Standard promoted fee, things that make you go hmmmm
Summary: In this discussion, ricarmic initiated a conversation about changes in promoted impressions and suggested promotion rates in recent weeks. Several participants, including rocketscollectibles and femmefan1946, noticed increased suggested rates, attributing it to an update that possibly created an automated bidding system. recped observed other sellers using high promotion rates, impacting the suggested rates. art-and-craft conducted an experiment showing different suggested rates for listings in the same category, sparking curiosity about whether these are determined per item or per category. lotzofuniquegoodies and intimewithmusic discussed strategies for using promoted listings, with ricarmic and intimewithmusic emphasizing the role of customer retention and exploring auctions. sparx_63 shared a successful approach by foregoing promoted listings in favor of adjusting prices and optimizing listings, which led to increased sales. Participants debated various strategies for promotion, sharing experiments and personal experiences.
I've noticed a couple things over the last few weeks.
As others have identified my promoted impressions rate is lower than it used to be, not as dramatic or as of a certain day as others have seen.
I've noticed that the "suggested" promoted rate has risen about 50%, so for example, stuff that used to suggest 6.2% is now suggesting 10.1%.
I'm interested to know if others are noticing this incremental change in the suggested rate.
Theoretically this tells me the average promoted rate people are willing to pay is increasing in my categories.
Since mine hasn't changed if that is true it would explain why my impressions is lower now.
Looks like I'll have to try some top secret experiments.
sparx_63
·2 years agoHello
I stopped using PL right after Christmas. Sales have been the best I have had in four years for the months of January until now...(my Christmas rush has not stopped). I will never use PL again. Instead I monitor prices and adjust, look for improvement in underperforming listings, and do a sell similar on each listing once every two months. If a UPC is applicable, upload it. Ship fast. Fill out feedback, stagger listing start times, add new content regularly. All these actions feed the algorithym.
intimewithmusic
·2 years agoYou didn't mention your shipping strategy but it appears you have Free Shipping <200grams domestic and subsidized flat rate to the USA.
Is that right and do you feel free shipping & subbed shipping is your "replacement" for the PL?
sparx_63
·2 years agoHello intimewith music
I use free ship domestically for items with a fixed shipping cost (lettermail). I flat rate items to the USA where I know the shipping falls into a certain cost range (small size with a California cost rate). Sometimes I adjust shipping cost and item cost to match same items sold cost on EBAY (if I have the margin).
For sure free shipping boosts your EBAY search. Not sure about the flat rate shipping.
I treat certain categories as loss leaders (small profit margins) to keep sales and shipping moving (I suspect both feed the algorythm).
I can't say PL ever worked for me. I used it over a 1 1/2 year period. I sold as many PL items as none PL, so I could not fathom as why using PL would stimulate my non PL sales. I sort of got upset when EBAY started charging PL on listings because they were "associated" with PL.
My thinking about it changed. I decided then I would improve listings as mch as possible, sell on tight margins (making best buyer price whenever possible) and feed the search. It has been a non stop fourth quarter ever since, averaging about 40 - 45 sales a month on about 1100 listings.
intimewithmusic
·2 years agoHi @sparx_63
Thank you. I think those of us who don't use free shipping on specific categories have a lot less continuity of sales. This came to my attention when I began to monitor an "evil twin" store in the US. The store has about the same number of items in similar categories to me.
Their listing photos and content are the worst I've ever seen on eBay. There are loss leaders in the titles, little or no descriptions and the photos are so bad they have with socks, dogs, garbage, animals and bare feet in most of them. It's so obvious the listings appear to be some sort of seller "trademark". The item prices are double the market prices. This store nets 3 or 4 times the sales I can muster.
The items in focus are ephemera under 250 grams. With USPS Media Mail prices on the rise I was hoping to compete using our $11 Tracked Packet (7.50usd) and adding some PL to be seen but it's not working. In fact, after increasing the PL, my store has gone into some sort of deep freeze. I've had just a half dozen sales so far from May 1-9 and absolutely nothing since May 9. Not even an offer. Like I don't exist.
