Is my logic correct?

[patphotog]

If you decide to promote your items; giving ebay another percentage selling fees of your choice; on top of what you already give them... does it "demote" other listings from other seller of similar items. Is the demotion occur as a lost of visibility??? Regardless if you own a store or not (I do); I am for an equal item visibility (fair market practice) for everyone. Is my logic wrong???? Does ebay emulate Kijiji practices (fees for top page visibility)?

[momcqueen]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

OK...I was definitely confused.   Thanks for explaining.

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No problem, you're welcome. They're all similarly named so it's easy to confuse them. Promoted Listings by themselves are not a bad thing. Like I said, I've been using them with some success since the program was first announced but the thing I'm forever griping about is the lack of Promotions Manager. That is the golden egg. What I wouldn't do to be able to offer a nice, fat coupon code with my packing slip to encourage repeat customers. Or run a BOGO to move stock and increase my number of multi-item orders.

But Ms. Stairs has confirmed for me that whatever it takes to run Promotions Manager is absolutely incompatible with the ebay Canada site as its established so until there is a version of Promotions Manager that is significantly different than what they offer today in terms of the code with which it's written, I'm outta luck. I need to list on DOTCOM to use it. Or contort myself in other ways here on ebay Canada to compensate for its absence.

I'd like to reiterate that every seller will have their own metric by which to measure whether Promoted Listings work. I think we all know Best Match is a finicky beast at best but nothing beats the perfect storm of criteria (free shipping, sales patterns, return policies, seller standing) that puts you at the top of that list.

All the Promoted Listings promises in the world aren't going to compensate for failing to follow the recommendations ebay gives to and standards it expects of all its sellers.

[kawartha-ephemera]

There's one aspect of how Promoted Listings work that has always puzzled me.

Why on earth does eBay place that "Sponsored" label on Promoted Listings?

I'm fairly certain that an awful lot of buyers have no idea what the label is all about. It's even possible that some buyers may avoid listings labelled that way thinking they are "nuisance" ads or in some way not legitimate eBay listings.

Maybe I've got it all wrong but I think the seller would be better off if there were no "Sponsored" labels splashed everywhere.

Perhaps eBay labels them for the benefit of other sellers hoping to entice ever stronger competition for placement?

[ricarmic]

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@patphotog wrote:

that was just a simple question...does it work or not?

if you not willing to say yes or no, being worry about other toy seller on ebay...fine with me.

my fees are already at 10% plus tax hence the reason of my question

Get it?

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Just a note, peoples experiences are for what they sell in their category. What works for momc may not work for femme or me (both femme and I sell stamps, but what we sell is somewhat different so even though we're both stamp sellers, what works for me might not work for her or vice versa)

The key is to experiment to see what works for what you sell in your category.

In my experience the best thing you can do is be different from others, until they figure it out then one has to experiment again to find another way to be different/noticeable.....

I'll find a system that works, use that till sales start to slide, then begin experimenting again.

(at the moment you'll see ZERO items for me because I'm on vacation with my listings hidden)

[momcqueen]

“Why on earth does eBay place that "Sponsored" label on Promoted Listings?”

I think the short answer to your question is: “Lack of imagination.”

It’s called a Sponsored listing and identified as such because that’s exactly what The River does although they do it with a little more pizzazz in their Search returns.

Personally, I share your concern that buyers would avoid anything that looks like an ad. I’d prefer to see a bold line around the promoted listing or a tasteful colour highlight or something attractive and compelling. Not a slab of text that says, Paid Ad. As a buyer, I’m not going to want to get sucked into advertising, I want to be lured by curiosity and the promise of something special.

[kawartha-ephemera]

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@momcqueen wrote:
“Why on earth does eBay place that "Sponsored" label on Promoted Listings?”

I think the short answer to your question is: “Lack of imagination.”

It’s called a Sponsored listing and identified as such because that’s exactly what The River does although they do it with a little more pizzazz in their Search returns.

Personally, I share your concern that buyers would avoid anything that looks like an ad. I’d prefer to see a bold line around the promoted listing or a tasteful colour highlight or something attractive and compelling. Not a slab of text that says, Paid Ad. As a buyer, I’m not going to want to get sucked into advertising, I want to be lured by curiosity and the promise of something special.

