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Creating and Managing Promotions

Promotions are a great way of highlighting and cross-selling your product range to buyers. Using the Promotions Manager tool, you can create your own retail-standard promotions. Your offers and discount opportunities are highlighted to buyers on item listing pages and in their shopping cart. Promotions Manager also makes it easy to bundle together all the items you have in a given promotion with Sale Event pages. See our tutorial for more information on working with Promotions Manager.

Please note: this service is only available to sellers with a Store Subscription.

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Promotion types

eBay's Promotions Manager lets you create or promote a range of different offers.

Promotion Name Details
Order discounts

Order size discounts encourage buyers to spend more or add more items to their orders with a discount. For example:

  • Buy 3, get 1 free
  • Save $10 when you spend $100 or more
Codeless vouchers

Target offers and promote discounts to select buyers via link. For example:

  • Save $10 when you spend $50 or more
  • Buy 2, get 1 at 50% off

With targeted codeless vouchers, discounts are only seen by buyers who use the special access link provided by you.
Sales Events You can use a Promotions Manager Sale event to automatically merchandise reduced or special priced items on a "Sale page". Included items also enjoy the same visual treatment on the item pages and in shopping cart as Order size and related item discounts.
Promotional postage

If you already use certain types of promotional postage rules, Promotions Manager will automatically merchandise items that qualify for your promotional free postage offer. For example:

  • Free postage on orders over $100
  • Free postage when you buy two or more items

Getting ready for Promotions Manager

If you are using, or want to use Promotions Manager there are some things that you can do with your listings to make it easier to manager.

Promotions Manager requirements

The minimum requirements for an item to be included in a special offer are:

In addition, an item will qualify for inclusion as a related SKU in a Related Item Offer only if:

There are limits to the number of promotions and promoted items that you can have at any one time:

Promoting your offers

Use the Social sharing buttons on your listings, in your Sale event pages and in your Offers page to promote your discounts on social sites.

Create a promotions Collection for your buyers to follow.

Promote your sale by sending a customised email to announce your offers to your Stores newsletter subscribers. The number and frequency of emails you're able to send is based on your subscription limits and other eBay policies. In your email add a link to individual items, a Sale event page or the page showing all of your offers. Find out more about setting up your mailing lists.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I access the tool for managing my promotions on eBay?
Go to My eBay > Account > Marketing Tools > Promotions Manager
What are SKUs?

"SKU" stands for "stock-keeping unit," which is a general term for a catalogue number for a specific item. SKU is also called "Custom Label" in eBay's selling tools, such as Selling Manager, Selling Manager Pro, Turbo Lister, the bulk edit and revise tool in My eBay, File Exchange and API.

SKU can refer to a number generated by the manufacturer, or it can be a number that a seller creates for each item to manage their inventory. The SKU for an item is provided by the seller when listing or revising an item on eBay. Using SKUs or custom labels make it easier for you to re-list products with the same SKUs or custom labels, without having to also configure promotions for them each time.

The eBay tool for managing promotions can use SKUs rather than eBay item numbers.

Where do I set SKUs?
You can add or edit SKUs in the "Custom Label" field of your listings using Selling Manager, Selling Manager Pro, Turbo Lister, the bulk edit and revise tool in My eBay, File Exchange and API. Learn more about these eBay selling tools.
Can I add a SKU to my offer that I have not yet listed on eBay?
You can add a SKU to your offer even if you have not yet listed any item on eBay with that particular SKU. However, this SKU will essentially be ignored until an item with this SKU can be found for display with the offer.
What kind of listings would qualify to be part of an offer?

The minimum requirements for qualification in a special offer are:

  • Items must offer PayPal as one of the payment methods.
  • Items must be in fixed price format.
  • The buyer must purchase the item at the advertised price (Best Offer purchases are not eligible). The discount will be applied in the shopping cart.
  • When entering or selecting SKUs for SKU based offers, multi-variation (colour, size, style, etc.) items/listings must include the parent SKU ID to be eligible for the offer. Child variation IDs do not need to be added and will automatically be fetched per the parent SKU ID. If only the child SKU ID is included in the offer, this item will be ignored.

