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I’ve sold 3 items so far with promoted listings, but I’m really not sure if it really has helped or was just a coincidence. I am also still waiting to see the credit…my store is suppose to have a $30 credit each quarter for promoted listings. If I understood what I read correctly you are charged the promoted listing ad fee from your sold item one month and then credited for same the following month, but my credits from last month have not posted yet. Maybe it’s not credited until the end of the month when they run your invoice? I think it’s worth trying, even more so if you’re alloted a certain amount each quarter for your store. Best of luck!
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I just ran a markdown Manager/Sales Event 10% off sale on most of my fixed price items, while also running about 10% of the FP listings as Promoted Listings….I did sell some stuff (none of it promoted listing stuff, but all of it discounted stuff).
As northernpine said, it’s not really possible to say this was cause and effect or just coincidence, but I figure it didn’t hurt.
I’m going to launch another sale, probably not as many items, and keep running some PLs along with it. I like the combination. My theory is that the PLs help drive traffic to the store, where the buyers then see the 10% off promo. It doesn’t take a lot of time to set up, so I’m willing to do it and see what happens.
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Thanks for your responses. I’m still thinking about what to do – I use markdown manager to run sales throughout the year. I finally paid off the PayPal loan (they take a % of your sales until paid off) and was looking forward to not having to give PP or Ebay any more $. But since the hurricanes (Florida and Texas are my most frequent buyers) sales have dropped about 90%. No end in sight.
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I tried promoted listings for the first time a few days ago. I had 3 of the same items to sell. One sold thru the promoted listing (and I was charged) but the other two sold thru my standard listing.
When I searched for my item on ebay I was already on the front page so in my case I don’t think the promoted listing really mattered.
I plan to try it again though since we are supposed to have $30 credit each month.
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I started to use promoted listings. I started with items that I happen to have multiples of. Unfortunately, a lot of other people have multiples of the same thing and the market is saturated with these items (a deadstock Kohl’s stuffed animal & an under-the-counter water filtration system). It didn’t really do a darn thing there because folks are not looking for these items. So, I tried it on my one-of-a-kind inventory. I started with the category of women’s shoes. I plan on ceasing buying women’s shoes anyway, so it seemed like a good idea. First, I increased the price of all my women’s shoes by 25%. Then I put the entire category on promoted listings with an advertisement rate of 20%. So, that works out to be almost the same amount of cost as the amount I increased the price by. It’s a wash to me. I didn’t have my shoes priced terribly high anyway since I view them as a commodity item. I sold the first pair under the ad price within a couple of days. So, I threw up a few more categories. Let’s see how it goes. It won’t cost me anything since I already jacked the prices to offset the ad costs.
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Marjean28
Right before your post came in last night, I had just decided to try promoted listings. I did mostly items over $50 at 5%. Sold two items but not through promoted listings (it would list it there, correct, where they list clicks, impressions etc?) I’m giving it a week. So I’ll keep you posted.
You mentioned a way to bulk raise all your listings by a %? Is that through bulk editor?
Business is still terrible, so unexpected, after a great summer.
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LAwoman – you can use the bulk editor to increase or decrease your buy it now prices by a percentage. I just go to active listings, do a search for the store category I want to change (ie, women’s shoes), select all listings, then edit, then price, then buy it now. The choice to increase or decrease is there. Hope this helps you!
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Buyers should be required to check a box that says “I have read the description of this item” before they can ask questions…Just wishful thinking, I’m sure, but I really, really get tired of having to answer ridiculous questions like what size is this, what is this made of, what are the measurements, etc. when all they had to do is read the description. I feel I should answer and not just tell them to read the description because that seems a little abrupt and rude, but come on people, I don’t have time for all this! And it’s getting to be several times a week lately. Thoughts from other sellers?
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Seriously. Last week a buyer very kindly notified me that the item he bought had snags in the fabric, so I might want to let people know about things like that. I wrote back to let him know that I had not only mentioned the snags in the description but also showed photos of them. Good grief!
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I try not to get upset about things like this. Sometimes when you find exactly what you want on ebay, it is easy to get excited and not pay close enough attention to the details. I have been guilty of this on occasion as a buyer.
I reserve my irritation for when a buyer asks multiple followup questions that were also answerable in the description and pictures. One question, fine. Two questions, okay…. Three plus – yeah, we ain’t doing business together.
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Interesting that many of us are having a slow September, me too. August was better, and I find that hard to digest. Perhaps the hurricanes are part of the problem. (We own a winter condo in FL and the electricity has been off for nearly 2 weeks.)