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Good idea, any of those formatting changes would be an improvement for the reason you stated.

[musicyouneed]

I have been using promoted listings since July 1/18.  See the results and judge for yourself.

[musicyouneed]

I should have shown July 1 to date:  

[momcqueen]

From a business point-of-view, I think the ‘does it work?’ question is answered by: ‘you only pay when it does.’

In other words, if it doesn’t ‘work’ you haven’t paid anything for it to not work. Unlike every other form of ‘advertising’ on the planet where you buy a campaign and hope for the best. Regardless of whether you can quantify the results.

No sales, no fees. No loss. All the data is immediately available.

It’s not as if it takes longer than a minute to create and activate it. It really couldn’t be any easier.

[momcqueen]

In other words, if I run a campaign and it doesn’t ‘work’ that’s no skin off my back because I haven’t paid anything for it.

[femmefan1946]

Another thought is that it may work, but 1% additional costs may be the difference between making a small profit on a $10 item (like most of mine on this ID) or not.

A Store on the other hand, if the seller has enough product to make it economical, can lower fees and make that $5 profit into a $5.50 or even $6 profit. Woot!

I would assume that the higher the average sale value, the more useful the Promotions would be.

[momcqueen]

Yes, and in a crowded category where more sellers are using Promoted Listings, the more a selller is willing to wager on their campaign gives it greater exposure than the competition. But again, the seller only pays when it works. And you choose the items to promote so a seller would need to be smart about which listings to promote for what amount.

[kawartha-ephemera]

Gosh, media must be a tough sell. How would that sales conversion rate for your Promoted Listings compare to similar Un-Promoted listings?

In order to judge how many additional sales were generated by the Promotion a seller needs comparitive data gathered during the same sales period.
The data eBay is providing in the screenshot is not very helpful.

The question a seller needs to ask and answer is how many additional sales were made because of the Promotion?

The answer could be none of them or all four of them. The eBay report does not address the question.

[ricarmic]

When I started using promoted listings, the rules at that time were that they had to be multiple quantity items (which has changed since).

When I began using them they definitely increased sales of the promoted items:

-directly people purchased via going through the sponsored click

-indirectly because more people viewed the lots which increased their view count, and sales count and therefore increased overall visibility outside the promotion aspect. These indirect purchases were "free" because the person did not go through the sponsored item link, they only saw the regular item because its visibility was increased as a result of the views/sales because of the promotion.

However over the course of running the promoted listings for many months, the sales rate dropped significantly to almost nothing.  

I watched to see if others were outbidding me but they weren't.

I concluded that the bulk folks who were likely to see/purchase via the promoted listings were already covered, ie had seen them and were now ignoring them.

When my store reopens, I'll resume them, they don't cost anything (and I get the first $35 in fees back with my store subscription too) and I'll observe if anything changes over time.

[kawartha-ephemera]

Once again I've learned something new today thanks to this forum's many contributors.

Until today I was under the impression that Promotions were not available to non store subscribers. Apparently I either missed an announcement or misunderstood one because according to info found in the Seller Centre a store subscription is not the sole eligibility requirement, certain others are welcome to spend their money and play along too.

I was even more surprised to learn that Global Top Rated sellers are eligible to use the feature on both .ca and .com AND receive a CAD $30 credit quarterly. Who knew? I sure did not.

To confirm I explored both Seller Hubs and sure enough my meager handful of current 30 day BIN quantity of one listings appear in the lists, and are eligible. Insert face palm here!

Hmm ... will have to give this subject further thought.

Get promoted listing credits as a Top Rated seller or Anchor Store subscriber**

If you qualify, simply start using the promoted listings service, and we'll automatically credit the fee.

• Anchor Store subscribers are eligible to receive a CAD $25 quarterly credit
• Top Rated sellers (regardless of whether they are a Store subscriber) are eligible to receive a CAD $30 quarterly credit
• Anchor Store subscribers who are also Top Rated sellers are eligible to receive a CAD $55 quarterly credit

https://pages.ebay.ca/seller-centre/selling/promoted-listings.html

Link to an ebay video on the subject demonstrating how to create campaigns on Seller Hub. There is a brief look at how to drill down deeper into campaign results data. Perhaps there may be some useful tracking data available, at least for .com users.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/yXhhoCPRE1U