eBay are going to be testing new advert placements on listing from all sellers (Business and Private sellers).
Advertising Placement
The first is an advert which already appears on Private Seller’s listings below the seller information box. The adverts may be for a whole range of products and services and will sit right at the top of the listing page above the fold and across the page from the product photos, title and pricing information.
Product Merchandising on Listings
The second adverts to appear on listings will initially be a test, but from past experiences eBay’s advert tests tend to turn into permanent placements if they’re the least successful it’s likely that this is hear to stay. The placement is in the form of cross promotions to the same, related or similar items from your own inventory or from other sellers. Your items will also appear on the listings of other sellers but if lower cost items appear on your listing expect to see traffic migrating.
In order to combat this merchandising driving sales away from your listing you need to make sure you have a compelling offer. You need a great title spelling out any extras on offer that you’re bundling with your product, superb images, you’ll need to highlight your service (consider the use of Subtitle) and of course if your price isn’t competitive the chances are high that buyers will be seeing a similar product that is a great price.
This is one of those posts on Tamebay where I know everyone who reads it will hate the change. Don’t shoot the messenger though… I’m as little in favour of adverts and competitor’s cross promotions appearing on my eBay listings as you are. eBay say the merchandising will inspire buyers to make a purchase based on what others have viewed or bought, improving their shopping experience and helping to increase sales across eBay. That’s of little comfort to the seller when a buyer sees a better offer and doesn’t make the purchase from them, which is why you need to ensure your offer is compelling and simply better than the competitions.
2 Responses
I guess one small comfort is that my cross-promotions will appear on my competitors’ listings…. ho-hum….
However I’m sure we will all agree that it is completely immoral to pay for advertising space for one’s competitors.
I personally feel that this will also encourage much more duplicate listings from unscrupulous sellers trying to swamp the cross-promoting advert spaces with their adverts.
I hope eBay have something in place to prevent this….