I have not used promoted listings yet, but may try it out, since it is free now. I do like the markdown manager-also running a 10% off sale currently on about 2/3 of my inventory.
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I sold 3 items so far by using this feature and have only put about 1/4 of my store on. I’m going to do the rest now that I see there is some value. I did some YouTube sleuthing on the subject and there is an interesting video from 10K on the Bay. He said markdown manager is going away. Also, he showed how, at least in some cases, the mark down didn’t show thru to the buyer until after they selected the item and it went in their cart! It was an interesting video from that regard. https://youtu.be/sz-7VJrxOxY
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Thanks, Marjean28, I watched the video, he’s very good. I am no, though, more confused than ever. He’s decided not to use promotions at all. He’ll just price competitively. But his explanation as to why, in relation to the changes in Oct.for the promotion/markdown manager went right over my head.
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I’ve been seeing a lot of confusion about this. At the risk of adding to it:
1. Most sellers who’ve been using Markdown Manager have been using it as a stand alone tool. That is how I’m using it at the moment. I’m not trying to sell anything to anyone here, but please take a moment to look at my store front to see MM in action. (I’m currently using MM as a stand alone tool):
http://stores.ebay.com/mycottagebooksandantiques
OK, now look at the tabs above the listings. I don’t have any auctions up right now, so there are three tabs: All Listings, Buy It Now, and “On Sale” (the On Sale tab only shows if you are using MM). But that’s it. That little tab is the ONLY thing that really tells the buyer I’m running a sale. If you click on it, all my o-n sale items, and only my -on sale items, will show up. With strike throughs through the price, to show the discount. (It would be great if someone could post a screen shot, for comparison purposes)Wouldn’t it be better to have something a little more prominent, something that tells the buyer very clearly that I’m running a sale?
Is there such a thing? Yes. But let me back up for a minute, to try to clarify a few things. ebay has something called “Promoted Listings”. For the moment, just forget about them. eBay also has a suite of tools known as Promotions Manager (Yes, in typical ebay fashion, they’ve used confusingly similar titles for different things.) There are a number of different tools in Promotions Manager. The one we are concerned with is called “Sales Event”
How does one use Sales Event? ebay does a pretty terrible job of explaining it, but here’s the important thing. To use it, you FIRST discount your items in Markdown Manager. Sales Event does NOT mark your items down, MM does that. What Sales Event does is turns your marked down items into something that LOOKS like a sale, instead of just that little “On Sale” tab.
In a little while, I’ll try to create a “Sales Event” on a few items so you can see the difference between MM alone, and MM with Sales Event. Not sure if it will show up though, because I’m already running the MM Sale.
All of this is needlessly confusing and time consuming. So what is now being rolled out–gradually, not every seller has it yet (I don’t), is a new tool that combines the functionality of Sales Event and Markdown Manager in one. THAT is why MM is going away—it will no longer be a stand alone tool. Instead, it will be part of a tool called , with considerable accuracy for eBay, “Sales Event + Markdown”
How do you know if you have the new Sales Event or the old one?
Go to Seller Hub. hover over “Marketing” and the click on “promotions” in the dropdown menu. Now go to the right—see the blue button “Create a Promotion”? Click the down arrow. If the last entry in the drop down says “sales event”, you still have the old version. If it says “Sales Event + Markdown”, congratulations, you have the new version.
I hope this makes sense.
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Thank you for the info…
My takeaway from the video mentioned earlier is that with this change, it does nothing for your search rankings, like MM did (I think?). At least it gave it a boost.
And… tell me if I’m wrong, that the rollout of MM/Sales event is much more focused on items, and directing traffic, to/in your store, rather than a specific sale item (MM)?
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I think the gist of it is, that at some point in the transaction, perhaps once you select the listing from the search results, the original pricing appears and the buyer selects the item and puts it their cart based on that original price, and it isn’t until after they have agreed to that price, by virtue of selection, that by they see the discount. I believe his point is that someone was probably willing to pay the original price anyway, and that by using markdown manager at all, you’re throwing money away. But no matter, if the markdown manager is going away as of 10/3/17 then it’s moot. That was my take
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I didn’t watch the video, so I don’t know what he said. As far as I know, MM didn’t provide any sort of search boost, other than the fact that the lower price might give the item a boost.
I’m not entirely sure I understand your second question. The Sales Event tool is not really designed to drive traffic to your store. It is designed to highlight your sales merchandise once the buyer arrives in your store. (Although, with both old MM and the SE-MM tool, ebay notifies watchers when an item is discounted (and in some cases, even notifies people who’ve looked at your item but didn’t put it on a watch list.)
