Why Are There No eBay Promotions, Seller Asks

by: FeelingFroggy

I just got a 3X ebay bucks promotion this morning and I'm currently still working on the 10.000 free listings that I got in November.

by: Marie

It hasn't been a long time since Ebay ran a listing promotion.  Not every seller is invited to every promo.  And Ebay typically has several promos going on at the same time.  

Unfortunately for you, you've just hit a dry spell.  It happens to all of us from time to time.  For me, its been a little over two weeks since my last promo ended.  Certainly not a dry spell, at least not yet.  LOL

by: Rexford

Marie, eBay is a dry spell.  LOL

by: KandJ

maybe someone who hates relists and cannot find anything good enough to buy because of the flood of listings during promotions got their ear

by: Marie

@ Rex

OMG you are so RIGHT !!!!  Thanks for the laugh!

@kandj

While some categories may get flooded, others don't.  In fact auctions are down and have been for a long time.  The promos allow some sellers list things they can't afford to otherwise and give buyers some great stuff to look at.  Not everyone can afford the listing fees because of the low sell through rates on Ebay.

If you are a seller without a store, then to run 100 auctions, you are going to pay about $30 in listing fees.  That adds up quick.

Store owners have lower fees for auctions, but they can add up quick too.  And sell through rates are not what they use to be back in early 2014 and prior.  

IMHO promos bring the auctions back to Ebay.  Since the way they restructured how the set of free listings for store owners can be used, auctions have declined even more than before.  

by: Philip Cohen

The fact is, eBay auctions have been atrophying ever since 2008 when the cretinous Johnny Ho further anonymized bidder IDs to better hide, and further aid and abet, rampant shill bidding fraud by unscrupulous sellers. Surely, no one with any intelligence expected eBay auctions to thrive with such an utterly unscrupulous bidding system in place? The reality is, fewer and fewer people are naïve enough to still believe that eBay has any intention of protecting them from such rampant auction fraud from which eBay profits—and so eBay has likewise, and deservedly, continued to  atrophy—http://bit.ly/11F2eas

by: Marie

@ Phil

Not for everyone.  I was doing just fine with my auctions until late February 2014.

by: ebayisscrewed

Honestly, who cares about promotions and the free listings.  All it results in is tons of items being regenerated.  I would much rather pay $1.00 a listing and get my damn visibility back.  Hell, let me advertise on the pay for click adds, too.   Seriously, if you are worried about saving $50 in listing a fees a month, you are simply not focusing on the right thing.  

by: Tiffee Jasso

Pay for clicks? Hmmm. Let me think about that. I averaged 3000 clicks a month for about an average of $800 in sales. This was fairly stable until the last drop in visibility. Average click price is about 40 cents and so I would owe Ebay $1200 plus selling and store fees. I cannot see the logic in PPC. It should always be PPS (pay per sale) which is the only true test of visibility. All sellers who buy into PPC do not do themselves or anyone else a favor. If Google, Ebay and everyone else had to PPS to get ad money it would be a far better world for all of us. Keep that in mind. We have the clout to make the change.  

by: comet

IF they would SHOW my listings I would not care if they charged (a reasonable amount)  to list---and promos would be perks not something you hold stuff back for in hopes that THIS TIME the stuff SELLS.  

by: Paul W

Actually there are some listing specials still running.  In my anchor store I have 10,000 free FP listings through the end of this month (which I'll only be able to use a fraction of).  On two other IDs I have 1000 auctions in collectibles categories for 5 cents each.

by: Philip Cohen

Weeeee! 10,000 free listings!

Why not 500,000 free listings? And, what's the point if those listings are not being seen. And, nothing is for "free". If eBay is offering anything apparently for free that only tells you how desperate they have become ...

