I received quite an interesting promotional email from eBay UK today that suggests they might be taking a more sophisticated approach to couponing.
Obviously, at the end of March, there was the site wide 20% off for a few hours that was highly successful. And whilst welcome, it represents quite a crude approach.
With this latest email it looks like they are targeting specific categories, in this case tyres. The coupon that I’ve been sent it for 10% off tyres. And obviously it’s good news for anyone in that sector that they’re stimulating sales.
What’s less good is the targeting of me as a buyer. eBay has over 15 years of shopping data on my eBay account and should know that I’ve never bought car parts before. I’ve never bought a car on eBay either. I don’t drive. A 10% coupon off second hand books or postcards, however, would have been most welcome.
Have you had a similar email?
5 Responses
Targetting you as a market for tyres is interesting; its probably because you haven’t ever looked at ebay for carparts, and yet your data suggests you would be a car owner.. sort of reverse trending as it where.. now if they offer you a coupon for ladies shoes next, that squashes that theory!
I got one too and was equally bemused – although I do drive the nearest thing to an automobile themed purchase I’ve ever made was a soap on a rope in the shape of Stig from Top Gear.
Still in the experimental stages looks like!
Yes, I had the same email and I’m pretty certain I’ve never bought any car parts on eBay during my 17 years of using the site.
They know what categories I normally buy from as they’re constantly emailing me “you bought this so how about buying this as well?” emails so it does look like they’re trying to target people who fall into a particular demographic but don’t normally buy from certain eBay categories.
It’d be nice to get coupons for categories I do buy from but we know that’s not going to happen! 🙂
The bay currently promoting a tyre fitting service in the header so likely connected.
I’ve had similar coupons before which were category specific eg. electronics. I really prefer the site wide ones as i end up picking up some random things on my watchlist as well at the same time.