---

eBay is requiring sellers to take an additional step before they can take advantage of seller promotions. Despite the fact the change adds an added hurdle rather than having anything to do with additional promotions, the announcement trumpeted, "Announcing a new way for sellers to save."

eBay has been running invitation-only promotions in the U.S. since last year and has begun offering them to sellers in Australia and UK as well. Sellers who received the invitations would get the promotional rates (usually a certain amount of free listings) during the promotional period.

Now, however, sellers will not receive the promotional rate until they activate it by clicking on the "Activate Now" button in the email invitation.

eBay's announcement on Tuesday explained, "To grant you the ability to control which of your listings have promotions applied to them - and to help us create better and more personalized promotions based on what, when, and how you sell - you'll begin seeing an "Activate now" button in select promotional emails."

eBay will apply promotional rates only after a seller activates the offer - and it will not apply the rates retroactively to listings created within the promotional period but prior to activating the offer - though not all promotions will require activation in order for sellers to participate.

eBay said the "Activate now" button indicates whether activation is required and reminded sellers to set their communication preferences to receive seller email promotions in order to ensure they receive all applicable listing-promotion invitations.

Despite telling sellers they'd receive 60-days advance notice of changes, eBay is making the policy effective beginning this month.

eBay said it was adding the extra step because a number of sellers told it they would like to be able to control when their listings have promotions applied to them, rather than simply having promotions applied without their control.

Now that eBay grants sellers a certain amount of free listings each month, it wasn't always clear to sellers when the free-listing promotion rates would kick in - before or after their previously allotted free listings. (This EcommerceBytes Letter to the Editor gives an indication of how monthly free listings impact free-listing promotions.)

By adding the "Activate now" button to promotions, sellers can control when the promotion is activated within the promotional period. The company explained, "Use your promotional offers when you want to. Time your use of special offers to work with your existing free listings." eBay also said it would use the information gained from the "Activate now" process to create both better and more personalized promotions, based on what, when, and how you sell, it explained.

Upon reading the announcement, one eBay seller said, "I think it's just one more thing to think about!"

Another seller wrote on the eBay boards, "eBay announced today that there would be new listing promotins that require the seller to click an "Activate Now" button. I don't understand how it works, since it is retroactive to "when"? Very unclear in the Announcement. Help!!"

Post your questions and comments on the EcommerceBytes Blog.

---

About the author:

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.

See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.

You may quote up to 50 words of any article on the condition that you attribute the article to EcommerceBytes.com and either link to the original article or to www.EcommerceBytes.com.
All other use is prohibited.

Sign up for our Email Newsletters


Email this story to a friend.

1 of 4