eBay

rocketscollectibles · ‎05-14-2023

It was added a few weeks ago and i did not read anyone anywhere talking about it or any news from eBay. It's pretty much blindly giving more money to eBay to be the most promoted.

I tested it on some listings past weeks without checking how much it affect my sales or how much i pay.

Today i did a $52.40 sale. I checked. My transaction fees were $6.26. Then i look at my promoted listed fee, it added $4.92 fee. The promoted listing was 'only' around 8%, sometimes it goes up as high as 12-14%. I have the top rated discount, i have the store discount, i'm logged in for the 9.5% trading card FvF promo. And my total fees were $11.18 on a $52.40 order. So, my eBay fees were over 20%! Imagine how high it could be without the top rated, store privileges, promo, and potential higher suggested rate. This is totally insane.

Just wanted to aware people to be careful with this feature. I may remove it from everything at this point.

I think it could be good to boost a multi quantity new listing, then quickly remove it after a few sales. But we can easily gets ripped off without noticing if you let it run, that's a dangerous feature.

Anyone experienced it?

recped · ‎05-14-2023

I only use PL very selectively and only at the minimum rate. I would NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE use the Dynamic version where you have zero control over the rate.

If all users of PL were at least somewhat thoughtful of their costs dynamic pricing might work. Unfortunately on eBay too many sellers are that seem to be willing to use ridiculously high rates which only drives up the dynamic rates.

Think about this, a seller promotes at 2% and gets no extra sales, they move up to 5% and still no sales, next they go to 10 - 25% with no sales so as a last ditch they go to 50%.

Their problem in not that PL doesn't work but rather their items are unsalable especially because in line with increasing in the PL rate they raise the item price to cover it making their unsalable items even more unsaleable with the collateral effect of driving up the dynamic rate.

It's a bit of a snowball effect and we all know what happens to snowballs in the end.

"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.

rocketscollectibles · ‎05-15-2023

I only use PL very selectively and only at the minimum rate.

Personally promoting all listings in my category is a must. Over 50% of my sales comes from it. Seems like people in my category do not search for specific items often and they buy stuff popping in suggestions instead. I'm not sure about a real difference between promoting everything 2% or 10% tho.