I'm thinking about removing PL and replacing it with a free shipping business policy for those items. o Since PL began threads like this have been repeated countless times. The outcome is always the same. The take away is that the benefits of PL are unique to different sellers and general benefits are immeasuarable. When the "Canadian" brewery beer marketters were asked "How much benefit do you get from the millions of dollars you spend sponsoring the Grey Cup" the expert answer was, "We don't know. We do know if we stop someone else will take our place. " eBay sellers don't have money to burn like that.
Like many sellers I was quick to dismiss Free Shipping when eBay pushed it before Promoted Lisitngs came into play. When my items got lighter something changed. I think a careful Free Shipping formula might make my particular listings more positve and competitive to US buyers. With sales drying up this quickly there is nothing to lose.
You seem to be doing something right! Thanks for your input.
IT
regs43
·2 years agoI have never done promoted fees but here is my 2023 vs 2024 for the same past 30 days (a decrease in all areas) I sell in sports cards and memorabilia
Report for Apr 19, 2023 - May 19, 2023
Impressions 4,150,172
Page views 19,426
Quantity sold 1,178
Avg click-through rate 0.4%
Avg sales conversion rate 6.1%
Organic impressions 100.0%
Top 20 search slot impressions 23.5%
Report for Apr 19, 2024 - May 19, 2024
Impressions 3,533,654 - DOWN 616,518
Page views 16,238 - DOWN 3,188
Quantity sold 742 - DOWN 432
Avg click-through rate 0.4% SAME
Avg sales conversion rate 4.6% - DOWN 1.5%
Organic impressions 100.0% - SAME
Top 20 search slot impressions 23.2% - DOWN 0.3%
Overall its been slower and I noticed that even without checking the charts (which I rarely do), but its verifies. I usually have an x amount of dollars a week/month I hope to make to stay on "pace"
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years ago@regs43
Thanks for taking the time with the comparison. Appreciated. I am guessing in your situation your results may have much to do with 20,000 + listings all in limited number of specific categories. As sellers we will never be first up with all listings. With 20,000 + listings you would stand a better chance compared, in my situation 1800 + listings in an assortment of categories. Just like someone with 300 listings having even less sales. You could say it's all relative.
Sidenote. 4 sales this weekend. All items were created this weekend and all in the same category.
-Lotz
PS. For your higher dollar recent sales.....Rarity. As noted in a previous post majority of my any recent sales, when I did a check were almost all items with a very small number of comps.
flipistics
·2 years agoThis feels messy to me, and would likely result in increased returns as there's a very good chance some buyers would be confused by the process.
intimewithmusic
·2 years ago@ricarmic
"Looks like I'll have to try some top secret experiments."
Here's an experiment I haven't seen tried:
Awhile back I noticed @lotzofuniquegoodies sold an item I have. (photo attached) It's not my niche (my daughter's stuff) so I saved his listing for later use. He knows what he's doing.. What are friend's for right? ha ha.
As I read through these posts everyone seems to experiment on their own with PL. Why not get 3 or 4 sellers who sell in a similar niche like you stamp folks, or you cd folks etc to list exactly the same item with 0%, 5%, 10% and 15% PL rates. Then report in as the items sell. Being the item and it's features are close to the same the PL rate would speak out.
Just a thought. I don't think it would be too hard to organize.
PS. Lotz, what was your PL rate on this? Please and thanks... ;>}
intimewithmusic
·2 years agoeBay or Windows wednesday's update seems to be causing a problem adding the photo so I'll try adding it here.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years ago@intimewithmusic
eBay has been doing tinkering under the hood with sending/attaching images and links to both discussions and buyers as of late. As I recall item was promoted but sold at full pop. Unable to see the rate due to the age of listing. It sold back in February.
intimewithmusic
·2 years agoThank you!
You are very good at listing a huge variety of items. Twice a year in May & Nov I focus on things outside my niche that I have no experience with. It helps renew enthusiasim by changing the "grind".
*The photo wouldn't attach at all to the original post. I tried 3 times. Funny I had no problem putting it in the reply.
ricarmic
OP2 years agoI think something that murks the waters is that once someone buys ONE thing that's promoted, we pay the promoted rates for EVERYTHING else they buy for the next 30 days that is also promoted.
I think in many cases they would've purchased the subsequent items without the promotion but we'll never know.
About 50% of my sales are to repeat customers, and some of my "selling features" keep them coming back. That's why I use time based promotions, no sense promoting something that is more likely to sell unpromoted if possible.
