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Anyone experiencing this? I have had no sales in the past 2 days. I’m getting close to 6K listings and since two weeks ago I have been listing (30+ a day) like a mad man in preparation for 4th quarter, but all of a sudden, nothing. I did notice a huge drop in promoted listings impressions (down about 30%). I wonder if this is due to the new Pay Per Click scheme eBay just rolled out.
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“I wonder if this is due to the new Pay Per Click scheme eBay just rolled out.”
What is this new program?
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Advanced Promoted Listings. Instead of promoting single items, you promote groups of items based on keywords. Keywords can be individual words or entire search queries. Whereas standard promoted listings boost your items in search when people are looking for that exact item, advanced promoted listings boost your items when someone is doing a vague search like “mens running shoes” or “vintage t-shirts.”
Unlike standard promos. (which charge you when the item sells,) advanced promos. charge you per click. The amount you end up paying is based on the amount you “bid” for whatever search keyword(s) you’re targeting. You’re literally bidding for search rank.
Example: I tell eBay I have a daily budget of $10 for advertising and will pay $0.10/click. Someone else could have a budget of $10 with $0.25/click, so their items would be promoted first at (presumably) some $ amount per click just above my bid until their budget is met, after which my listings would get promoted at some unknown rate <= $0.10/click.
Personally, I’ve been very unsuccessful with them – about $50-something in sales with $28 in fees. I’m still experimenting with it, but I see myself ditching them eventually. FWIW, I think they’re totally useless for the average scavenger selling niche, vintage products.
And to the topic: I also had a very noticeable dip in sales Monday and am still recovering. More time to list.
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Ebay removed categories for a lot of collectibles. Postcards now have only 2 categories. They also did this with photographs and Glassware. Just lumped them all into a few categories, no sub-categories. It’s ridiculous what ebay has done.
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I went through this in my main niche (sports trading cards) earlier this year. Prior to eBay’s “helpful” changes, each sport (baseball, basketball, etc) had their own individual subcategory. Now the only categories in Sports cards are individual sports trading cards and sports trading card lots. However, I would be lying if I told you I didn’t like the changes. In fact, it was one of the best things to happen to my store in the last year.
The first reason is that my listing flow was streamlined. Instead of having to hop from category to category, everything goes in individual cards and then I check off the item specifics for the individual sport. This prevents accidentally listing something in the wrong category, which as we all know is one of the most important factors in finding the right buyer.
The second reason is that making the changes to old listings was really quick and easy to do in the bulk editor. I had about 2500 listings and it took me maybe an hour and a half? And I get distracted a lot during the data entry parts of eBay selling, so it can probably be done even faster.
The third and most important reason is that this led to tremendous buying opportunities in the few weeks leading up to the category consolidations and new required item specifics. I added the required item specifics early after the announcement, but many sellers did not and I found some incredible bargains. Among other reasons, I think eBay’s Cassini search was harsh to sellers who were slow to input the required item specifics.
I also believe that these changes make it easier for casual sellers to list. This is only a good thing in terms of finding items to buy at far below their actual value. I used to have the same saved search in five or six different subcategories that sellers might list cards in. There are still a few odd categories out there but I’m sure eBay will consolidate those within the next 6-12 months as well. And I think that’s a net positive.
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I had a few dips in the last few days (and weeks) as well, where it felt like there were no buyers out there at all, or at least if there were, they didn’t want anything I was selling.
Then yesterday I had a $700 sales day. There was one big $200+ sale in there, but a whole bunch of smaller items too.
For whatever it’s worth, I’ve never used promoted listings once.
this thread by @popeyespostcards details a number of useful methods for creating a short-term sales boost for your store. I like the end and relist (or end and sell similar) most, but there are other great suggestions in the thread as well, such as “touching” all your listings by raising all the prices by $0.01 or $1.
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