Slow Sales? A Modified Way To Use Promoted Listings

[@dollarsigns5427]

Man I have stuff listed that would normally sell relatively quick that are not getting any action at all..So something is definitely off it’s almost as if EBay is suppressing Items!!

[@idid1866]

Yep...your not alone!

[@RichieRose-zd4es]

I believe so.. How one day I clear out my store selling then nothing at all for a week

[@calidebs950]

Hi Jon, On some of my listings eBay has requested 18% Promoted. It's absurd to me. I'm not sure why eBay is suggesting that on items I have watchers on and views. Obviously my items are being found. I can understand if there are no views, but these are on items that I have views on. I like your promoted strategy with the asterisk. The higher promotions eBay recommends that people adopt, the higher the recommended promotions will go.

[@bypyhgyk]

It happens all the time with me. No sales for whole day and then in 2 hours 10 sales at the evening.

[@ranaalazzawi7154]

Hi, slow sales have started at the beginning of June, where I only sold 6 items throughout the entire month. All my items are on the promotion listing standards, I always go with the eBay suggestion, even if it goes up to 12%. All my items are free shipping, and I noticed that view are low to none. My store is always affected by any eBay glitches or changes. I know that my store isn't perfect and some items are not easy to sell, but last year I was able to sell some of them, even shoes or bags from bigger companies-like Nike, Adidas, fossil- are little getting views. I have started accepting offers but sales are still extremely slow. I revised some of my listings but I don't know what to do. Thank you for your support!

[@sourceNsellenSarah]

I had a very interesting sales day yesterday, myself. I usually send offers to anything eBay will allow me to as long as it is over 8.00. Since I keep up with it I Normally I can send about 10 to 15 a day. I had 47 listings to send offers for. I made 3 sales from offers yesterday. I also sold something that was listed for 30 days with 3 views. I ended and sold similar and it sold right away.

[@FlippinAintEasy]

Crazy how that works

[@NinasTreasures]

I have had items on there as well for months and ended it an sold as similar and it sold within a week. I think over time our listings are getting bumped down in the feed from newer listings.

[@MBDesignsTexas]

Thank you for the tips. I'm going to try your ideas :-)

[@jessicacunningham8379]

Love your content! Makes sense. Always do what works best for you as an individual! Even if you have to go to other platforms do what's best for you period! Don't give up. Take offers when you can. I offered a price and sold three items by doing that to same person. One reduced a small amount and the other two sold for full price. So keep that in mind especially if you sell unique hard to find items. Good luck y'all!

[@ljwhitmire200]

Two consecutive weekends with terrible sales. Usually the weekends are 50% of my sales, so my sales are way down on top of being down already. Ebays promoted listing rates are high without giving us anything for our money. Where do they see this going? When we get to 50% promoted rate there will be no more business and then their business collapses completely.

[@marksuddick3216]

Thanks for the info from all of us 😊

[@mywrongways13]

There are no sales on my main store. But my 2nd store ( That I don't pay attention to ) got some hits. But Ebay is really off. Time to cross list.

[@michaeldenzer6024]

Sold a card for close to $600. But after promoted fees they cgarged me another fee for $67. Too! So $100. Fees...there goes a big chunk of my profits

[@vynilrob9719]

Sames. Sold a book for 500 and they ganked me for 75. Ugh.

[@Brainscan666]

Found this interesting. Added 2% to a few listings I had that were not selling. Finish changes go back in, and its at the suggested Ad rate of 12% or 11%, NOT what I put in. Edit it again, and set to 2%, Ebay automatically puts in the amount IT wants, not what I put. So I type 0.2% and ebay says you can't do that, so then I put back in 2% again and it finally lets me change the value where it sticks at 2%

[@chriswiley5184]

I’ve had that issue a few times also.

[@DedeMager-ig6he]

Lol the struggle is real

[@debbiehopper5288]

What!!!

[@zippie6]

I use 2% promoted, but I have no clue why we should use promoted on items that have very little competition ?

