buriedbybooks (950 ) View Listings | Report Jul-25-06 14:23 PDT
Just found out from customer service that Ebay Keyword ads are being retired. Yahoo is replacing them--and I had no response about the effect on Featured free keyword allotments...
Thank you for writing eBay in regard to the eBay keyword ads. I realize
the importance of the issue and I'll surely help you to resolve it.
Please understand that, in the next several months eBay will retire
eBay's Keyword program. We realize that sellers have wanted better
service and support than has been provided through our current eBay
Keywords program. Yahoo! will assume responsibility for all sponsored
search ads on eBay. eBay sellers who have purchased eBay Keywords will
have the ability to use Yahoo!'s self-serve automated tools to purchase
sponsored search ads.
As we get closer to retiring the eBay Keywords program, we will keep the
community informed via the General Announcement board.
posted on July 25, 2006 04:41:02 PM
it was one of the few "bennies" of being a featured store. you got $90 worth of "free" keywords per quarter (featured store is about $50/mo., so keywords weren't really free), for advertising impressions throughout eBay. however, they seemed ineffective, at least to me, and when you used them up, you were always asked to buy/pay for more of them.
posted on July 25, 2006 04:54:32 PM
You mean that if..say..I had a tall skinny generic doll in my store, I could use the keyword Barbie in my sale..as long as I pay for the privilege?
posted on July 25, 2006 05:15:13 PM
nope, not in your sale/auction listing. have you ever seen the banner ads, large and small, along the tops of pages of listings? those are keyword ad campaigns. if you were a featured store and you wanted to use the word "barbie doll" as a keyword phrase, you could do it that way and it would appear in banner ads. but it wouldn't be worth it if you only had one doll to sell. it supposedly was worth it for broader categories such as "electronics." it's hard to explain if you haven't seen the banner ads at the top of listing pages. http://stores.ebay.com/postcards-postcards http://www.vintagepostcards.org http://vintage-postcards.blogspot.com/
posted on July 25, 2006 09:42:56 PM
neglus, that was a MUCH better idea to do a print screen to explain the featured keywords!
did you ever get your call from the stores team? they called me at 9 a.m. sharp their time on Monday. i got an ESL lady who sounded like she was from India. she wanted to know if i'd heard about the upcoming "changes" at eBay. things went rapidly downhill from there. <g>
i said yes, i'd heard and so had many others and we were not pleased. i told her that if eBay wanted more auctions, oh excuuuuuuse me, "core listings," they should lower the auction fees to entice people to use the auction format, NOT set up punitive measures for those who don't, and that it's just human nature for people not to like having something forced on them. i said the idea of increasing auction listings with punitive measures was doomed to failure, that the fee increases are obscene and that Meg and Bill have lost their minds. My other suggestion was that they either tender their resignations or be fired. i told her she was going to have a looooooooooooooong day, and wished her luck.
posted on July 25, 2006 10:01:37 PM
Nope - no call and I guess I would have had one by now if they were going to call! Maybe I am one of the people who are trashing up the site?? I feel slighted!
Well I am keeping my store and will figure out a way to make it work DAMMIT! I am glad now that I am not one of the BIG postcard sellers with 10's of thousands of cards listed!
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posted on July 25, 2006 10:15:07 PM
i'm keeping my store too, although putting increasing emphasis on my web site. basically use auctions and store items to drive traffic to the web site. as long as i'm not totally persona non grata at eBay, they'll always be a small(er) part of my overall business plan.
i feel really sorry for the folks who close up eBay shop without really thinking it through. i do think some of the sellers who don't have very focused merch on eBay, like we do with postcards, will ultimately close due to the fee increases. and i don't think people realize that it takes the better part of a year to really tweak a website to the hilt, get it SEO optimized, develop links, get ranking, etc., etc.
i have seen people post on ebay stores board to the effect that they just bought a domain and will be open by the end of the week or by august 22nd. if they only knew. of course, a lot of them are also picking horrible hosting sites, simply because they don't know any better. one woman had a subdomain at citimax and didn't realize that a subdomain will get her nowhere, fast.
two of the people contacted me re: web site optimization each have a fb of about 23 on eBay, and each only have about 10 items listed. one of them was selling "get rich quick" DVDs and CDs. i turned them down as clients (i would have declined the "get rich quick" guy anyway), because i didn't want to take their money for nothing, and there really wasn't much i could do for them.
oh, speaking of larger volume sellers, vintagepostcards.com (martin shapiro) had 39,000 listings up and slashed it to about 10,000, the day after the fee increase was announced. not sure what a few of the other major players are going to do yet.
