Can we talk about Promoted Listings please?

[pennyforum14]

My sales have just about dried up in both my shops, from multiple daily sales in each, I am down to the odd small sale in one or the other every 2-3 days.  eBay insist I am visible, and advise using the seller centre hints to try to streamline my listings to make them more attractive.....yeah right, that means paying listing fees for auctions, offering free postage and 1 day handling and basically anything that puts more money into eBay's coffers. 

I decided to try Promoted Listings instead, another site I sell on has those and they work quite well for me (same product line).  I set up a campaign in each shop, went with the default 5% commission, but in the first few days I am seeing quite a lot of impressions, but precious few clicks, 1 on one shop and 2 on the other.  Okay, eBay only charge the commission on sales, not clicks, which I guess is reasonably good, as the other site charges per click.  But the results so far just make me more convinced I've been squeezed out this month.  My total sales across both shops are about 25% of normal.

Has anyone who has used these Promoted Listing had good sales from them?  Any tips for using them?

[phorum_junkie*]

My store has been dead in the water for about three weeks now and my two auction ids which have always done well are almost as dead. I have been selling quite a bit on Gumtree though mostly things that are too bulky or awkward to post.

I have tried various promotions in store and have never found they made any difference, I am probably going to pull some of my single clothing items and try them on Gumtree, didn't have much luck on facebook.

[247newdeals]

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@pennyforum14 wrote:

My sales have just about dried up in both my shops, from multiple daily sales in each, I am down to the odd small sale in one or the other every 2-3 days.  eBay insist I am visible, and advise using the seller centre hints to try to streamline my listings to make them more attractive.....yeah right, that means paying listing fees for auctions, offering free postage and 1 day handling and basically anything that puts more money into eBay's coffers. 

I decided to try Promoted Listings instead, another site I sell on has those and they work quite well for me (same product line).  I set up a campaign in each shop, went with the default 5% commission, but in the first few days I am seeing quite a lot of impressions, but precious few clicks, 1 on one shop and 2 on the other.  Okay, eBay only charge the commission on sales, not clicks, which I guess is reasonably good, as the other site charges per click.  But the results so far just make me more convinced I've been squeezed out this month.  My total sales across both shops are about 25% of normal.

Has anyone who has used these Promoted Listing had good sales from them?  Any tips for using them?

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I thought I would try this out I put 1 item up started on the 19th to end on the 31st also did 5% so far I have not even had 1 impression so your doing a bit better than me 

[beautysecretfashion]

I think sales are down for a lot of sellers... I feel ebay is only showing interest in the BIG RETAILERS!

My last 2 promotions amounted to very poor results, current one is no better.

ebay is becoming a "ghost town"for a lot of sellers.

[davidc4430]

is anyone selling well on ebay? without dropping prices to give it away seems not many, funny how it coincides with the big retailers comming on board.

[jensmanchester-australia]

Penny - despite what ebay say there is no doubt small to medium sellers are being squeezed out as ebay concentrate on the big retailers. You just have to log into ebay these days to find the latest big retailers promotions right in your face.

If you contact ebay they will do a search on one of your items which of course will come up -however if you ask them to do a more general search (which is how most buyers search) that is when small/medium sellers listings seem to end up in the black hole of ebay.

With the promoted listings I have just started using them again - I am using them as a way for people to find me on ebay so although they may not buy off the promoted listings hopefully it will entice them to see what else I have to offer.

The other thing to remember with listings is if  they have gone more than 30 days without a sale it is best to end the item and relist it (using the sell similar option). Items without recent sales history are pushed right down the bottom in best match search results.

[pennyforum14]

Items without recent sales history are pushed right down the bottom in best match search results.

Ah.... well that may be a contributing factor.  I had been using 30 day listings with the 3 free relists, but recently eBay extended the variations list to include my category (which I had been asking for for ages) so this month I have redone all my listings into variations with GTC to trim down the numbers and make it easier for buyers.  Any history I may have had from the previous 120 days was lost in the process (although it would have been lost anyway when they ended after 120 days, so maybe it doesn't explain anything, I'm confused).

[digital*ghost]

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@pennyforum14 wrote:

  I set up a campaign in each shop, went with the default 5% commission, but in the first few days I am seeing quite a lot of impressions, but precious few clicks, 1 on one shop and 2 on the other.  Okay, eBay only charge the commission on sales, not clicks, which I guess is reasonably good, as the other site charges per click.  But the results so far just make me more convinced I've been squeezed out this month.  

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I thought impressions were when you're visible in search results, as in the listing has to be visible on the results page that's being viewed, or does it still count as an impression if someone conducts a search, you're on page 50 and they never go past page 1? (As you can imagine, I've never used promoted listings on either of the sites they're available, so a bit clueless about them). 

The promotion of larger stores is really starting to tick me off, TBH. I'm on to you eBay - signing me out when I click to go to my messages, just so I have to sign in and have some big retailer's promo shoved in my face at sign in. 

[englishrosegardens]

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@pennyforum14 wrote:

Items without recent sales history are pushed right down the bottom in best match search results.

Ah.... well that may be a contributing factor.  I had been using 30 day listings with the 3 free relists, but recently eBay extended the variations list to include my category (which I had been asking for for ages) so this month I have redone all my listings into variations with GTC to trim down the numbers and make it easier for buyers.  Any history I may have had from the previous 120 days was lost in the process (although it would have been lost anyway when they ended after 120 days, so maybe it doesn't explain anything, I'm confused).

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If using variations has reduced the number of your listings you'd have a lower percentage of the listings in your category so would be seen less.  Depending on what your variations are, you may miss out on sales/views because most people just scroll down and look at the pictures rather than reading the titles.  For example, if you have variations of red and blue in t-shirts, if the red pic is showing in gallery but a buyer is looking for blue, they may scroll right past your listing without knowing you also offer blue.

Re the selling history in the listings, if you use the free auto relist you'll lose your selling history each time they relist (30 days), not every 120 days.  When they auto relist they get a new listing number and are a completely separate, brand new listing.  If I have a quantity of 5 and I sell one, only the remaining 4 are relisted and nobody can see that I sold one the previous month.  GTC is the only real way to retain the selling history.

I wouldn't claim to know how best match works because when I look, some of my items with no sales history are near the top.  When a friend looked recently she saw completely different listings of mine to what I saw (but the ones near the top still hadn't sold during that month).  A lot of searches are the same as advertising, in that they're based on other items you've recently looked at, so everyone will see something different.  When I look at the TV guide online I see ads for web pages I've recently looked at, including my own items, and I think best match may work the same way to a certain extent.  I recently saw one of my own items on ebay's front page but I'm not silly enough to believe that everyone else will see it there.  Ebay have just tailored the page to what they think I want to see (partly) and they probably also put something of mine there to con me into thinking everyone else sees it too.

[pennyforum14]

DG, the way I understand it, there are ads attached to promoted listings, and they appear in the right hand frame of the search results page.  If one of your promoted items appears as an ad on a search result page, that is an impression, if the searcher then clicks that ad, then that is a click.  It doesn't matter where your items actually appear in the search results, if your "bid", as in the amount you agree to pay, is high enough your ad can appear on page one even if your actual listing doesn't apear until page ten.  That is how it works on the other site I use, and from reading all the info I understood it to work the smae here, but I may be wrong.