eBay Updates Daily Deals Experience For Sellers

During a session at eBay Open Online, Audrey Zwibleman, GM Deals & Brand Outlet, gave a preview of upcoming changes to the eBay Daily Deals program.

As I noted at the time, I was interested to see they were planning to overhaul the Deals experience for sellers. I've participated in eBay Deals in the past and absolutely agree the existing process involved far too much manual effort, lack of reporting, and lack of support.

It looks like eBay is finally starting to roll out the new Deals experience to select sellers, as reported by EcommerceBytes earlier today.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Deals program - this is an invitation only program that gives select sellers access to special promotional areas that are featured at the top of every eBay page.  Audrey stated in her presentation that Deals is the second most trafficked URL on the eBay site!

Interesting to note that the Trending Deal today was a link to the eBay shipping supply store (store subscribers receive quarterly coupons they can use to purchase shipping supplies from this vendor, so presumably they would have seen a recent influx in orders as sellers rushed to use the coupon at end of Q3 before it expired.)

eBay also appears to be using the Daily Deals section to heavily promote items in their Certified Refurbished program.

Side note - eBay clearly needs to do a better job vetting some of these sellers. I found multiple listings from this seller featured in the Deals section that violate eBay's presale policies which state among other requirements that items must ship within 30 days.

This listing says it will be available to ship in 3-6 weeks (possibly outside the 30 day requirement).  Also the picture is obviously a stock photo and there is a note in the description stating "photo is representative only" which does not match the part of the condition notes that says "we do not use stock images - all photos are of the actual item."

How does the Deals program work?

Typically eBay approaches high volume sellers to participate in the Deals program. The exact terms of participation are not published publicly and are usually tailored specifically to the seller based on things like volume, depth and breadth of inventory offered, ability to offer discounted pricing, and other criteria.

Deals sellers may also be required to sign non-disclosure agreements, especially in cases where eBay may offer subsidies to cover the discounted prices sellers offer on Deals.

My previous experience with the Deals program was a very cumbersome manual process which required sellers to submit Deals information in spreadsheet format to be reviewed and accepted by eBay. There was no reporting or access to data to analyze the performance of your Deals beyond the basic reporting you will find for all sales in Seller Hub.

Audrey indicated the new portal will automate much of the application and submission process, provide more real time updates and feedback on item eligibility, and provide more in depth reporting (coming in Q1 2022).

Sellers won't want to miss this slide from the end of the video highlighting eBay's Q4/Holiday promotional merchandising plans.

As expected, eBay is putting an emphasis on its "vertical strategy" categories like sneakers, trading cards, and lux categories (watches and handbags) but it's also interesting to see the focus on personalized gifts.

What do you think of eBay Daily Deals as either a buyer or a seller? Let us know in the comments. 👇

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