This is why I think a combination of tools might work best. Select some items as Promoted Listings to try to drive traffic to your store. Then when they get to your store, they will also see that you have a Sales Event going on (or other Promotion). I look at Promoted Listings primarily as a tool to drive traffic to my store. Sales Event is a tool to convert those who come to the store into buyers.
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Marjean, I didn’t watch the video, I have no idea what he is talking about. Did you look at my storefront? Do you see strike through pricing in any of my items? I’m seeing the strike throughs, are you saying they aren’t there for you?
And MM is ONLY going away as a stand alone tool. Its functionality is being merged with Sales Event. The Strike through pricing should continue as far as I know.
I don’t have time right now to watch the video, but it sounds like either he did something wrong or he encountered a glitch of some sort.
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Ok, hopefully I’ve done this correctly. Here’s a screenshot of my storefront showing the “On Sale” tab and the strike through pricing I’m talking about.
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If the Sales Event I created a little earlier today actually goes live, I’ll try to do a screen shot of that as well….so you can SEE the difference between MM and Sales Event. My MM sale ends tomorrow I think, and I’m not sure if the Sales Event can start before the MM ends or not. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
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OK, here’s a link to a screen shot of a MM listing followed by a Sales Event listing. Notice the Sale Notice above the image, and then the offer below that to add more Sale items to checkout (along with a link to see all sale items) (I only put four items on the Sales Event, because it’s really just to illustrate the differences for you guys).
I hope some of this is making sense?
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HI cottage, so when I looked at your store, the only way to tell there is a sale price is once you’re in your store. I think that is what the young man on 10k on the bay was alluding to. By the way, woo hoo, you have a nice one (Vintage Arctic Cat Panther Snowmobile Smiley Boy Ceramic 1970s Atlantic Mold) 10 watchers! Another note, your heading on your store has 2 commas in a row. Just a little friendly FYI. my feeling on the promoted is, it’s probably best on crowded categories. If you’re trying to stand out in clothing, for example, the first page is critical. If you’re trying to get movement on long tail items, perhaps not such a great idea. Cheers
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OK…watching the video…a few things…”most people search low to high when they’re buying”…NO, they don’t. I forget the exact stat ebay had provided once, but the huge majority of people go with the default Best Match. The Video guy DOES use low to high. He concludes that most people do. They don’t. As J and R say: “Remember, you are not your buyer.”
He’s now pointing to a listing in search results with “Extra 15% Off” and is critical of Sales Event because it isn’t specific. I don’t think that listing is a “Sales Event”. It’s one of the tools in Promotions Manager, but I don’t think it’s Sales Event. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell because he never scrolls down far enough so that I can say for sure.
OK, now he’s saying Sales Event costs money. NO, it doesn’t. Promoted Listings have a fee if the item sells under stated conditions. But as I’ve said, Promoted Listings is an entirely different tool. But none of the Promotions Manager tools has a fee, including Sales Event. This guy has NOT done his homework, and he’s giving out misinformation. He’s disappointed in eBay, I’m disappointed in his video. Now he’s talking about the limitation on how many can be listed at once with the tool, but he doesn’t explain that there are DIFFERENT limits depending on HOW you select the items.
It’s a confused mess. Nice guy, I’m sure he is doing well as a seller, but too much misinformation for me….
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I just did a search for two of my items, one with the old MM alone, and one with MM with Sales Event…BOTH show up in search results with the strike through. So, his big objection, that there is no strike through, seems to be wrong. However, as I’ve said, ebay has not seen fit to give me the new combined tool, so I can’t say for sure what that looks like in search results.
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Marjean28,
Thanks…I corrected the double commas in my header. Good catch!I tend to agree that Promoted Listings (which you do pay a fee for) are better used for items in crowded categories. I’m playing around with them with my stuff, but I see their usefulness as more of a way to get people to my store rather than to make the sale of that item. I need to do a better job of selecting which items to use.
Items don’t necessarily stay in a promoted spot in search results for very long. Here’s a summary from ebay’s PL Product Manager about that:
“If the item has tons of impressions and no clicks, that may be a candidate for demotion from top of search placements to middle and bottom. If the item has a lot of impressions and clicks but is not converting that too may result in a demotion. Currently our thresholds are really low so an item must be performing terribly in those placements in order for it to be demoted.
This holds same for single or multiple quantity listings. We have been given premium placements in search and we can only keep them if we deliver the same or better results than Best Match.
Please keep in mind there are other placements for promoted listings than just search results (such as related items module on item page, My eBay, Browse pages, etc.). These other placements will continue to deliver visibility to your item even though they may have been demoted from top of search placement.”