At least for me, I think we already can figure that the higher the percentage, the higher the number of impressions, but does that work its way into sales?
My wee promoted auctions results are simply getting more views, I've still yet to have a sale come from a promoted auction....
To my mind the value the promoted rate brings is finding new repeat customers, at least in my world.
intimewithmusic
·2 years agoI totally understand your approach to promotions. My niche is sort of halfway between your exclusivity and someone who primarily sells CDs.
Basically a CD seller has a widget only going back to 1982 compressing his market into a short period. Sales depend on market profiles and the total cost including shipping. In that case it's a battle to get to the top of the page.
From what I understand your "widgets" go all the way back to 1840. that's a 184 year old haystack. Most buyers need something different. Most collectors probably have stamp albums or collections that are at least half empty. You have to love that! Your customers search for items produced even before they were alive. Out of interest I googled it;
" On 1 May 1840, the Penny Black, the first adhesive postage stamp, was issued in the United Kingdom. Within three years postage stamps were introduced in Switzerland and Brazil, a little later in the United States, and by 1860, they were in 90 countries around the world."
My niche is somewhere in between. Most music memorabilia was generated after WW1 (1918). My customers are mostly under 50 and were alive at the time of production which is what creates the sizzle. Most of my items were produced in small quantities relative to CDs but similar to collectible stamps. I have to figure out how to market each item and am frequently surprised at what is hot and what's not.
I should probably try auctions again. As you know only certain items are successful. Probably something like 1 in 5000 cds or 1 in 1000 memorabilia items would work. When it comes to serious stamp or coin collectors if you have the desirable widget you have a captive market. No point is wasting profit promoting the listing. That said your shipping cost is so low the PL rate on shipping is marginal compared to the PL rate on shipping out a drum set.
intimewithmusic
·2 years ago" once someone buys ONE thing that's promoted, we pay the promoted rates for EVERYTHING else they buy for the next 30 days that is also promoted. "
That's something I didn't know. I knew that if you lowered or ended a promotion after someone clicked on your item it would be considered promoted for 30 days. I didn't know you would pay a PL fee on other items.
I with you on finding new repeat customers. My problem there is mine are usually attracted by brand name or artist. I recently aquired a great customer who collects Fender posters. Unfortunately I've sold him my last two. Due to shipping costs posters are too expensive to source online.
ricarmic
OP2 years agoYes the "everything promoted gets billed" for 30 days is exactly why I now run a portion of my items (the "new" stuff) without promoting them as I think it is generally wasted $$$. Before that change I had 100% of my items promoted.
The problem for me with the "better deal" situation is that no 2 stamps are the same so to speak. There are a LOT of different seen and unseen (depending how well pictured) things that affect a stamps value (same as for most collectibles). The buyer would generally compare my "better condition" item to a lesser condition but cheaper item. For two people selling the same brand of batteries, it is simply price, for a collectible it is so much more than that. Not looking forward to that being introduced for sure.
Yes the stamp field is very very large. I'm in my 46th year of selling now and I still am learning stuff all the time, "stamps" is a lot more than stamps, the covers they're on, postcards, labels and a whole host of other aspects are all part of the domain so to speak. I too am surprised at stuff I expect to be a guaranteed sale not selling and something that I almost threw into the garbage selling for $120 US$ (this is a true example!).
I will say that my experience in my field is that auctions do get more views. I take the no risk approach, the auction starting price is what would have been my BIN price. If it doesn't sell via auction, it goes into the store at the same price. I do see that the views seriously jump when an item has a bid, so ebay is clearly favouring items that have bids (and higher views) however I'm not ready to redo the 99c start prices as I don't think there's enough bidders to drive the prices up to my expected levels on average. However maybe someday that will also be an experiment too. I do also see that a chunk of my regular buyers do not "see" the item when it is auctioning, so I think there is a significant BIN crowd that avoids auctions, probably because they hate never winning them (or often or cheap enough).
hansatrade
·2 years agoI will add add something weird (more "hmmmm" 😁) to this discussion:
I promote all my listings at 5%.
Yesterday, I sold 5 items to 5 different buyers - ALL of them as promoted.
Today, I also sold 5 items to 5 different buyers - NONE of them as promoted.
