Discounts not working well

[gauld]

I went to add some items to my already discounted items and it sales I can't do discounts anymore because I don't have an Ebay stire.  What is with that? This is cosing me money .... on top of no sales all day so far and all the other site issues i've had to deal with over the past year and Canada Post being on strike,

Please fiz this error asap .... if people can;t do discoutns it's seriosuly going to screw up Black Friday sale coming up soon too and with it being down it could ahve cost me $100s of dollars or more today. Who knows how long this has been like this too .... last time I used it was a couple days ago.

thanks

-Bill

[mrdutch1001]

This is a member to member community forum NOT eBay customer service, so there is no one here in the community that can "Fix"  your problem...that is something only eBay can resolve and something you need to address directly with someone at eBay who can actually respond to you such as through the eBay Facebook business page...

[gauld]

I was wondioering if anyone else was naving the same issue and this is a forum about site issues.  I'm not even sure hwo to contact ebay anymore since I have have a contact us option anymore. 

[mrdutch1001]

as I can see your eBay store and its thousands of items I do not know what issue you are having when you say

"I don't have an Ebay stire."

[gauld]

It's kind of hard selling stuff when the site isn't working well and you can't even put discounts on stuff to bring people to your site. When sales are about 5% to 20% of normal ,, that's not good and i've heard a number of people all over are having issues as well with the site and or not getting much for sales.

I don't know how Ebay is making money if their site is having so many issures.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@gauld wrote:

I was wondioering if anyone else was naving the same issue and this is a forum about site issues.  I'm not even sure hwo to contact ebay anymore since I have have a contact us option anymore. 

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@gauld 

An issue with creating  sales has been reported the past few days in several places. Unsure if it is fully corrected. Just ran my own test and was able to create a sale from beginning to end with no error messages.  Often when issues are reported they get fixed on eBay's schedule. Usually it's best to go for a walk or shovel the driveway and test again. There is never a posted timeline to when those issues are repairded or any notifications. (Besides checking back for others followup.)

Disclaimer. Because my store is on holiday it will not show but according to my settings it is active.

[gauld]

Are you finding when you do  discounts or add items to discounts that it give you an errod saying that you can't do discounts because you don't have an Ebay store? It would be interesting to see if it's effecting other people as welll.

[reallynicestamps]

and you can't even put discounts on stuff

Instead of discounts try using Best Offer.

You can even automate that to accept /reject offers  outside the parameters you set.

This gives the customer the little thrill of being the special one who persuaded the vendor to choose him and give him a bargain.

Or instead of reducing your profits by giving a discount to the customer, give the same or smaller amount to eBay by using Promoted Listings. You get better visibility which leads to more sales, although not necessarily of the products you are Promoting. And you only pay the PL fee if that item sells.

Or raise your prices. There is a school of thought that believes that discounting gives the consumer the idea that the discounted item is poorer quality, like the second rate cheap TVs that are doorcrasher specials on Black Friday.

Not every customer reacts to discounting. Presentation and service are also important.

[gauld]

Sad thing is that already  do promoted listings  and taking offers as well. The sales are to try to get any sales. One thing i'm woried about is Black Friday sales. I'd send out offers oo but I haven't been able to that much latley either ... if it was available i;d do it. I had promoted up to 12% at one point but Ebay was taking at least as much as my shipping on it after fees on items, shipping, taxes and on fees of fees. I put back to 5% and then my sales died again.

What do you think is the best rate of promoted lsitings to make it worth doing?I could bring it back higher if it works.

[reallynicestamps]

Anecdote is not data but....

I use PL at just 2%, I used 1% when that was the minimum.
It seems to me that PL  which I use on about 10% of my listings, gives me less than 10% of my sales.

But when I started using PL , which was pre-COVID, my Views on everything went up although mostly on the PLs.

And sales also increased, but not necessarily on the PLs.

My category is pretty consistent and I suspect that my customers find the PL , don't want it, but look around at the other stuff in my store.

My customers are also readers so it might also be that I have a link to my Store in the Description of each lot.

<font size="+1" face="Textile">c<hr><a href="http://stores.ebay.ca/REALLYNICESTAMPS" target="_blank">eBay Store </a>
</font></center></font></b></font></font></b></font></font></td></tr></tbody></table></center></font>

There's probably a lot of junk code in there, but if you want to use it yourself feel free.

[gauld]

I thought I heard that it was going to a minimum 5% from now on ... maybe that havn't happened yet. I have mine set at 5% and it change it every so often and varies how it's working. I've had some times when I had it turned off that it worked better then anything else, then sometimes 5% works better and other times 10% or 12% .... at thsoe amount you don't make much after item price,  shipping and 15% HST taxes and on top of that it always seems to be about 12-15% with some other fee added in there then once you add the fees you've just given Ebay your shipping fees pretty much so about 40% to 60% of the total. At 12% it's even more. My shipping fees went up pn the lopwer end so it's hurting right now when anything going to the west coast costs me about $10-12 to shipping for just a cd or dvd thanks to Canada Posr being on strike.

I think i'll set my promoted listings back  to 10% to see what happens.