You know that an eBay feature is popular with at least some sellers when it suddenly disappears, as was the case with eBay’s Auto Price Reduction feature on Tuesday. Sellers took to industry discussion boards and wrote to EcommerceBytes seeking answers. “This tool allowed sellers to automatically reduce fixed-price listings over time, a practical and effective way to stay competitive and move single-quantity inventory,” a reader told us.
eBay Auto Price Reduction has been a bit mysterious from the beginning. There was buzz in July when some sellers saw the unannounced feature and began using it. eBay finally announced it in the October Seller Update (“Our Auto Price Reduction feature automatically reduces prices for unsold listings to reach more buyers and help them sell”). But there was no mention of the feature when clicking through to “read more.”
The mystery resurfaced on Tuesday when the feature suddenly disappeared. Responding to a question on the discussion boards, an eBay seller with “mentor” status wrote:
“That feature has been discontinued. Some features on eBay come and go based on their success, failure or lack of use. Sorry that happened but one method to pricing is set your lowest price on your item(s) that you will sell for and cover eBay fees, your cost and most importantly, YOUR profit margin.”
But requests in other threads asking eBay moderators to confirm the mentor’s post were met with silence, leaving sellers to play the familiar game of “glitch or intentional.” Had the mentor been speculating when they wrote their response, or had they heard directly from eBay that it had discontinued the tool?
The EcommerceBytes reader who reported the disappearance to us on Thursday came down on the “intentional” side and theorized why eBay might have removed the price-reduction tool:
“Rather than support a free, seller-friendly automation that worked, eBay removed it and is pushing sellers toward paid promotional tools instead. Abruptly eliminating features sellers have already adopted undermines trust and highlights a growing pattern: useful seller tools are temporary, while monetized solutions are permanent.”
As of Sunday, eBay’s help page still referenced the feature:
“If you know the price you’d like to get for an item, but would still like to sell in an auction-style listing, you can add a Buy It Now price (an additional fee may apply)
“In the Pricing section of the quick listing tool, you can use the Auto price reduction option You just have to set an amount to automatically lower the item price by every 3 days, as well as a minimum price you’re willing to reduce the item to.”
eBay sellers also discussed the disappearance of the feature on Reddit on Tuesday in a thread titled, “Did eBay end the Automatic Price Reduction feature?” The original poster said the feature was helping bring sales and traffic to their eBay listings:
“I can’t seem to find confirmation anywhere online, but none of my 200+ current listings seem to have the feature anymore, and new listings don’t have that field available to enable this.
“I really enjoyed using this because it was basically a set it and forget it mode to drop prices by a set amount every 3 days which was bringing in a lot of sales and traffic.”
The seller returned and said eBay customer service told them it was a glitch:
“I just got off the phone with an ebay rep who said the feature wasn’t discontinued and it is a “site wide issue” and “reported by many sellers.”
“She said she added my account to some list saying they were working on restoring the feature.
“I know eBay phone reps are known to pass on incorrect information so I’m not sure what to believe.
“Just hoping they either figure it out or enable the feature again because it was basically the entire system for how my items are listed and discounted without having to adjust prices manually over 200+ active listings.”
Five days later, sellers still don’t have access to the feature and are still waiting for an answer from eBay.
