'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

For Canadians sellers who use ebay Canada to list their items, Markdown Manager is the only aspect of the ebay.com Promotions Manager that exists. And it looks as if ebay is making significant changes to this without any actual announcement as such. Saw this today. 

 

Screen Shot 2017-07-25 at 3.49.31 PM.png

Message 1 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

I'm not clear in how this is supposed to work when we don't even have a Seller's Hub on this side of the border. 

 

http://www.ebay.ca/sh/mkt/promotionmanager/news#markdownManager

 

Screen Shot 2017-07-25 at 3.50.38 PM.png

Message 2 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

My fear is that the ability to use even Markdown Manager will be compromised leaving nothing to replace it while we on ebay.ca don't move to the Seller's Hub as has been vaguely promised to us to happen sometime later this summer. 

 

Does anyone else have information about this? Preferably something that will alleviate my fear of the unknown?

Message 3 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

Well, that's curious. That red text has now disappeared. 

 

Screen Shot 2017-07-25 at 4.02.22 PM.png

 

 

Message 4 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

Why must they torment us so?!

Message 5 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

More on the fly testing on a live site. Great coding practice. From a glance of the FAQ it looks like they are merging some of the APIs that mass retailers/developers are using for external tools to manage listings. Seems we'll be getting a spiffy new interface on the ebay side. White space here we come!

 

 

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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance


@hlmacdon wrote:

More on the fly testing on a live site. Great coding practice. From a glance of the FAQ it looks like they are merging some of the APIs that mass retailers/developers are using for external tools to manage listings. Seems we'll be getting a spiffy new interface on the ebay side. White space here we come!


White

 

space

 

in                      user              interfaces

 

 

 

for     new        tools

 

 

 

is

 

 

such

 

 

 

a                                                                   great

 

 

 

design          today.

 

 

 

Best      olf           all

 

 

is

 

the number

 

 

 

 

 

of         extra clicks

 

 

that you                        have to  do

 

and

 

coupled

 

 

with   the    new         slowness

 

 

 

 

 

you     may    be   lucky

 

 

 

 

 

and   decrease    your

 

 

productivity only

 

 

by 75%!

Message 7 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

Then it's a good thing that I have this deluxe fidget spinner on my desk to help pass the time while I navigate past white space. Think how soothing that will be. I'll be so soothed.  

Message 8 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance


@mjwl2006 wrote:

My fear is that the ability to use even Markdown Manager will be compromised leaving nothing to replace it while we on ebay.ca don't move to the Seller's Hub as has been vaguely promised to us to happen sometime later this summer. 

 

Does anyone else have information about this? Preferably something that will alleviate my fear of the unknown?


See my today's post on this..

 

Apparently it will star rolling out in the fall

Message 9 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

Good grief.  Why, oh why, can't eBay's fidget-fingers not leave the programming alone for 6 months in a row?  It's becoming almost pathological. 

 

Dollars to donuts, they're going to break something else in the process, just like all the other features they've tried to re-invent and ended up making a mess of. 

Message 10 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

If I was a pessimist, I would say all of this is very intentional to get rid of the smaller sellers that they can't seem to get rid of with punishments.

 

Make it so difficult and so unprofitable for them, that they leave on their own.

Message 11 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

Please allow me to elaborate on the reason this non-announced change of service worries me so. 

 

1. We know the Seller Hub will come to eBay.ca at some point later this summer or fall. 

2. We now know that Markdown Manager is being moved into Promotions Manager.

3. I've been begging for Promotions Manager to be available on eBay.ca for three years. Just a few weeks ago, eBay Canada said it was not on the radar for introducing at any point in 2017. 

 

Therefore, it remains unknown how this change will affect sellers on eBay Canada. Does it mean it will only be implemented on eBay.com and that nothing will affect us here? That Markdown Manager will just vanish when the Hub comes and we have no Promotions Manager? Or will Promotions Manager be introduced at the same time as the Hub on eBay.ca? 

 

These are the only three outcomes that I can envision, but the future may hold another scenario. We'll have to ask at the Weekky Chat when it resumes. 

Message 12 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

And we will get, we are not at Liberty to disclose anything that takes place in the future and will let you know when things happen.

 

Or, we will pass your request to the appropriate team and will post when we here back.

 

Many of their changes are unannounced lately, just like we were only supposed to have a spring and fall update and we had a summer as well as many unannounced tests/changes.

 

 

Message 13 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance


@mjwl2006 wrote:

1. We know the Seller Hub will come to eBay.ca at some point later this summer or fall.


How do you know that Seller Hub is coming soon?

 

I have been asking in the weekly sessions about when the Seller Hub will come to eBay.ca for more than a year. My understanding is that it will not be here until 2018.

 

In Weekly Session of July 12, no date yet for Seller Hub on eBay.ca

 

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Chat-Session/July-12-2017-Weekly-Session/m-p/378445

 

post 22 by rodney of eBay.

 

1. eBay.ca seller hub rollout dates and plans have yet to be announced.  