Any explanation...? 😃
ricarmic
OP2 years agoDoes anyone really understand how things really work here?😲
Even if one figures it out today, something's changed tomorrow it seems!😠
These days in the middle of the week, I'd be happy to be selling 5 things a day!
The experiments continue!😀
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years ago@ricarmic
From any of your recent testing have you seen dramatic spikes in traffic. From my testing traffic, organic and promoted are both down as of late. From past experience (previous years since starting to run promotions) organic to promoted, organic views were 1/3 higher. Now it is pretty much 1 to 1. Just seems like wayyyy too much tinkering under the hood for little gain or improvement in sales. See final screenshot and you judge.
-Lotz
ricarmic
OP2 years ago.com
.ca
Yesterday I updated my promoted campaigns, added a lot of new ones to the .CA (Note that they were all 2% which it told me wouldn't make a difference.... hmmmm)
intimewithmusic
·2 years agoI think your answer is determining if a listing needs promotion at all. When listing an item;
Rare, hard to find items desired by your specific market, priced appropriately, easily discoverable via key words (in order) and accompanied by an attractive listing don't need promoting. eBay gives them a global audience just the same.
If yours is one of 6 or less available it's as good as "seen" by the market. You can amp up attention without promoting by creating your own group of followers in your specific niche.
Finding and listing the correct items is more important (and tricky) than paying for better placement.
ricarmic
OP2 years agoGenerally speaking I do not promote anything newly listed.
Generally speaking I more heavily promote "older" listed items.
I do have multi-item listings that have serious competition out there. I have a modestly expensive promoted rate on them but I don't fiddle with it much, at least not in the recent past. This translates into lower sales of them, but I have only so much supply so I'm not going to "discount" (as in pay more in fees) them any lower than I have now. I suspect my competition uses the high margins to more heavily promote them, and they may not often be "doing it for a living" which provides more discounting room too.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years agoJust created 2 campaigns of approx. 150 items each. First promo was suggesting rates of 9.1 to 16.5%. Collectibles category mostly. 2nd promo (Lots so all kinds of eBay categories) suggested rates in 11.5 to 16.1%. Between the 2 promos there were only a couple suggesting in the 7.5 range. Nothing less than that. Both promos came back with a 35% modest performance rating. We shall see if it brings any kind of punch in the stomach to increased sales. (Note: Testing the 5% rate)
-Lotz
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years ago@ricarmic
@intimewithmusic
>>>Non Top Secret Data Testing<<<
Comparing this month to last month I am down approx 600 views and down just under 10,000 impressions. Even promoted activity is wayy down. My sales are down 66 % compared to the previous 2 30 day periods. Something is definitely going on with the eBay algorithm and how search works now. Some of this can be blamed on the economy but not all of it.
-Lotz
Click through rate was just over 1.0. It is now down to 0.3. Looking at views for today only 30 % were organic. 70% were promoted.
flipistics
·2 years agoHow about compared to either May or June (since this was a very early spring) of last year?
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years ago@flipistics
@intimewithmusic
Just the facts comparison May/June 2023 to Mar 19-May 19 2024
Key thing to note was not doing anywhere near the amount of promoting back then compared to now. In distance past my normal ratio for views was 5:2 eBay vs non-eBay. Now it is closer to 2:3 or 2:3.5. My forecast for number of sales for May will be under 10. I used to consistently average 35 to 45 sales with less listings. Majority of my drop in sales has to do with changes eBay has made to internal changes to categories.
2023: 60 days
Impressions: 500,034
Total Views: 4411 = 2305 eBay + 2105 External
Sales: 36
Organic Views: 61%
Promoted Views 38%
Click Thru: .5%
Avg Sale Conversion: .8%
Top 20 Slot Impressions: 9.3 %
2024: 60 days
Impressions: 592,000
Total Views: 4220 = 2373 eBay + 1847 External
Sales: 22
Organic Views: 41%
Promoted views: 58%
Click Thru: 0.4%
Ave Sale: 0.5%
Top 20 Slot Impressions: 7%
Strangely May 18th I had 18,000 + impressions.
Normal average is 6000 to 9000 per day.
-Lotz
Disclaimer: Anytime you believe there is some kind of consistency to what is happening under the eBay hood eBay will change something to throw a wrench into the machine. Ergo: eBay's idea of whackamole!!!
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years ago@ricarmic Are you still in a state of neverending testing to get an idea what works or doesn't?
