"Last Click" Policy doesn't operate as described for Sellers.
Summary: vintage-vinyl-memorabilia discusses their experience with eBay's "Last Click" policy, which extends the promoted ad rate chargeability up to 30 days after a buyer clicks on a listing. They describe a situation where they were charged a higher ad rate than expected when a buyer created an account the day of purchase, raising concerns about eBay potentially tracking browsing history via browser cookies and defaulting to the highest ad rate within the past 30 days. This has led them to distrust eBay's policies, deciding to pause their store and remove their inventory from the platform, expressing frustration over perceived ambiguities and financial impacts.
Last Click Policy Overview :
Promoted ad rates can extend up to 30 days from when the buyer clicks on the listing. If you have a 12% ad rate and the buyer clicked on the ad 29 days ago but buys on the 30th day, you'll be charged that 12% ad rate. Even if in that timeframe the seller has changed their promoted percentages.
The conflicting experince:
Sold an expensive, rare, item today. It went through for 12% when I only have an 8% ad rate. Fair enough I recalled the policy and I had changed the ad rate 2 weeks ago.
BUT
The buyer made their Ebay account the day it was purchased. They made the account just to purchase this rare item. (not the first time I have many one offs you cant find anywhere else)
Am I to assume that ebay is tracking browser cookies then associating that traffic history to an account after its made? Like they were browsing without an account, they make an account and ebay goes "well we actually see you were browsing without an account" There's no way to confirm that the buyer was the person who clicked on the original ad rate. Lots of computers have multiple users.
Ebay cannot prove that this Buyer clicked on my ad 14 days ago. They have no account proof that happened but still charged the highest available rate.
What this policy ACTUALLY looks like:
Ebay will just default use the highest promoted ad rate within the last 30 days regardless of when they clicked because you have no idea when that buyer actually clicked. As far as im concerned Ebay is dishonestly skimming off of buyers to the tune of millions of dollars.
So my store is now on a 30 day vacation. All promoted ads are done and i'll be moving all my invetory off site. Ebay was a good way to get my items to the intended audience but I wont participate on a platform that applies amibigious policies that take thousands of dollars a year in potentional profit from buyers, while providing no actual addititional benefit.
First I lost quarterly shipping discounts and now this. Now I definitley have no need for a subscription because Ebay will just steal that extra amount back that I save from subscribing.
I can't imagine this is an isolated incident and ebay has just been taking the higher ad rate with zero proof and they dont need to provide, so why would they.