In addition, an item will qualify for inclusion as a related SKU in a Related Item Offer only if:

  • The listing offers free postage as one of the postage options.
How long does it take for my edits to take effect on a live offer?
Any changes you make to your offer will usually take effect immediately, but may take up to 15 minutes.
Can I change the items that qualify for an offer once it has been active?
You can edit inventory rules and the list of SKUs selected for your offer at any time. Remember, you must have at least one SKU listed within your offer once it has been active.
Can I schedule when to place my offer on hold or when to reactivate my offer?
The eBay tool for creating and managing promotions does not currently support the ability to schedule offers to be held or reactivated at a specific time. When you choose to place an offer on hold or resume an offer, it will take effect within 15 minutes.
Will my Related Item or Order Size Offer show up on other international eBay sites if my items offer worldwide postage? What if I list the same product on other international eBay sites?

The eBay tool for creating and managing promotions does not currently support global offers. If you have listings on eBay.com that offer worldwide postage and have also configured offers through the promotions tool on the US site, buyers will only see your offer if they browse eBay.com. If you list products on other international eBay sites, you will have to configure offers from the corresponding promotions tool sites separately.

  • US: http://cgi1.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ConfiguratorAccept
  • UK: http://cgi1.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ConfiguratorAccept
What is the limit of SKUs that can be listed in a Volume Offer?
You can list up to 500 SKUs with each Volume Offer.
What is bulk upload/edit? When should I use it?

If you want to create multiple offers and/or offers with a long list of SKUs, you can download a template (.csv), fill it out, upload, and multiple offers are created instantly.

For more details on how to use bulk upload/edit, please refer to the instruction manual.

How are the discounts calculated?
The total discount from your special offer will be applied to the buyer's order subtotal. The order discount is then itemised across all items (primary and related) applicable to the offer on a cost-weighted basis. This is an industry standard that's designed to protect sellers from buyers getting an item for a steep discount when returning the more expensive primary item. To prevent buyers from getting any discount when returning part of the order and no longer satisfy the discount conditions, update your Additional return policy details to indicate you don’t accept partial returns.
How are the discounts distributed?

The total discount from your special offer will be applied to the buyer's order subtotal. The order discount is then itemised across all items (primary and related) applicable to the offer on a cost-weighted basis. This is an industry standard that's designed to protect sellers from buyers getting an item for a steep discount when returning the more expensive primary item. To prevent buyers from getting any discount when returning part of the order and no longer satisfy the discount conditions, update your Additional return policy details to indicate you don’t accept partial returns.

How will final value fee be calculated?
The final value fee on your listing will be calculated based on the total amount of the sale, including the cost of the item after discount, postage, and any other fees a seller may charge.
What amount do I refund my buyer in case of a return?
You will be responsible for crediting what the buyer actually paid for the returned item, which would be the discounted item price. See "How are the discounts distributed?" for an example.
Will the individual items sold with a special offer appear as separate line items in order details?
All individual items sold with a special offer that have the same postage service will be grouped together as a single order in order details. You will continue to have the ability to provide one tracking number for all items in an order or provide different tracking numbers for individual item(s) in an order.
How do I consolidate bundled purchases into one order, so I can send the order in one box and reduce postage costs?
Make sure you've set the "Offer Combined Payments and Postage" preference to "Yes" in My eBay > Site Preferences > Postage Preferences. If you are directly integrating with the eBay API use eBay's GetOrders API (not GetTransactions API) or the hierarchy of orders versus items when using eBay's SoldReports API in Large Merchant Services. If you receive orders through Channel Advisor, in some circumstances bundled orders may be split into individual transactions.
In what order will items for my offer be displayed on the Item pages?
In order to enhance the relevance of cross-sold items that are displayed on the Item page, the eBay promotions tool will use an algorithm based on item price, postage price, and quantity sold to determine the order in which your configured items are displayed. If your items are new and do not have sales history on eBay, the promotions tool will use the order in which you provided the SKUs to determine the display position.
Will creating and managing promotions on eBay improve my position in Best Match on the search results page?
There's no "silver bullet" for getting a good position in search. Creating and promoting promotions on eBay will not directly give you an advantage in your listings' search results rank; however, sales of all items with a special offer will count as a sale for each item's listing. As a result, the listing will automatically move up in rank in Best Match over time as sale is taken into account in the Best Match algorithm.