Went to create a promotion today and this little blurb appeared.
It even "infers" using 9 % to get to the next level for visibility. I routinely see 12 to 14 suggested. Promoting low (Didn't 1 get bumped to 2) used to get additional traffic and the occasional sale. Just concerned that above noted 5 will turn to 10 which will prosper and multiply up to 15. All in the sake of some sort of consistent sales with only real benefit(to eBay) increased fees.
-Lotz
ricarmic
OP2 years ago@lotzofuniquegoodies
Personally I think they're just saying what we already know, that if your rate isn't high enough then it won't be seen above others.
I haven't changed my rating schedule for some time, I'm trying different experiments at the moment, I only recently realized that standard promoted was available for auctions as well so I'm running experiments there.
I haven't seen my promoted view "curve" change much in the last few weeks. My ability to see how much promted is selling is difficult at the moment given the auction experiments.
I am noticing views are increased in the auctions when using standard promoted, but don't know yet if it increases things enough to make them sell more, better yet. (remember my experiments with the advanced or whatever promoted for auctions didn't yeild significant results).
At lease your world is "cheaper" than mine, all my recommendations are between 9.5 and 10%. I'm also confounded because there are others selling generally different stuff from me that must be using high promoted standard %, as they're always coming up front. Their stuff has high margins but they must be conceding a decent amount of them to the promoted rate.
Anyway I'm not much help. Personally I avoid the "marketing" they provide it is better to pick your rate, run some experiments to see where your stuff falls, I think that will be a better bellweather....but that's just me.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years agoLong story short...My impression, because listing consistently seems to be the only tool in the tool box to generate sales, its caused ebay to be over run with listings. Just too much of everything, making for a needle in a haystack situation. It would be nice if a seller could have ALL their available listings show up first but that is next to impossible. With so many similar titles everyone can't be first. The only possible way to be up there all the time is to be a high status seller with the margins to get away with the higher promotion fees.
Also doesn't help when you get a buyer to your listing and the first thing they see is something promoted that's cheaper. Becomes a case of off to that choice vs hanging around and doing a deep dive on your items. This may not be the case in every situation, but maybe in a good number of them. (or those cases where a seller concentrates on 1 specific category.)
-Lotz
ricarmic
OP2 years agoI took a longer look at my impressions "curve" this morning and I'm missing the "weekend bump" that I usually see, my curve is more like a "line" now on both sites, but more pronounced on .COM.
Not sure what would cause that, unless others are doing targeted promoted campaigns on the weekend only and across both sites, which seems unlikely.
I'll watch for a couple weeks to see if it persists.
PS I was going to add some items to one of the campaigns and while doing so I noticed it's regularly recommending 16 to 20% now....
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years agoBasically if you promote low you have a limited chance at getting seen. This is causing promo rates to be on a steady increase. (eBay's version of one up personship.) This has become a no win situation, especially for smaller sellers unless they are selling 1 of a kind type items. It's the 15th of the month. Up to grand total of 3 sales. All 3 sales were the very limited one of a kind type items. In looking at my woohoo 10 sales for last month very similar results.
-Lotz
ricarmic
OP2 years agoMy first auction standard promotion experiments have completed, I took the lazy way out and just used the recommended percentages which were all in the 9 to 10% range.
I have to give credit that the impression counts were dramatically higher. Items had been running very low counts in the often ZERO or 1 range, with the standard promotion the views were sometimes as high as 4 or 5 but some remained 0 or 1 although to be fair those may suffer from the "too similar" item specifics and therefore punished low visibility as we heard about some time ago in a blog in a different thread.
Aside from the incrased impressions, sales were ZERO so the jury remains out. Good news is that the cost was zero.
I'll run the experiment for a while and see if anything remarkable happens longer term.
intimewithmusic
·2 years ago@lotzofuniquegoodies
"Also doesn't help when you get a buyer to your listing and the first thing they see is something promoted that's cheaper."
New change on dot com.
Buyer completes a purchase but finds it at a lower price and reverses the purchase. (Possibly from the saturation of "eBay similars" on the listing's page you pointed out. )
eBay then advises the seller of the situation and offers the seller the opportunity to match the lower price or lose the sale.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years ago@intimewithmusic
Was this a published change or something you discovered entirely accidentally?