 

In the Weekly Session of June 14, 2017

 

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Chat-Session/June-14-2017-Weekly-Session-Moving-to-June-15/m-p/37...

 

post 37 by qottie of eBay

 

There are no plans to retire Turbo Lister in Canada until we have Seller Hub firmly in place.  Ideally this will happen in 2018, but we are still working on setting a firm timeline.

 

I can get more posts from eBay staff older than the above saying not in 2017 but I will stay with the more reent posts..

 

 

Message 14 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

That is an interesting question, how do I know?

 

It would seem from your reply to my post that I do not know and am, in fact, incorrect about that. 

 

I thought for some reason that the Seller Hub had been promised to us in Summer of 2017 and have been operating under that assumption based on the very first conversations I had with Raphael and Andrea about it. But you have offered much evidence to the contrary, and I don't think I kept notes on the conversations that I had with them so I will allow myself to stand corrected.

 

We do NOT know the Seller Hub will come to eBay.ca at some point later this summer or fall.

 

I must have been thinking about something else, perhaps Promoted Listings. 

 

So then if the Seller Hub mysteriously appears later this summer or fall, I will perhaps stand to correct myself a second time. 

 

Until then, thank you for clarifying my error. I don't like to offer incorrect information to people.

Message 15 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance


@dutchman48 wrote:

And we will get, we are not at Liberty to disclose anything that takes place in the future and will let you know when things happen.

 

Or, we will pass your request to the appropriate team and will post when we here back.

 

Many of their changes are unannounced lately, just like we were only supposed to have a spring and fall update and we had a summer as well as many unannounced tests/changes.

 

 


To cross-reference both threads on the subject including yours from earlier today. http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Markdown-and-Promotion-Manager-information/m-p/379963/hig...

 

While I agree that it is frustrating to have Seller Updates twice a year with an extra surprise thrown in the middle that didn't even encompass the whole breadth of changes coming, I cannot agree that ebay Canada staff are unhelpful in the Weekly Chats. They have always directly addressed my problems, with follow-up in private where appropriate, and of the last two issues that I raised personally have been fixed and/or investigated further. I don't think they are doing a bad job with that. To the contrary, I think they do an excellent job reaching out to us. 

 

The only time we get the pat corporate speak is when someone leaves a steaming coil on their desk that is so large you know they cannot possible deal with it themselves because it transcends borders and has little to nothing to do with ebay Canada. In that case, there is really nothing they can do except log the issue and check back with their counterparts globally from time to time. 

Message 16 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

I apologize if my post and question may have offended you. Not my intention. I have been asking forever when the Hub is coming to eBay.ca. Never got a firm timeline. I thought from your post that you had some info I have not seen or read.

 

Somewhere in the replies to my questions about the Seller Hub I got from eBay.ca staff, I was told that implementing Seller Hub will take longer because it must be working on eBay.ca English and French sites together. That reason has been given for most implementations of new eBay features and obviously there is some truth to that reason. At least they cannot give the dual currency eBay.ca had for years as a reason for the delay.

Message 17 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

No, no, I'm not offended. Please don't think so. I'd rather the record be set straight than anything else. It looks as if I'm flat-out wrong about implementation dates. I used to be a reporter back in the day; the first time I had to publicly apologize for a big fat mistake I made in print with another big fat correction in print, you get over it PDQ. Ya know? It's all good. 

Message 18 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance

Okay. I thought I might have offended you.

 

Of course, the real issue is eBay communications about what is happening. Not just eBay.ca but eBay overall. It should not be that difficult to post a timeline on major changes and revise if needed.

Message 19 of 33
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'Markdown Manager is Changing' and i don't remember this being announced in advance


@pocomocomputing wrote:

 

Of course, the real issue is eBay communications about what is happening. Not just eBay.ca but eBay overall. It should not be that difficult to post a timeline on major changes and revise if needed.


Ah, but it usually seems to be, at least lately.  You're absolutely right that communications with sellers (we are paying subscribers, not just visitors) appears to have got far worse over the last 4 or 5 years.  Is it disorganization, poor management, lack of staffing, or something else?  Who knows?  

 

The problem is not only lack of communication, but mixed messages. As 'mj' mentioned, I do recall Raphael saying that Seller Hub was expected to be implemented on eBay.ca around the summer of 2017.  I believe there were particular questions put to Raphael on this several months ago, although I don't have time to look for the actual posts now.  

 

That all of this is in a muddle and we're now being given different timelines doesn't surprise me.  Yes, the eBay Canada staff are good at answering and following up specific technical questions, but they're terrible at giving sellers reasonable notice of important changes.  Saying this, I do realize much of that failure is not their fault.  They must get (almost) as frustrated as we do. 

 

In fact, nothing much really surprises me anymore on eBay.  I've almost got to the point where I'm expecting muck to be thrown at me from left field every 3 or 4 months (or less).  How long I'll be able to keep wiping it off and figuring out a way to carry on is the question.  

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