Wow, that was fast - BOOYOW!

As predicted at eBay Strategies yesterday (Ok, I said, Jan, guessed a little too late), eBay today rolled out a similar to the UK rewards program within the Powerseller program called "eBay Powerseller Challenge".

Here's how it works:

• You receive a 6-week sales target (aka the bogey)
• If you BEAT that target, you receive a 1% credit of the amount you exceed the target.
• You also are put in this $5k sweepstakes
• Example:
  • Sales target: $200k
  • Actual: $400k
  • Overage: $200k
  • $ back: $2k  (actually $1500 max - just read the fine-print)

So it's like getting a 10-20% ebay fee discount on the overage amount.  The key is to keep your fingers crossed for a low target that you can easily beat, we'll have to see how those come in.  In fact if you had two selling accounts, both with PS status - let's say one is 10k/m and the other is 200k/m - you could sign up in the 10k/m and then move all that gmv over there.  I'm sure eBay has some kind of catch for this gaming of the system though.

I think I like the UK promo better, but this will be interesting as it could solve some of the  problems (seasonality for example) with the UK promo.  It's interesting that the UK promo is based off of ebay invoice, this is more gmv focused.

In any case, I think it's excellent that eBay is testing around this area and helping sellers out this holiday selling season.

Note that this promo seems to be run by www.promotionexpert.com

More details:

• Sign up page: here.
• FAQ: here.
• Ts and Cs are here

Fine print gotchas that I found:

• Store format is excluded (SIF) (dang it!)
• NO cars or realestate (makes sense)
• Max of $1500 (dang it!)

Comments

[Christopher]

Yeah - Bunch of BS. At first glance I thought this was something I might be able to do. I was excited to think I could get some money back from ebay for a change. Then - the fine print. No store items included?! Would it kill them to help stores out some?

[Randy Smythe]

Well, it isn't the greatest plan but it is a step towards some form of seller rewards. For that I applaud eBay. In the 5 years I sold on the site they never came close to offering anything like this before. If eBay stops here then this is a joke and the cynical side of me will come out. For right now I am leaning toward the feeling this is a first step towards a wider program. eBay needs to listen to sellers about this program and find the best approach to making seller rewards (scaling of fees) a reality all year long.

[Billoment]

Well as I said earlier this is another con game from eBay. It is their lame attempt to boost the core listings. After the $0.10 promo last week the listing count dropped from the high 18 million to the low 15 million and falling. They are trying to keep the stock value up with these good guy type "deals".
It will be very interesting to see what happens with the 4th quarter results. Also we should keep an eye on the insider sales in the next month or so. Should be very interesting.

Bill

[Beyond the Treeline]

The feedback on this is *not* good ... Sell PowerSeller and community boards for details.

Apparantly Store inventory is used as part of the "target" calculation, but that same inventory cannot be used to exceed the target.

Many users report that the six-week + 10% ratio is wildly off target, and that targets themselves are arbitrarily assigned, at best. Have yet to find a user that is impressed with the program in its current state.

[Mic]

Here is the company that seems to help them (not only on this promo): Strobe Promotions

[John]

I have been selling on ebay for several years, and this is the first instance of their running a promo that could be of dollars-and-sense benefit to me. This is not like - "Spend $3,000 on our keyword deal and you MAY achieve higher sales ...no, we don't know how to measure its effectiveness." Kind of blows me away, even in light of the weasel word conditions. The CFO and his bean counters must be away at a seminar...

[Billoment]

Well this is worth absolutely nothing. I signed up and it gave me my target and it was based on all sales for an average 6 weeks. Since 60% to 70% of my sales are out of our store this whole thing is worthless and another pure publicity stunt by eBay. What a bunch of dolts: "Oh we will give money back to you for being a loyal supporter but what you have to do is absolutely impossible aren't we nice!"
Another slap in the face from the mighty feeBay.

Bill