If Ebay makes money from sales, why are the advertisements and sponsored ads all over the place?

[halien69]

Ebay is not free.  I pay them money when a sale is made.  I have not provided my personal details in exchange for tracking or advertising purposes.

Why then is the site cluttered with advertisements for **bleep** (that may or may not be based on a ebay or search engine search?).

[padi*0409]

If you use "Adblock plus" you'll get rid of most ads on eBay, Firefox has it already in it's options, but if using Chrome or one of the other browsers you'll need to download it.

[melbourneclearance]

A clause under section 17. Privacy in the ebay Australia's User Agreement:

"If you object to your information being transferred or used in this way please do not use our services."

So you have signed up to it willingly.

[lm-entertainment]

can't speak for the ads because i think it's terrible that at the bottom of listings they'll sometimes offer cheaper alternatives to the products you're selling - taking the buyer away from your listing and potential sale.. 

as for the "SPONSORED" ads you see in search results though - they're other sellers the same as yourself who are paying a percentage of the sale price to get their item to appear more than once in search results. they're "promoted listings" and you've got the same opportunity as everyone else to use that option if you want to. 

[digital*ghost]

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@halien69 wrote:

Ebay is not free.  I pay them money when a sale is made.  I have not provided my personal details in exchange for tracking or advertising purposes.

Why then is the site cluttered with advertisements for **bleep** (that may or may not be based on a ebay or search engine search?).

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eBay make money from sales, but that is how they make money from listings.

I'm not trying to suggest I agree with all of eBay's marketing strategies (their placement leaves a lot to be desired for one thing - an ad is placed in the postage and payments info underneath the item price, which shows really poor judgement IMHO, especially because those ads can be promotiong specials and deals from business that have nothing to do with the item or eBay, but can appear to be part of the seller's advertisement), but some of my listings have been on-site for years and eBay would be lucky to make a few bucks a year from the sales they generate. They do what they need to for me, but they do very little at all for eBay, and they cost ebay money to maintain.

They are starting to reduce the amount of third party advertising on the site, though, in favour of promoted listings by other sellers.

Re: the sentence I have bolded - on ebay (as per usual) it is opt out, not opt in.

Go to My eBay > Account > Site preferences > Advertising preferences

Edit it and untick the box that allows ebay to use your info to tailor advertising shown to you based on your data.

For more information about the information eBay has / uses, see here: https://www.ebay.com.au/help/policies/member-behaviour-policies/user-privacy-notice-privacy-policy?i...

[davidc4430]

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@halien69 wrote:

Ebay is not free.  I pay them money when a sale is made.  I have not provided my personal details in exchange for tracking or advertising purposes.

Why then is the site cluttered with advertisements for **bleep** (that may or may not be based on a ebay or search engine search?).

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ebay makes money from sellers

AND

advertisers.

its called greed

[melbourneclearance]

The tickbox for tailored advertisement does not reduce the number of ads, you will just now get more irrelevant ads. Although I guess it works in somewhat stopping ebay from relaying more of your information.

[digital*ghost]

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@melbourneclearance wrote:

The tickbox for tailored advertisement does not reduce the number of ads, you will just now get more irrelevant ads. Although I guess it works in somewhat stopping ebay from relaying more of your information.

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I know 🙂 That's why I only mentioned it in relation to the line I bolded with regards to personal info being used.

You can actually reduce the number of ads shown on your own listings, if you opt out of cross promotion with other eBay listings (i.e. other seller's listings won't be shown on yours, and your listings won't be shown on other seller's listings). It won't do anything about third party advertising, though.