promotions are worth it for you. A few other Sellers have similar things to day about Priority Promotions.

As for General Promotions, eBay UK changed them earlier this year, making it impossible to track whether they are worth it or not. Hopefully this trial will fail, and they will revert to the original method (still available on eBay US).

[jonatjonatjonat]

It depends what you class as profitable I suppose.

What is a good ROAS will very much vary depending on your business model and your category.

Company I work for, this month the priority ads are running at a ROAS of 6.43 which is reasonable. BUT we don't do dynamic, we would start with automatic keywords but very quickly shift to manual once we realise which keywords work. Often, this is where Priority falls down, people leave on poorly performing keywords. It requires daily checking.

I do find Priority Listings much harder to manage than General Promotions - but ebay are very much an outlier with General Promotions. I can't think of any other major marketplace who offer Pay Per Order Advertising. PPC ads aren't however inherently bad. They just need work. They won't be right for everyone.

The OPs issue might be what they are selling (though I don't know what they are advertising). Why would someone buy new makeup when the cost is inflated by BPF and Simple Delivery as a Private Seller?

[cobwebcottage]

There are many other ways you can increase your sales without using promotions.

From your own admission in your bio ( and the title of the post, you are business seller who wishes to make a profit.

'I have great quality stock, I look for quality labels to give you the best deal I can do for you on them. It really makes my day when you get exactly what you want and you love it. I also deal with liquidated stock any profit I make on this stock I pay it forward.'

By giving your buyers their legal rights, which they should have anyway if you traded correctly they would have the option of returns, details of business seller, no buyer protection fee. It would probably cost you less than the amount you are paying in promotions and you would be trading legally, giving you credibility and your buyers would pay less so sales may increase.

[pegr-834437]

Didn't even notice it was a business on a private account, changes some things in my opinion, you are already ripping your customers off and then to say you are passionate about fairness whilst forcing any potential buyer to pay a fee that they shouldn't have to pay is not fair at all.

With regards to @jonatjonatjonat I think eBay will always have to be different to other businesses with regards to advertising, many correctly and most incorrectly registered businesses will be done around other jobs or child care so to have somebody spending time each day checking up on key words is never going to work. Really though eBay shouldn't need advertising, its just a way to squeeze more juice from the pips, if it was just the best accounts were highest on best match they'd still get plenty of money.

[plpmr]

adding to the advice already given -

"I'm bleeding money and profit"

As a registered private seller profit cannot come into it.

however a private seller cannot be holding stocks of and selling brand new items.

for example - "Wow London Matte Lipstick Shade 36" over 100 available.    

[guymafo]

It really is ridiculous how many private sellers running businesses on the wrong account post on these boards with these questions, about profits, stock, SD and BPF.

GM