Ebay's new pricing feature - Easy Pricing

[Deleted]

New option - You don't have to do this. 

Make sure your item gets sold

Starting 10 days after listing, we'll lower the price (5% every 5 days) until your item sells or gets to $xx.xx. We'll notify buyers who showed interest each time the price drops. Turn it off anytime by going to your listing."

This is great for buyers. Throw something in your cart and wait for the price to go down. I shop Houzz.com and throw stuff in my cart all the time. I get alerted when there is a price change. Not sure if it's automatic like this, but it is definitely handy when the item isn't time sensitive.  

www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2018/6/1528724531.html

[chapeaunoir]

That's great for commodity pricing or if you're wanting to move stuff out but get tired of dinking around with it. I was reading about that yesterday.

The seller down-side is that people will just start parking things in carts and wait for it to go down, though they do that now anyway, I suspect.

One seller on the forums said that they just keep raising the price by a percentage and it gets people to hurry up and buy it lol.

[labbypaws]

Without having to look around, is this for certain categories?

[val2525]

What I would be afraid of is eBay opting everyone into this without their knowing. Kinda like eBay did awhile back with the business policies, and GSP, and a few other "optional features" when they were rolled out.

If the pricing feature is optional and can be applied listing by listing, I like it.

[sunsetpainter]

Jun 11, 2018 19:21:37 GMT val2525 said:

What I would be afraid of is eBay opting everyone into this without their knowing. Kinda like eBay did awhile back with the business policies, and GSP, and a few other "optional features" when they were rolled out.

If the pricing feature is optional and can be applied listing by listing, I like it.

^^^This.  I would not want to be automatically opted in and have to opt out on the listings I didn't want it on.

[chapeaunoir]

On the seller discussion board someone, whose reliance I know nothing about but he used nice official-sounding words, said that this is something that pops up with new accounts/sellers using the quick listing 'tool'. The individual posting about this said it was coming up with each and every one of their listings but there was an opt out called "Not right now" or something.

[Pantlandia]

I don't really see what the hub bub is over the changes to putting things on sale. I wouldn't put anything on sale that is less than a month old anyway.

[blissfullymiserable]

First I've heard of it but it seems like it would be a great idea for stale items that I don't quite want to re-donate yet. I never don't have a sale running so I price things accordingly. If a sale started an hour after listing new things, it'd be okay. 

[val2525]

I think it would be a more useful feature if sellers could set the auto discount, instead of a standard 5% every 5 days. To be able to list 30 days, discount 5% in 10 days, another 5% at 20 days, etc., would be a lot better.

[chapeaunoir]

FWIW here's what it looks like: 




I think adding markdown gradations would make it too complicated - this is supposed to be a sort of quick addition. I think we can do that through automation rules? I need to try that as an idea, BTW. 

[Pantlandia]

Jun 12, 2018 0:02:08 GMT Desire said:

They want the price to go down to 16.50??

What about items that are high priced - they really should have a tiered program.  You can be wiped out of profit if you let this thing go unchecked.

The final price is variable depending on the item. No one knows how eBay calculates it yet tho.

[somany]

Ugh, this is just going to make everyone's ASP go down, and if you don't participate, your stuff won't sell. Why can't ebay mgmt figure out that pricing is really not the problem here, it's lack of buyers. And there's a myriad of reasons for the lack of buyers that they need to address. Nope, we'll just keep lowering prices for those sellers who do do a good job, after all they haven't yelled "Uncle" yet.

ETA, so I just calculated what a 5% discount every 5 days would come to if it did not sell for 90 days.  You would go from a $20 selling price to an $8.80 selling price.  

[chapeaunoir]

Jun 12, 2018 1:54:30 GMT somany said:

Ugh, this is just going to make everyone's ASP go down, and if you don't participate, your stuff won't sell. Why can't ebay mgmt figure out that pricing is really not the problem here, it's lack of buyers. And there's a myriad of reasons for the lack of buyers that they need to address. Nope, we'll just keep lowering prices for those sellers who do do a good job, after all they haven't yelled "Uncle" yet.

ETA, so I just calculated what a 5% discount every 5 days would come to if it did not sell for 90 days.  You would go from a $20 selling price to an $8.80 selling price.  

