When eBay announces a new Seller Update as it did last week, sellers immediately go looking to see if it’s going to cost them more to sell on the site – or if there will be any opportunities to lower their costs. They also go looking for news of whether it might become more (or less) challenging to sell on the marketplace.
Case in point, the “Early” Update in February in which eBay announced the new Good Til Cancelled mandate (GTC) in which all listings would automatically renew, which meant recurring billing except for auction-format listings. That was not only an unpopular change, but eBay also mis-executed when it failed to take into account how it would lead to double-billing sellers in some months.
What makes it so hard to assess last week’s Fall Seller Update is that eBay included some previously announced changes, mixing them in with brand new changes. For example, eBay had already announced in April in the Spring Seller Update the availability of PayPal and PayPal Credit in Managed Payments, but in last week’s Fall Update, it wrote:
More ways for buyers to pay
We recently added Google Pay, PayPal, and PayPal Credit as forms of payment to managed payments, which already included credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, and Apple Pay.
It’s also worth noting that eBay generally classifies changes into a few buckets that sound non-threatening. Sometimes the changes in a particular bucket don’t seem to belong together. One striking example was in the Spring Seller Update when it included a punitive policy (“Reduced search visibility for sellers who use a retailer to ship directly to buyers”) in the “Seller Protections” bucket.
For context, here’s a look at all of the 2019 Seller Updates. You’ll notice that eBay broke with convention in how it named the updates and how it announced major changes this year.
Early Seller Update (February 26, 2019) – this would typically be called the Spring Seller Update, but for some reason eBay called the “early” update.
Link to Announcement
Link to eBay Early Seller Update landing page
Spring Seller Update (April 30, 2019) – this would more typically be called the Summer Seller Update.
Link to Announcement
Link to eBay Spring Seller Update Landing Page
Unnamed Seller Update (July 24, 2019) – eBay didn’t call it a seller update, but it made major announcements impacting sellers in July.
- “Fulfill your sales faster and cost-effectively with Managed Delivery” – link to announcement
- “eBay to Launch Managed Delivery, an End-to-end Fulfillment Service for Sellers” – link to eBay corporate blog post
- eBay Launches Multi-User Account Access and Terapeak Pricing Insights to Unlock Seller Productivity; Significantly Strengthens Seller Protections – link to announcement
Fall Seller Update (September 4, 2019) – With this release, eBay took the unusual step of giving sellers advance warning, and it chose to make the announcement on a Wednesday rather than a Tuesday for the first time.
Link to Announcement
Link to eBay Fall Seller Update Landing Page
In today’s issue, we review the changes eBay announced in the Fall Update in the “Online Sellers Guide to eBay’s 2019 Fall Seller Update.”
While the fall update includes fee changes, they only impact eBay Motors. But the changes to Promoted Listings mean sellers could (or will) pay more in advertising fees in order to get exposure.
Take a look at our guide and let us know what you think, and be sure to leave a comment on the EcommerceBytes Blog, where sellers are already weighing in on how the Fall Update changes will impact them.
I just looked through my invoices and for the July and August ones there is no credit issued for promoted listings. I first thought that perhaps I’d used them up but July is the 1st month in the 3rd quarter and I didn’t use the full $30 credit in July. Therefore I should have been given the credit for July in the Auguest invoice.
I never did like the idea any ways so I just ended all my prototed listings. Hopefully that will save eBay’s moron computer from having to figure out whether to show my regular listing or the promoted one , if it chooses my ad to be displayed at all.