[@Junkinsally]

That happens all the time to the rest of us!!! The store is either “on” or it’s “off”…..it’s mostly off for most small sellers. eBay needs to end the “until cancelled” listings. You should have a choice of 30,60 or 90 days length for BIN items. If the listings ended naturally, “the sold” category wouldn’t get cluttered with items that really didn’t sell. If you list daily, then listings would end daily too. This would make managing inventory so much easier.

[@quiltednestvintage6347]

Can you manually end some listings every day and then wait a few days or weeks to sell similar? This is part of my daily 'chores'.

[@FlippinAintEasy]

You could but i would forget so i sell similar right away.

[@quiltednestvintage6347]

​@@FlippinAintEasy ended listings stay in your 'ended' eBay page/file for several months. I work from that file every day so there's nothing to forget :)

[@kathyhayward5730]

That's the truth! I call it being on the dark side of the moon. Can't be my stock or prices because when my store is "On" I make a ton of sales.

[@kevinboblitt1869]

This might be worth trying with some items that have not sold in a while. Question- Before you change to the next promoted level (from 2 to 3, 3 to 4, etc), would you end listing and sell similar each time? Thanks for video and sharing your ideas!

[@FlippinAintEasy]

I would do it as part of my weekly end item sell similar routine but remember every time you do this you use up your allocated listings for the month. If you don’t have enough listings to do end/sell similar you can do a bulk edit, you just won’t get the new item boost.

[@denisefleming3919]

Great advice yet again. Thanks so much!

[@Frogge1215]

Hi! I enjoy and appreciate your content. Very helpful. I have a question, I know this question has been asked in a multitude of ways. Im at a frustrated point. I have over 1200 active listings. I am very active. List daily, top rates, answer questions almost immediately, fast shipping, etc. I usually have 300-400 dolllar days, and in a days time my sales plummet and an I’m barley doing 100 a day, raised promoted, put in a new sale, list new items. Why is this happening? As of now down 10 percent in the last 30 days. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated

[@FlippinAintEasy]

Summer showdown is a real thing for many items. The market for an item changes constantly between demand and what a buyer is willing to pay. As senders we need to be in touch with this for every item we sell on the platform. I would recommend taking a few hours at the end of each week dedicated to reviewing your current listings in your store. First see how often that item has even sold in the last 90 days and if so how was that listing different from yours? Copy as much of what they are doing into your listing and make those changes. Is it price, photos, title etc? If that item hasn’t sold much at all in the last 90 days I would seriously consider removing it from your store as I have found stale listings with no demand can hurt your stores overall performance due to low sell through rate. Lastly go to your performance tab on the PC and see if you have the listings quality report and apply the recommendations that eBay is giving you for each of your categories. Hope these help.

[@hosscartwright6681]

This is the way i look at ebay. I believe their are to many sellers versus buyers. So ebay turns sellers on and then off to allow each seller to have a little piece of the pie.

[@biffboffo]

I can always tell when eBay is off by how many offers I'm allowed to send out and by how often I have a chance to send one. I have almost 35,000 items, so the ebbs and flows become obvious. Saturday was mostly an off day, not totally terrible, but definitely some long stretches of being quiet. I noticed impressions, page views, and organic traffic weren't great. I can't figure out any macro-level trends for my niche, except Q2 ends up being my worst quarter each year. Through the ups and downs, I have remained a top-30 seller in my main niche. I can live with whatever eBay gives me. I feel like I've tried everything that makes sense.

[@veronicamiranda1452]

I didn’t have any sales on Friday and only one sale on Saturday 😢

[@maddhattersboutique]

I too had weird sales Friday Night to Saturday afternoon. I think they were making changes behind the scenes with USPS ground advantage and possibly other changes. Sales are back to normal today and sent 54 offers to buyers this morning so seems like it was just a 24hr gap.

[@teonneebetheaa8885]

Yes ebay is throttling views. At a certain time of the day, ebay stop showing your listing. That's is why you get a rush of sales than sales stop again. This also has happen to me. Ebay trying to force sellers to promoted listings, to pay high fees.

[@bowser2005]

Thanks for this, I needed to hear this. I sell coins and some of mine are way below value and still it doesn't sell, I hate to sell lower but there is no arguing with facts, if it ain't selling I need to lower the price. I hate doing that too much but I needed to hear the truth.

