eBay Marketing Program Terms 15 January 2025 - Time to jump the eBay ship ???

[bittyboy101]

Just received a message from eBay with a link to their new Marketing Program Terms which come into force on 15th January 2025.

Link below:-

https://pages.ebay.co.uk/promote-your-listings/terms/B2C/?mkevt=1&mkpid=2&emsid=e99011.m2.l1&mkcid=2... 

This seems way over to top to me as I'm only a small private seller with not much understanding of how this works and what hidden costs will rack up on my eBay seller account !

It looks to me like eBay are going to force yet another mandatory change on all of us and I honestly don't know if I have the ability to handle it.

This may be the end of me ever being able to sell anything on eBay ever again as this is now very complicated, costly and very frightening for a small simple private seller.

It really does now look that the person behind all these recent dreadful changes to eBay has now left no stone unturned with their mega changes campaign and are now changing everything that was original and unique to eBay with a mean vengeance !  😞 

Do post your thoughts on this - Good and Bad.

Many thanks !  🙂  

[bittyboy101]

The phrase "a different kettle of fish" is a British idiom that means a situation or subject is completely different from what has been discussed.

I typed it wrong, it should have been "Kettle" not cattle ! lol   

[bojangled]

@bittyboy101 I quite like ‘cattle of fish’ describes the state of the world at moment. 

[bittyboy101]

I'd use the words "cattle market" to describe how eBay is at the moment after all these recent changes...

Only it is not appearance, but how big and powerful a seller is determines whether eBay show's their items early in the searches or puts them 10 pages behind all the paid for, promoted listings !  😞 

Taken from Google's Al :-

"A "Cattle market" is an informal, disapproving term for a place or situation where people are treated like animals, or judged solely by their appearance. For example, you might describe a nightclub, beauty contest, or parents' evening as a cattle market."

[lens-sage]

Another panic over nothing from the resident scare monger, then.

[bittyboy101]

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@lens-sage wrote:

Another panic over nothing from the resident scare monger, then.

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Not really. 🙁

I'm suspicious that eBay may have an hidden agenda with all of these sudden changes to the platform after only a very short space of time... 🤔 🤔 🤔

[1956glyn]

What is the point of speculation concerning changes on Ebay until we know the full facts.  All you will do is do your own head in.

The same applies to this new "simple delivery".   Reading the chat yesterday......everything regarding that is still clear as mud

[lucy_farmer]

'Another panic over nothing....'

Oh I dunno... it's a bit much to expect non-buisness people to know what the cyptic code 'B2C' means, for example,  when you've never seen it or heard of it before.....

It may all be 2nd nature to you business types, but not to us!

[1956glyn]

Thats what google is for 😂

[1956glyn]

Off topic know but there seems to be another Ebay glitch currently.

I just looked at your most recent listing and listings generally to see what you sell .........the part where is says about postage and location etc is unreadable on that listing because its dropped and super imposed on the top of other promoted listings ! 

Your others appear to be ok 😞 

[lens-sage]

Oh yeah my bad.

Your response doesn't come across as unjustifiably hysterical at all.

[bittyboy101]

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@lens-sage wrote:

Oh yeah my bad.

Your response doesn't come across as unjustifiably hysterical at all.

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Only what I and many other users are now noticing.

Just ask yourself, eBay first started in September of 1995... during that time to 2019 there were only a few minor changes... come 2019/2020 onwards there have now been MANY changes in such a short time, so WHY did eBay decide to make all of these sudden changes to their otherwise successful platform when for years and years it worked so well for millions of people and was a gold mine for their owners ?....

For 25 years there was no major changes, except for sellers no longer being able to leave neg feedback for poor buyers and charges to a free being added postage & packing costs.

So from 2019 onwards what brought on a SUDDEN flurry of rushed changes ?... where is the fire ??... why the sudden hurry ???... I mean it's not like the world is going to end tomorrow is it ??... This can only mean one thing either a change in ownership of eBay or a hidden agenda of a failing eBay trying VERY HARD to say afloat...  by inventing new products and new costs to generate more revenue from people...

[theelench]

Having just read the "Your Personalised 2024 Selling Recap" thread on the Business Seller board, where everyone appears to be in the top 5% of sellers in their own category, it seems to me that no-one including ebay, has a clue about what is really going-on on the site.

The marketing program link here was incomprehensible to me.  Simple Delivery looks like it will be another can of worms.  Free to Sell just another push to get more private sellers to promote their listings in the hope of selling something.