And how does it doesn't it apply to Canadian sellers?
-Lotz
ricarmic
OP2 years agoYes I'm noticing this for stuff I'm selling that is heavily listed out there, this is a good example look at all the "competition"!!!
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/204785236373
In this particular item's case I'm laughing because I'm the lowest guy on the block, it might even help the biddng on it.
There is an awful LOT of other people's stuff, mine is scattered throughout, and a chunk at the end.
I will probably have to someday sit down, well caffenated and figure out if I need to change how I list stuff.
I've so far not had the someones offering it cheaper scenario, that's a new one to me!!!
intimewithmusic
·2 years agoThis is a new USA specific rollout and it was reported by a platform news provider on May 5, 2024. I don't know if it's an experiment or if the plan is to be inccorporated into eBay Canada. I think if it's successful it wouldn't be hard to add the "feature" to our platform.
--------------------------
Quote "A seller encountered a never-before-seen issue that appears to be an attempt by eBay to avert cancellations requested by buyers who find the same item they just purchased at a lower price. Others responding to the seller's thread believe it may be a new feature eBay is testing.
The seller said that immediately after paying, the buyer requested a cancellation. When the seller opened the eBay app to proceed with the cancellation, they encountered a pop-up window.
"The pop-up says that the buyer was shown a better deal and that the buyer wanted to cancel because they "found a better price,"" the seller explained. The seller was given two options: either cancel the sale, or refund the buyer the difference and continue with the sale.
The seller chose "agree to new terms of sale," and eBay automatically refunded the buyer a portion of the sale. The seller supplied a screenshot on the eBay discussion board post.
But sellers have long complained that eBay's practice of displaying cheaper items to buyers in checkout leads to cancellations over price. And as sellers in the thread pointed out, it is rarely an apples-to-apples comparison. It would make far more sense to show a buyer items that are complementary to the item they've just purchased rather than feeding into buyer's remorse the purchaser may be experiencing.
If this is indeed a new feature eBay is rolling out, some sellers might welcome it as an opportunity to hold on to a sale rather than deal with a cancellation, even if it's not the full price they had expected. For others, it would be a dealbreaker - some sellers said they would choose to not only cancel the order, but would block the buyer from purchasing from them again.
Let us know if you've seen this feature as a buyer or a seller.
Update 5/7/2024: The original poster said the order they rescued from being cancelled would not import into their shipping software: "I believe the shipping software sees the item as being cancelled or refunded, so it will not import. I need to manually import this sale to the shipping software and then manually scan the tracking details into eBay."
An eBay moderator responded to the thread today as follows: "We have reached out to a few teams to see what info we can get on this, and share this thread with them as well so they can see the feedback everyone has provided so far." :End of quote
@lotzofuniquegoodies
I think this is directly relevant to your post because changes to our platform are generally rolled out first in the US. the progress can be followed currently on at least 3 podcasts I follow including eBay for Sellers, Galaxy CDs and the Selling On eBay Radio Show.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years ago@intimewithmusic
Definitely something that could be an option for some sellers vs losing a sale. And as long as it works as it should. I have found posts in the past where buyers have tried to cancel an order after item has been paid for and shipped. Leaves the seller in a major quandry because it is so difficult to recover any losses...once item is on the way. It "could" be a solution until it turns into a game of price match across the entire ebay platform. Also would depend on how long it takes before we see on ca. If it doesn't come to ca in a timely manner it would be just another unfair disadvantage for Canadian sellers.
-Lotz
art-and-craft
·3 years agoI clicked "revise" on Listing A, saw "suggested promoting rate 15%". I ignored it, did not revise.
Then clicked "revise" on Listing B, saw "suggested promoting rate 12%". I ignored it, did not revise.
Then clicked "revise" on Listing C, saw "suggested promoting rate 10%". I ignore it, did not revise.
Then clicked "revise" on Listing D, saw "suggested promoting rate 8%". I ignored it, did not revise.
Same category listings.
Try it, and you'll see the "Wonder".
ricarmic
OP3 years agoI'll have to pay attention to that, I have noticed significant differences between subcategories, which makes sense, I haven't noticed a difference in them when I've got multiple items within the same category.
It is interesting that it "gradually" reduced the rate each time.