[@priscillasimpson6070]

i want to agree with you because im desperate for answers lol but ive listed items that have sold historys of $100 for $80. then i consistently lower the price as time goes on. promoted then not promoted. ive gotten the item all the way down to $1 and it still didnt sell! then i would end item and relist it at $120 and bam! sold! ebay is so weird. done this a few times.

[@NinasTreasures]

I've noticed here lately most of my sales are coming in when I do a markdown sales event. I truly believe it's just our economy in whole. Everything gone up in price.

[@mavjagmaverick1527]

Yeah right... I'm going to share my secret on this channel on how to get sales while not promoting so Ebay can fix that problem from ever happening again. You even said that Ebay is probably watching this channel. Not the best place to share info if so.

[@FlippinAintEasy]

Just trying to share ideas with other sellers. Not sure if eBay watches or not. They certainly don’t act on the information to fix their site if that’s the case.

[@mavjagmaverick1527]

@@FlippinAintEasy 3 years ago Shed Flips gave out information on how to see the actual price that some one pays when the buyer takes a best offer... something I knew how to do for months. The very next day Ebay fixed it where it wasn't possible and even Lonnie said it had to be because of his KZbin channel. So with the amount of viewers you get, you can bet you're being watched too.

[@jonnyfortin]

My sales completely stopped from the 3rd until today. It was weird to me because that's never happened.

[@steventhompson3707]

Thank you for this advice!

[@glitterandsudsasmr7130]

I kinda wonder if they flip the free promotion switch on after they know they were doing updates that lead to low sales

[@ebayposhman]

I put date listed in sku , you could even put the percentage rate in sku too

[@SavagePickers]

Thanks Jon. I only had one sale on Saturday. Had a couple today. Slow but I’m up overall.

[@devonneshort4749]

My sales have been slow all week this weekend finally a couple sales🤔

[@Yazzie101]

My sales stopped on 2 stores on 5Th.. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I changed my shipping to ground advantage that was a chore picking out priority!! But 0 sales in days after several daily.. crazy

[@luker.6799]

If there is any solidarity amongst the Ebay reseller community. We should go on "strike" with promoted for 3 days to a week. It's a money grab pure and simple. You pay the fees, you pay for the store, you pay promoted. And their service is getting worse. Just like alot of retail stores, restaurants, and fast food. It's time to be selective all around the board of life with buying, selling and trading.

[@5797029]

Sales were on fire Wednesday,Thursday and Friday. From late Friday up to Sunday at 12 noon, 1 small sale. One question. Two offers to buyers. When will ebay stop hiding my listings? I am guessing either later today or early Monday. It almost feels like ebay doesn't have the capacity to run the whole site at the same time. So they are rotating us by slow walking or hiding our listings. Remember the time when we used to receive X number of minutes at "high speed" data on on cell phones. When the limit was reached they slowed us down to a crawl until the next month. Rolling blackouts and brownouts work similarly when a power company can't handle the load. Is ebay using a similar tactic hoping we won't notice?

[@FlippinAintEasy]

People notice

[@5797029]

@FlippinAintEasy True. But those at ebay could be living in a bubble. Just like the DC politicians living inside the beltway. We watch bumbling Joe trying to say everything is going great for our country. In reality, the people know it isn't.

[@5797029]

As predicted, it happened. Around 5pm Sunday, the sales started piling up after many hours of crickets. (except for that 1 lonely sale).

[@YuliyaBuryk]

I promote all my items at 2%. Once I stop I have no sales at all. With 2% it’s steady. 1-2 items a day but my stuff is pricey designer bags and shoes.

[@joypadlad]

Tip culture is getting out of control. eBay is even putting the tip jar out there. They call it promoted listings. 😂😭

[@luker.6799]

I gave a homeless guy some money. Then he asked me for a tip. Just joking!!

[@vynilrob9719]

If I promote something and it doesn't sell, do I still have to pay the promo price?

[@rw9866]

Hello Jon my sales have slowed down a bit I have dropped the prompted listing rate and sales have dropped so considering raising them to what eBay is asking, I have tried that option and sales reflected I just put it as a cost for doing business.

