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

[momcqueen]

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. 

[momcqueen]

The text I cited above has returned, since last night/early morning today. 

Also, last night at midnight CST, my whole, entire store and all my listings disappeared for approximately five minutes. All I saw was a red error message asking me if I'd like to subscribe, and then when things began to reappear, my Selling Manager page was destroyed. It all looks normal now. 

[cdbasement]

I too am quite concerned about this. The "warning message" saying that change is coming was there again today when I created my weekly sale. My buyers have become trained to only buy when my stuff is on sale, and doing 5,000 at a time (as markdown manager allowed) is critical to my business. Over the past year or so, I have tried to use the promotion manager, only to have it not work. Have called eBay for support and get absolutely nowhere with them. To get me off the phone, they have "opened a ticket". Likely, because it is not set up for eBay.ca.  And, holy cow, rather than just create my sales 5,000 on one day , then the rest on the next day, am I going to have to create 12 or more "events" at 500 at a time? What a potential mess!!!!

So I pray that when they flick a switch, we (Canadian sellers) don't lose the ability to create "sales." Please, someone from eBay, jump on this thread and tell us something meaningful...

Anyone wanna buy my business? I'm getting too old for all of the stress eBay's tweaking causes ( Cdn $ listings, active content, etc have created 1,600 hours of extra work over the past few years, and I can absolutely say that my sales volumes suffered as a result). Just leave well enough alone!!! 

[momcqueen]

Some of your concerns were addressed in the Weekly Chat, I'll post screenshots in an hour or so.

[momcqueen]

The link to the Weekly Chat session where I raised my Markdown Manager becoming part of Promotions Manager is as follows: http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Chat-Session/August-9-2017-Weekly-Session/m-p/381179/highlight/tr...

This is a screenshot of the response from ebay Canada staff.

Thank you for reminding me to come back and update the thread with what we learned in the interim. I usually try to do that, it must have slipped my mind. Hopefully, there is some information in it that alleviates at least one of your concerns with it.

[pocomocomputing]

Thursday night Friday morning around 11 pm PT is eBay site maintenance.

[cdbasement]

And in true ebay fashion Promotions Manger does not work as of today!!!! The links show that it is down for maintenance!

My business is reliant on "sale pricing" - and now that markdown manager no longer works, the replacement doesn't work??? Are you f'ing kidding?? I am beyond angry - this is ridiculous!!

EBay get your stuff together. Change it back if you haven't figured out how to make this work. I recall trying to use Promotions Manger  when it first came out, looked like a cool way to do a "buy one get 1/2 off next 2" sort of thing. After repeated calls to the "help" line (air quotes are totally intended by the way), a few weeks go by and the answer is essentially that this doesn't work for ebay.ca. I know I sound like I am venting, but I've been thru this B.S. before and if Promotions Manger is not going to work, or is going to take weeks, months or years for the idiot programmers to figure out for a low priority market like Canada, flick the switch to revive markdown manager for Canada rather than hold us hostage. 

[wonsxela]

And after all this time, it's STILL "down for maintenance". How such a large corporation can be so fundamentally incompetent and yet still stay in business is absolutely beyond me.

[momcqueen]

There is an issue with the old Markdown Manager and the new Markdown Manager being somewhat unable to communicate with one another. I've experienced that first-hand but I'm not seeing any 'down for maintenance' error messages. What are you attempting to do when you get that response? 

[momcqueen]

Also, you cannot confuse Promotions Manager with Markdown Manager. We only have access to Markdown Manager with listings created on ebay.ca. There is no 'promotions manager' for us. We have use of Markdown Manager and (the newly unveiled) Promoted Listings only. The Promotions Manager is a separate entity not yet available to use here on ebay Canada.

ebay.com will let you play with Promotions Manager but those campaigns or 'promotions' won't actually work with any listing other than those created directly on ebay.com. As in, it will let you create campaigns on ebay.com with your ebay.ca listings but no listings will apply to the promotions you've made and your buyers will get only error messages if they try to use one.

[kxfan1]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

The link to the Weekly Chat session where I raised my Markdown Manager becoming part of Promotions Manager is as follows: http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Chat-Session/August-9-2017-Weekly-Session/m-p/381179/highlight/tr...

This is a screenshot of the response from ebay Canada staff.

Thank you for reminding me to come back and update the thread with what we learned in the interim. I usually try to do that, it must have slipped my mind. Hopefully, there is some information in it that alleviates at least one of your concerns with it.

---

Except that Sale Event + Markdown (this is what replaces Markdown Manager) does not work!

[momcqueen]

'Sale Event + Markdown' is not part of the Markdown Manager flow that I've seen. Can you provide a screenshot if what you're seeing with detailed explanations as to how you're getting there?

[wonsxela]

mjwl2006: Simply attempting to use it. I can create a new sale using the old button in Markdown Manager but I can't view or edit my current ones. I know it's been essentially split now so that if I want to make a sale with the stuff I have on ebay.com I have to go there first, but I do have at least one current sale here on ebay.ca. So if I use either of the Markdown Manager links from Manage My Store...

...I of course arrive at this page, which is now mostly useless. 

I can create a sale from here by clicking Create Sale, and that takes me to the new Promotions Manager flow, but if I actually click the Promotions Manager link on the left...

...I'm greeted with this.

[momcqueen]

The new Markdown Manager and the old Markdown Manager do not recognize each other's sales. I keep re-using the old ones I have by updating the dates once they are inactive.