I've given-up even trying to keep up with the constant shifting sands that ebay is now and I have great sympathy for anyone still trying to do so.  The site is a mess, the rules for selling now seem to change at monthly intervals with more unexplained changes 'coming soon'.  It's not just "Simple Delivery", it seems selling in general is now as 'clear as mud' to many.

[lens-sage]

"during that time to 2019 there were only a few minor changes"

Unsubstantiated nonsense. There have been countless major changes between 1995 and 2019. Utter drivel.

"For 25 years there was no major changes"

Again, that which is asserted without evidence will be dismissed on the same basis.

"This can only mean one thing either"

That's an oxymoron. 

So again, just a meandering bowl full of paranoid word salad.

Almost every post you make on here is a perfect combination of paranoia, negativity and blind speculation, usually instigated by reading things and not understanding them.

[555njp]

Everything eBay does lately just smacks of desperation.

As you say the marketing thing was incomprehensible to most and I’m not convinced “It’s something of nothing” as it looks like anyone choosing not to promote may not get any visibility at all next year, but who knows?

Fed up second guessing everything and trying to optimise sales when fundamentally this should be no harder than placing an ad in your local rag (remember those days?).

I fill in a form, pay my fee, send my ad in, it’s published, PEOPLE ACTUALLY SEE IT, and if anyone wants it - it sells…!
I never had to give an additional back-hander to the editor to ensure the ad went in!

One price, usually per word, sometimes you could pay a small premium for a border but you didn’t have to and would still be visible without it, job done.

Sooner eBay gets back to basic simplicity the better.

[bittyboy101]

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@lens-sage wrote:

"during that time to 2019 there were only a few minor changes"

Unsubstantiated nonsense. There have been countless major changes between 1995 and 2019. Utter drivel.

"For 25 years there was no major changes"

Again, that which is asserted without evidence will be dismissed on the same basis.

"This can only mean one thing either"

That's an oxymoron. 

So again, just a meandering bowl full of paranoid word salad.

Almost every post you make on here is a perfect combination of paranoia, negativity and blind speculation, usually instigated by reading things and not understanding them.

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You would say that wouldn't you.

Anything truthful is always ludicrous or "nonsense" to those who don't like people pointing out the truth !   

[bittyboy101]

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@555njp wrote:

Everything eBay does lately just smacks of desperation.

As you say the marketing thing was incomprehensible to most and I’m not convinced “It’s something of nothing” as it looks like anyone choosing not to promote may not get any visibility at all next year, but who knows?

Fed up second guessing everything and trying to optimise sales when fundamentally this should be no harder than placing an ad in your local rag (remember those days?).

I fill in a form, pay my fee, send my ad in, it’s published, PEOPLE ACTUALLY SEE IT, and if anyone wants it - it sells…!
I never had to give an additional back-hander to the editor to ensure the ad went in!

One price, usually per word, sometimes you could pay a small premium for a border but you didn’t have to and would still be visible without it, job done.

Sooner eBay gets back to basic simplicity the better.

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I 100% agree.

[lens-sage]

So once again, a complete lack of any proof to substantiate your premise?

You just keep proving my point.

[kempseykate]

I have to agree that there were loads of major changes between the start of ebay and 2019.

When I started (2000) you had to pay (5p?) if you wanted a picture, there was no private/business definition, you didn't have to state what postage cost was, payment was by anything from cheque/bank transfer to unused postage stamps and cash. There was no Money Back Guarantee, but because the internet wasn't available to every Tom, Richard and Harry, the ones that did use it were generally honest - both as buyers and sellers - it wasn't really needed. There were very occasional cheap/free listing offers. Listing an item was clunky.
Categories have had untold changes during that period. Take books for example. There used to be lots of sub categories, but the 'improved it' and 'improved it' until there was just one category - Books. Other categories suffered similar changes.
Free postage for media (books, CDs, DVDs) was forced on all sellers well before 2019. Postage caps on other categories was also before this time.
Sometime before 2019 Customer Service was outsourced and became next to useless.

(And those are only a few I can think of)

I think the reason there have been more changes recently are down to faster changes in tech, including AI, much more competition to keep up with/get ahead of, more and more legislation to deal with.

Nobody has to pay to promote - I don't, and I still sell items. When people complain their items are invisible, I can see them, using a different browser and ID, but that doesn't mean I want to buy them.

[vintagewatchpart]

As we've established that the frightening, scary and complicated T&C's that this thread was started about have existed for the past 6 years already, can't this discussion now end?

It seems to be going off on the same old tangents again. 

[bittyboy101]

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@vintagewatchpart wrote:

As we've established that the frightening, scary and complicated T&C's that this thread was started about have existed for the past 6 years already, can't this discussion now end?

It seems to be going off on the same old tangents again. 

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