[@noagendasevenseven1231]

Yea Ebay has been so dead for me i actually turned back on international lol, may as well since its back to the levels when we all got opted in

[@edwardgorry602]

You end listings and sell similar after one week?

[@FlippinAintEasy]

That was my old process. I do the end item sell similar the day before eBay recycles the listing (usually every 29 days).

[@nicolenichols-smith3268]

I've tried promoted listings and it doesn't increase my sales. I decided to stop promoting. I'm trying to clear out old inventory so I'm running sales. I also ended and sold similar too. My goal is to focus on higher asp items. I'm willing to let these low profit items to go. Something is better than items just sitting here. My discount is 75% off all kids clothes, 50% off men and women's clothes, toys and books. 30% off fabric.

[@michaelc2155]

My sales have been awful, maybe 2-3 this week and nothing so far on Saturday, which is odd. But I attribute a lot of it being too sick to do much more than sell similar and send out the occasional offer. I do promote and have markdown sales. I'll send you an email with more details instead of writing a whole story here as I prefer to keep my status as a big Stranger to random people on the internet. 😉

[@joypadlad]

eBay is broken no doubt. I’ve never had multiple days in a row without sales like I get now. Sometimes 6 days with nothing.

[@kevinevans8370]

I sell a lot of really low end sports cards that at times the only things that move are the cheapest items. I ran a storewide sale in June, and my sales picked up, but when it was over, I had nothing for a few days, so I started another sale. I'm still getting a few sales here and there, but things have rapidly fallen off. Today was a strange one for me, but I hadn't had any sales since I posted listings last night, and right before posting some tonight, I got 9 people at once that wanted offers sent out, and that never happens! I still only made 1 small sale, but I thought it may have been a glitch or something, because that was very strange. I may try that promoted listing thing you're talking about if sales don't pick up. I've already been listing religiously, every night, and I'm up to over 1k items now, so I think I've got a lot of nice items. So, next thing may be to mess with the promoted listings. Thanks for the info!

[@cutenessoverload8699]

well - sounds like you're finally experiencing what the rest of us do... I have been doing promoted listings forever -- I started at the 2% suggested rate initially - then I went up to 3% --- because I thought it would be above all the others... Now I'm up to 4-5% ish --- still about average sales --- There's simply no rhyme or reason anymore on ebay... btw - I'm a long time seller - 20+ years --- I'm used to coasting at $4-5,000 / month --- I used to do more like $500-$1k / day ---- sigh --- The way I stay proactive is to end listings and relist aka sell similar every day ---

[@themadscientist40k]

Some items are cheap enough to sit and wait for the right person. I have collectibles that sell in spurts usually repeat customers. Some have sat for a year but they do sell and I have pennies into them. Postcards are a prime example of something that does sell but slowly and if I pay 50¢ and sell for $10-$50 I can wait. I’m not convinced promoting makes a big difference in some categories. Although I did turn off promoted and my sales all but stopped. Now I have a range of 2% to 8% depending on category. Nothing pisses me off more than sending out a bunch of offers and paying and extra $35 fee for promotion. Stupid

[@JLStanton1968]

I'm listening to you talk about being proactive with promoted listings. How about you do a video on alternatives to eBay and how to use them to build multiple accounts on those other platforms so that you can be flexible and put things on the right platform, not just eBay. After 24 years, I know what sells. You're kind of insinuating that a bunch of us are sourcing crap while forgetting our 24 years of selling successfully until eBay started clocking our listings to force us to pay for the views we don't have to pay for on other sites. I have no problem selling on other sites. Your whole video seems to be about adapting to what eBay is doing ON eBay. Time could be better spent cross listing at lower rates on a Mercari or other sites with lower fees, giving customers that % off from the eBay fees. It's working for me. I'm spending 20% of the time on eBay I used to because spending 80% of my time with no rewards isn't an option. It's as bad as doing nothing. eBay is the problem. And until they get back to what made it successful, they'll continue the freefall. Best to have several other boats lined up to take you off the sinking ship than to go down with it. eBay has a plan. It's a horrible plan. And until the CEO is changed, this plan won't change and even then, it'll take a year or two to somewhat fix. He's screwed the company that bad. Protect yourselves not by paying eBay more but by creating other opportunities on other platforms. Can you do a show on that? Standing on the deck of the Titanic isn't an option as it's going down. As an aside, I've been trying what you've mentioned. Isn't working. I have four months of notes now. Only thing that might work is throwing money at the extortion and there's no guarantee I'll get back to where I was, even though I have better and better inventory (just picked up 25,000 78rpm records with a lot of rare jazz and blues and am killing eBay by selling on Facebook groups.....I would have had no problem before selling these on eBay, but if they won't show it, it can't be bought). Oh, and eBay has started directing all calls to the website. Customer service is probably getting killed as well. Why pay people when they're not given answers to share.