I don't actually know how it figures out the recommended rate, whether it is "category" specific or "item specific", from your results it looks to me like it is item specific, and it might be comparing the title to other "promoted" titles that would achieve similar results in a search to determine what the specific promoted suggested rate should be.
But if thats the case it is pretty remotely ironic that by chance each title was needing gradually less promoting the way that happened in your scenario.
I'll keep a closer eye out when I'm doing mine now when I have a chance and see what happens in my categories.
I've always ignored the suggested rates anyway, which looks like it is a good thing!
lotzofuniquegoodies
·3 years ago@ricarmic
2 observations regarding suggested rates.
-Lotz
ricarmic
OP3 years agoTonight I "sell similared" 5 items all into the same category (from the same category they were auctions that did not sell and I SS's them into BINs), all 5 had the same suggested rate of 10.5%
So at least if one is sell similaring to the same category, it appears that the suggested rate stays consistent.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·3 years ago@ricarmic
I've tried a number of tests since promoting became a thing. When I have selected a category (Books, CD's/DVDs, Electronics/Vintage items) to promote and start choosing, on every occasion similar items suggest rates all over the map. To my eye those rates are entirely random (whimsical). They have never been rates I would personally consider. I have tested with higher rates a few time and I've yet to see an uptick in sales.
As for end/sell similar that does not seem to have the same affect as it used. On average, majority of sales are for new listings. Older listings are just getting buried deeper and deeper.
-Lotz
femmefan1946
·3 years agoDo you ever put older listings onto your Unsold List for a week or more then use Sell Similar (with or without changes) to relist them, hoping they will qualify as new listings for that tiny bump?
lotzofuniquegoodies
·3 years ago@femmefan1946
I've tried both ways. Immediately and delayed. No noticeable difference. As of late hasn't seemed to help 1 iota.
Mostly currently concerned with the mega list of categories that were tinkered with noted in another currently running discussion. I did a random test on a collectable coffee tin I that is of a German brand. The item has been switched to a different category or sub-category (by ebay) with the only choice "Baileys" in the drop down. I would never identify something by an incorrect brand. I was unable to manually enter the correct brand.
How many other listings is eBay corrupting behind the scenes for sellers in similar situations? I found this one only by pure luck. With 1500 + listings it is next to impossible to proof these listings from memory. (As I noted in the other discussion, my listings were accurate when they were created originally.)
Would be interesting to confirm when eBay modifies a listing(by their internal changes) if that could cause it to have a spike in traffic?
-Lotz
triber
·2 years agoYes, I do that femmefan, most of my listing are low cost and not worth putting high promotion fees.
hansatrade
·3 years agoI use other method: all my listings are at 7%, because this is the highest additional cost (makes around 10% with the shipping) I'm able to accept emotionally without regret ..... 🙄
femmefan1946
·3 years agoI look at PL as a loss leader.
It's been my observation that while I get more Views with PL than without, and while my sales have increased since I started using PL (at the minimum), what sells is not the PL listings, but a spectrum.
I've said it before, PL seems to bring the boys to the yard, but they are buying banana splits not milkshakes.
Which may be why eBay now offers a version of PL which pays eBay immediately, instead of the seller -friendly original version that only pays them when the item actually sells.
recped
·3 years agoThere are a number of sellers that seem to be willing to pay very high PL rates, on the US boards I read sellers who claim that anything less that 12 or 15% is pointless so they actual use those high rates which of course will increase the suggested rate.
Personally I only use PL on my unsalable junk (what I list on this ID) and I only use the lowest rate. I get a lot of promoted impressions but they have been falling, hard to tell if it's because all impressions are falling or because 2% is too low to get much action anymore. Also could be that on this id I now only have the garbage of the garbage listed!
Of course there are probably major differences between Categories.
femmefan1946
·3 years agoWent to the Times Colonist Annual Book Sale on Saturday, and have been listing ever since.
The suggested PL is up to 9% on Books.
That's on top of a 15% FVF for the category.
rocketscollectibles
·3 years agoProbably comes from the dynamic rate add-on a few weeks ago. If a lot use it, then i guess the suggested rate will increase as everyone is always at the suggested rate. Creating a sort of automated bidding. I took a look and actually most of my items are suggested at 9-14%, which is totally crazy. I don't think it was like this before too. Pretty sure they used to be 3-6%.