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2 questions
When I first used MM, I assumed that if someone was searching, for example, for a glass vintage bird Xmas ornament (and there are quite a few out there) that as they scrolled through the result, when they got to my listing they would see a line through the original price, the sale price in red, and some kind of ‘That’s 10% off…” or something like that (I only do % on sales) And if my sale price was lower than others, it would get a bump in the listing in general.
So, question #1. Is this going to change come with the fall changes?I sought out advice (here and in other forums (not Ebay forums) about retroactively categorizing my Mens clothing section. For some reason I didn’t use sub categories when I started the store. Most advice I received (including here, it’s searchable I guess) was, to paraphrase, ‘don’t bother, no one looks at the stores anyway, just the items’ I have also read/been told that stores names don’t matter. So I just let it run itself and I’m doing it for the free listings and shipping supplies.
So Question #2. Was this advice all wrong?? Or half right?Thanks for listening…. 😉
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Do a search on “Arctic Cat Smiley”….mine is the ceramic kid on the snowmobile that is fixed price, not auction. Do you see a strike through, and some indication that it has been discounted? As far as I know, that’s what MM looks like now in search, and will look like once it’s merged with the new tool. eBay might add something else, but I don’t think they are taking this stuff away. But again, as I’ve been saying, I don’t have the new tool. I’m not aware of any bump in search placement, other than the fact that thew lower price might give it a bump…but that would be true if you simply revised the listing by lowering the price. Your watchers and some other viewers usually get an email telling them the price has been lowered.
I’m not sure about the value of store categories (although keep in mind, with some tools like MM, you can put store categories on sale…which can be useful). I don’t think the cats show up on mobile listings, so that reduces their value. I have them and frankly it’s on my list to revise them and simplify them. But my partner has no cats and does OK, so I’m just not sure how important they are.
Store name? I don’t think its a dealbreaker (unless the name is something offensive). I think if you are trying to brand your business, it becomes important.
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Cottage, when I grabbed one of your promoted item’s titles (the Xmas blow mold one) and searched for that item from the eBay search, not from within your store, I saw the reduced sale price of $71.XX without a slash through the amount. However, once I clicked on the listing to select it from other listings, and was within the listing itself, I saw the original price with the line through, demonstrating there was a price reduction (i.e. sale).
To me, this just means that if you are trying to appeal to buyers strictly on pricing alone, the MM is an excellent to to quickly achieve a price reduction and have a measure of control over the duration, etc.
Trying to get to page 1 of the search results, because there is a large number of similar items is another matter. To me, that’s where promoted listing comes into play. Cost aside, if I want to appear on page one of search results, and who doesn’t, then I am hoping promoted listing helps me achieve that goal.
I’m not listing daily, so I get no favoritism from Casini for that activity, I’m not shipping daily (I’m at 3 days handling time), I’m not a Top Rated seller, I’m not the cheapest, etc. So, I’m looking for purchased SEO. Let’s see how the promoted listings works to that end, I guess.
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Promoted Listings Week Trial almost done.
Question: On the promoted siting page (views, clicks, impressions etc) it tells you how many PL you sold. In my case, 3. I click on the number 3, expecting the software to take me to the listings that sold under promoted listings… do I have to wait for an invoice to find out which listings actually sold under PL??
Thanks
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Okay folks! I think I have it figured out. Just navigate to the list of campaign to have running, and click on one of them towards the right. And you get an option to download a report for that particular campaign. If it’s a campaign that had a sale in it and the information about that sale will appear in the Excel file that you download. And that’s how you determine what item actually sold. I have everything out of campaign, mostly by category. I’ve sold 4 items for a total of $50 hours, with an ad cost of about $9.75. And that’s in line with the 20% spend rate that I selected for advertisement cost.
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Okay, 1st campaign finished, results:
Sept 21-30
19,172 impressions
540 clicks
4 sales = $214.10
Fees: $10.71Mostly if not all one-off of pre-owned/vintage clothing.
Are these good results??
It would help if I had the total number of items promoted. I have to figure out how to find that…. -
LAwoman, I think they are great results. However, did you increase your prices to offset your cost of advertising? If so, then you’re all goid. If not, then you need to assess whether or not those items would have sold organically on their own. If they have been on your shelf over 2 years, then the promoted listing is well worth it, if they were there only 2 months, then it’s hard to say. When you say it would have helped to know the total promoted number, are you referring to all the other similar items from other sellers?
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Hi…
I was referring to the number of my listings I chose for promotion. I tend to do things a bit haphazardly, I just went through my listings and looked for items that were:
1. Selling for (at least) $50
2. Up for at least a year, year and a half.No great business chops, over here. 😉 I need to work on that.
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