That's kind of where it's going, anyway, though. I was struck when I was doing research last night that items that had sold for $22-28 last summer (the stock that I had picked up in 2017 to list in-season in 2018) may now go for about $16-20 - that's about one year, and I don't sell fad-fashion, mostly what I call 'durable styles' targeted towards a market that has a strong personal style not swayed by fads. I don't think I've seen a decline that fast since I started doing this FT in 2014, but that's based on personal experience. 

[chapeaunoir]

Still, if one keeps an eye on this easy pricing thing and doesn't let it go too far, it may work well for some situations. I'll try just about anything once (save for free returns lol) so of course will have to try this, too.

[SA]

It will work well for some.
It won't work well for others.

I can see it working well for sellers. Like if something's been listed for a year and sellers just want it gone. It's a great set it and forget it tool.

As a seller, you can cap it off at the lowest price you want to take for it.

I don't think this will be a popular tool. I'm not worried about it one bit.

[Deleted]

I'm willing to give it a shot. I can't move this inventory with us so it needs to go anyways. It's either sell it or donate it so if they will give it a boost in searches with this tool. You bet I'll use it. I've actually wanted a tool for a while where I could set up a sale for my store, something where I could upload a big batch of inventory at the beginning on the month, then it would go on a auto sale of 10% at one week, 20% at weeks and 30% at 3 weeks. Then reset to full price at the end of the month and start over when I load new inventory for the next month. Giving me all month to shop and work on listings to upload in one big batch. I had no idea if something like that would even work but it was an idea that popped into my head a few times. This isn't quite like that but maybe they will graduated sales as an option eventually.

[val2525]

Jun 12, 2018 12:20:36 GMT SA said:

It will work well for some.
It won't work well for others.

I can see it working well for sellers. Like if something's been listed for a year and sellers just want it gone. It's a great set it and forget it tool.

As a seller, you can cap it off at the lowest price you want to take for it.

I don't think this will be a popular tool. I'm not worried about it one bit.

I think it might be more popular if the final product lets us set duration and discount amounts. The current 5% every 5 days is too much, too fast IMO.

I did notice another new change - you can now set your listing to renew up to 8 times (was 3) when making a new listing using the SYI form.

[chapeaunoir]

Is that using the automation rule? I'm a little frustrated by it because it's so basic - relist or not. For some reason when I had checked it out ages ago, I thought it had more features. 

[val2525]

I don't know. It's at the bottom left when I do a SYI listing. I was wrong, I can auto relist up to 9 times.

[chapeaunoir]

Yeah, I don't have that on my SYI. Must be in another 'experience' - this lack of consistency in basic tools is annoying.

[blissfullymiserable]

A few weeks ago I listed a few things on Cliff's ID... felt like I was using a different site. The layout was nothing like mine.

[chapeaunoir]

It may have been the new seller layout - it probably helps newbies but kind of frustrating for oldbies.

Be careful - eBay slips all kinds of things in there, including adjusting the price on your items if they think it's 'too high', adding best offer to auctions, etc.

[val2525]

I'm not using the feature. I prefer to manually relist so I can tweak the listing if needed.

[kat]

Jun 12, 2018 20:28:21 GMT blissfullymiserable said:

A few weeks ago I listed a few things on Cliff's ID... felt like I was using a different site. The layout was nothing like mine.

I have a new-ish ID for books, misc and cheap things I’m not dry cleaning (shhhh) and it’s completely different on SYI and the app.

[allikat]

Just had an interesting search come up...Searching Abercrombie in Dresses, here are my search results, all Ab Stimulators, lol

[sunsetpainter]

Humph! I typed in Abercrombie and all I got was watches and a leather rhinoceros footstool! Not a bare ab on sight! lol

[Deleted]

What browser are you guys using? I'm in IE and I just searched Abercrombie and I got Abercrombie, just like I should.

[Deleted]

Just wondering if it's browser dependent.

[allikat]

I am using Safari, when I reloaded it I got Abercrombie, lol. I also have been getting a lot of "something went wrong, try another search" or some wording like that. I think they are working on ebay to fix it up even better!

[zoesam]

Today is Thursday. Search is not Browser specific.