[@FlippinAintEasy]

I can consider making a video about Mercari or Posh. As for eBay the reality is at least in 2023 what sold well for sellers even 5 years ago isn’t so hot anymore. Is it the economy or simply eBay pushing out the small seller by dragging down the lower ASP items I will never know. You said you have made changes however if I am being honest buying LPs isn’t what I was referring to. We have many of those listed on our secondary account and unless you have the ones with real demand those sales are very slow on eBay. I’m talking items in general regardless of category with high ASP (average sales price) with multiple recent solds. This one statement represents a wide variety of items that are doing great on the platform. And yes, much of what is in my secondary store is crap and unfortunately most stores I have reviewed contains this type of undesirable item and most would do better to simply delist these items to help improve their stores overall performance and sell through. This is my current task I’m taking on right now. Bottom line, eBay is in decline and whether it is paying up for promoted listings, changing what we sell or cross listing on to other sites, most sellers need to make adjustments or will be left behind.

[@paulroberts2549]

eBay has gotten ridiculous on fees I’ve sold o there site over 23 years it’s the worst it’s ever been. The economy doesn’t help. People r being selective on what there buying

[@thinds5271]

They suppressed all the listing on ebay in conjunction with USPS to ease the stress of transferring to a new services. July 9 was the end of first class. They did it on purpose. Also, people couldn't purchase because of glitches with the shipping during the switch.

[@No1Design_]

I live in the east coast most of our sales are towards the night time .....there are times where we make a bunch of sales in the middle of the night (around 3 to 5 am) and nothing during the morning and afternoon and then ramps up when night falls and its been like this for many years....I promote at 8% across the board and not changed that for a better part of 12 years....I do not Turn best offer of newly listed items, In my main Store, for the 1st 6 months and after 6 months and the item didnt sell it gets moved over to the secondary garbage eBay store where it will live until eBay Dies (basically Me & eBay is playing chicken and to see who will cave in 1st).....This is a quick run down on how I run My Business....there are tons of other factors not mentioned here and I will not Write about (Many years of trail & error and wasted time and money on my end to figure out what Model works for me is too valuable to give out call me greedy or stingy I dont care) and Like Ive said before if a Rough neck like me can figure this out through countless nights of learning, researching, failing, wasting money/Time and countless fights with my better half to finally make this work (and now the Little Mrs. will never question my work and business decision so long as she can go shopping....that was the agreement.....Sigh.... RIP wallet) So can Anyone who is younger than me with a good head on his/her should and a solid common sense work ethics. The Only Regret I have is that I wish I have done this sooner.....Here is Something a tip to think about...Play and follow the terms and condition with in the platform You are Selling in and Do Not Break any Rules or Terms and Condition Stated On that Platform....But Bend it to Make it work for you without Breaking it......If you can understand this logic You are Well ahead than other and soon you will hear a "Click" and get your AH HA!! moment. I have Never Broken any Terms and condition on any Platform but I sure bend the sh*t out of it.

[@FlippinAintEasy]

Wait? You’ve been promoting at 8% for 12 years? Promoted has been around that long, only a few years…

[@No1Design_]

@@FlippinAintEasy promoted advertising started around 2015 or 2016 but Automated promoted started around 2021 or 2022 can remember Sellers was able to Use Promoted Advertising Through Invite before the 2015-6 launch..

[@a-perfectcleanwaterdamager6061]

U said nothing