EBAY & SALES How Do Buyers Know It's On Sale? Only When They View Item!

It just came to my attention that on eBay when people search or browse if you happen to have an item on sale they are NOT seeing the sale price on the list they are viewing. Customers have to actually click into your item then they will see the sale price inside your listing. This piece of information was a bit disheartening as far as my big plan for running sales from now until Christmas goes. I must say though no sooner did I learn of this then I also learned hours later that eBay had been alerted to the talk in FaceBook groups of this concern and were basically putting thought into making it better. Good to know eBay is listening and also taking sellers concerns seriously. 

So now today I was supposed to be working on my own Friday challenge on a FaceBook group that I recently started "Let's Get eBay Motivated" (a motivational group for sellers to help each other, well keep motivated).... I have only managed 7 new listings today because much of the day was spent brainstorming ideas and doing a little research on new ways that I am not currently using to help get the word out that we are running this big holiday sales. I already use FaceBook, Twitter, and I really just haven't delved too much into the Pinterest thing, it just doesn't seem to be my thing. I did manage to come up with a couple of ideas. One is just mostly putting an old idea into action finally and the other is a play on an old idea I used to do years ago, but a bit of a spin on it. 

The first thing that came to mind was utilizing YouTube finally. I have used it a couple of times to show that battery operated toys were working properly and what they did. I have also used it to make a couple little videos about scrapping/recycling metal for cash (something else we do), and of course I dipped into recording and uploading thrift & yard sale hauls. I am planning now however to make some videos to help promote the news of our holiday sales & the big savings to be found. I am still playing with ideas though as I know it can't just be "Come see our sale" nobody wants to watch that. Have to either come up with something silly or informative to draw people in THEN let them know about our eBay store & big sales..... 

Then the other thought I actually did start putting into action tonight. Totally up in the air how it will go, but I don't stand to lose too much if it is a complete flop. Penny Auctions WITH Free Shipping too! I know its a little risky. I did it with small inexpensive items that are very lightweight with First Class USPS shipping. I put 4 of these up tonight so far and am going to add 2 more before I head to bed tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest. In the title I put briefly what the item is but also used a lot of that normally precious keyword space in title to mention the holiday sales and the words KICK OFF letting buyers know these penny listings are to kick off holiday savings in our eBay store. Inside the listings I also added info about the sales as well and a link to our store so they can click through easily and see what the discounts are, on what items, and how deep those discounts are..... We shall see how this goes. I have high hopes that it will at least not be a total waste of time & money though. 

These are the listings I put up already:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toy-Frogs-PENNY-1-Cent-KICK-OFF-Our-Huge-Holiday-SALE-Store-FREE-SHIPPING-/261337080338?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cd8e76212

http://www.ebay.com/itm/6-PINK-Girls-STAR-WANDS-Party-One-Cent-PENNY-Holiday-HUGE-SALE-FREE-SHIPPING-/261337114406?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cd8e7e726


 http://www.ebay.com/itm/PALM-TREE-Ice-Cube-Tray-PENNY-1-Cent-KICK-OFF-Holiday-HUGE-SALE-FREE-SHIPPING-/261337100780?pt=Bar_Tools_Accessories&hash=item3cd8e7b1ec


  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pink-Purple-SNOOPY-Duo-Lip-Gloss-1-Cent-PENNY-Holiday-HUGE-SALE-FREE-SHIPPING-/251386259140?pt=US_Makeup_Lips&hash=item3a87c9e6c4

I am going to add two more tomorrow for a lipstick and a body glitter roll on key chain. The main goal of these is to attract buyers into our listings so they then click on our store link to view & see about the sales going on at the time. Fingers crossed.... Looking forward to eBay adjusting how the sales currently work though so that our customers actually will see the sale price reflected on the list that comes up when they browse or search on the site. 

Any thoughts, ideas, questions, etc. Please leave a comment. I love hearing from everyone! 
Now I am heading back on over to eBay to do a little more work before heading to bed and calling it a wrap for the night...... Nice to be back to blogging :)  

UPDATE as of 12/9/2013  Since writing this I have noticed many times now where the correct price when on sale is showing up when searching eBay for an item. I am not 100% sure if this is permanently corrected on all listings/sales or if it is something eBay is playing around with the idea of implementing and it is not showing on all yet. I am going to look into it further and will update accordingly. I am happy to be able to post this update however that at least it is looking like now when we run a sale the buyers when browsing eBay will see the ACTUAL SALES price without having to actually click on the item before the price showing up. If this continues this way I will be very thankful. 

People say that eBay does not listen to it's sellers but I beg to differ. I know that certain eBay employees actually frequent eBay groups on FaceBook and do read what we are saying and do actually try to work in the ideas that they are able to and that make sense to help eBay grow. Also when eBay sends the surveys, don't ignore them. Tell them your ideas, let them know how you feel. What is on your mind could very well be on hundreds of others and if thousands of members are saying the same thing eBay will notice and try to accommodate when feasible. You might just be one person, but together when speaking up our voices our very loud!!! 

One other thing since writing this. I have been making use of Pinterest a bit more in the last couple of weeks. I am not 100% sure of how much of a difference it will make in the long run, but I have seen some short term results. Nothing concrete however when I pin things it is bringing in traffic and I do know for sure a couple of buyers had found me because of coming across my pins/boards and they followed the item over to eBay. So I will continue to utilize them as part of my social media marketing.