The eBay executive suite—where the incompetent mingle with the disingenuous, the unscrupulous, the malevolent and the outright criminal, and the just plain stupid …

by: Mog

I cannot understand all those who moan about the ''junk'' they have to scroll through to find what they want.
''Junk'' for them is another persons treasure they've found.
That's what made ebay great in the early days. You could find almost anything.
Now all you hear is people moaning because they cannot find what they want, only ''junk'' they don't.
Could it be they cannot find it because it's not listed any more. Or Cassini don't want you to find it. Ebay no longer premotes peoples clearouts, only the box shifters stuff which can be purchased anywhere.
If they brought back a simple search with just 2 criteria it would quickly get back to the good old days.
That criteria
1. Time ending soonest.
2. Only return what you type in the title. (stop blaming ebay if you cannot spell or the seller has mis-typed  it)

by: Mog

And get rid of multi-value listings. One of the most annoying reasons I rarely buy run of the mill stuff any more there.
Fed up finding a listing for envelope 99p to £250 only to find the 99p item is 1 sample while the box of C5 you want is priced way above the other single listing sellers price.

by: Toledo Maude

I agree with Mr. Cohen, why stop at the ridiculous 10,000 free listings and go to the ludicrous 500,000 free listings.

I am working on a three or four month promotion offering 800 listings for free.  The 600 that I do not use, I send to a needy third world country.

Prior to my long time eBay business bill paying business being reclassed as trash by those crack MBA's at eBay in 2012, over time I had increased my listings from 100 to 400 and was going for 500 and more.

Now I am listing more rare hard to find collectibles which do not come to me easily.  My listings remain constant at under 200.  Sales volumes and profits are up, knock on wood.  And eBay is not getting rich on my fees.  Plus the sales and profits that Etsy contributes help improve the bottom line.

What I am happy to see eBay do are there almost daily E-Mails promoting different categories of listings.  

Last month, I was in the hunt to upgrade my camera, and I found eBay's promotional E-Mails and camera related newsletter most helpful.

What I do not find helpful is eBay hiding my listings and limiting my sales.  Seems the eBay month has shrunk to two weeks.

by: Philip Cohen

I think yo all should stop dreaming. Devin Little's talk of re-connecting with small sellers of junk is just that, talk; such disingenuous statements simply indicate how desperate eBay is becoming, now that all of Johnny Ho's various "big box" experiments have failed ...

Fortunately, it’s always been easy to tell when an eBay/PayPal spokesperson is being disingenuous—their lips are moving ...

by: BargainzBabylon

I'm still working on the bazillion free listings I got what, last December?

As for auctions, IMHO they've fallen to the natural evolution of etailing. To me they're are a holdover from past times when online purchasing was a novelty and auctions were 'new'. People love novelty. That's long gone now - the idea of bidding on a pair of pants or a shirt just seems ludicrous given the expansion of etailing, and has for years.

Auctioning something unusual/collectible, etc., is a completely different story - that's really where auctions thrive and has always been a traditional venue for auctions. This is also where eBay can absolutely dominate, there is SO much in so many categories that would be great for auctions, but they've chosen to neglect this valuable source of revenue by chasing after the same thing everyone else is - the big box stuff, ho-hum 'designer' stuff, Chinese whatever, who aren't going to be running auctions. Due to this emphasis auctions are down.

More emphasis on the unusual and collectible 'long tail' stuff (heh, if that happens) will bring auctions up again. However, I don't think having more auctions period (on common items) is going to 'bring auctions back' - this isn't the ebay (or etailing world) of 15-20 years ago - times have changed. There needs to be the emphasis on the unusual 'long tail' items...that I think would bring auctions up again.  

by: pace306

What good is a bazillion free listings if 1) its all relisted garbage or 2) its crap from some distributors feed and its not new unique items and of course 3) if Cassini wont show them - why have them at all?

They are giving them away because ... 1) it negates the TOS language and the legal issues it causes - if the listings are FREE then theres no exectation that they will get shown - when you get something for free "it is what it is" a gift that be "anythng eBay saus it is" and 2) it props up the stock by eBay telling people "see our bazillion new listings - people LOVE to list with us - arent we just the best!?"

Meanwhile the underpinnings of how it all works aka eBays real issues continue to go unsolved.... as usual.  

by: ltd777

I haven't had one promotion for over a month not since the middle of January. I signed up for a store then they took away the one area i post to. so now i get absolutely no free posting at all. thank you so much ebay. i wish i could post what i really feel about your nazi run site!

by: skyhooks

Try living in Australia and see how much we get free from eBay. Jack s%@t. I have had one lot of free listings in 9 years and that was sprung on us a few days before the event started. We also get charged $1.50 insertion fees not 30 cents and only 40 free listings per month. They get used in the first few days of the month. EBay wonder why people are angry on this side of the world we get zilch