Changes to Adverts.ie's free bump

NuMarvel

For those of you who use Adverts.ie and don't already know, they've changed how the free basic bumps work with effect from yesterday. And it’s going to cause problems if you have any ads that were bumped more than 30 days ago.

Before, you could only get a basic bump after 30 days, but it was free with no limits. Now, they’ve changed it so that an ad can get a basic bump at any time for a €1 charge. If it’s been more than 30 days since the last bump, you’ll also get a temporary €1 credit that can be used against a basic bump. So in effect, the aim is that the basic bump is still “free”, albeit only for the duration of the temporary credit.

Unfortunately, this isn’t applying retrospectively. So you only get the €1 credit for ads that pass the 30-day mark from yesterday onwards. If you had ads that were passed the 30-day mark before then, you don’t get any credit. I’m also not clear what happens it you relist an ad that was withdrawn more than 30 days ago. And because they didn’t give anyone advance notice of the change, no one was in a position to bump any old ads before the change happened.

I’ve contacted Adverts to try and get answers to these questions, but to no avail. They’ll just repeat what’s on the new help page, which doesn’t address what happens for ads that were already passed the 30-day mark. They’ve also ignored my question as to why they didn’t tell people before the change.

I think it would have been far simpler to change it so that a basic bump costs €1 in the first 30 days since the last bump and is just free afterwards. No messing around with temporary credits or the like. It would have given users more options without removing what’s already there.

TheGunns

Seems to read to me like you only get 1 free credit every 30 days no matter how many ads you have that go over the 30 days, is that right? Or is it you get 1 per ad?

Also can't seem to relist ads anymore, not sure if it's a mobile issue or new change

kirk.

Time for the regulator to step in..

Seriously though it's just a commercial decision , like so what I saw it and didn't think twice about it ?

magicbastarder

meh. free service has slight reduction in free functionality.

i suspect the OP may have more luck getting a response from them if he's actually a paying customer. otherwise they've little to gain by replying to him, it won't be revenue foregone.

Nodferatu

I'm done with Adverts now. Contacted them about it giot no response. Final nail in the coffin for me. Never even notified us customers that used the website. Pathetic.

NuMarvel

I finally got a reply from Support last week that actually responded to my questions.

They said they didn't give advance notice because they find it's better to "present the changes when in place". I think that's fine for cosmetic changes, but this is a pretty significant alteration in how the site works, so I think most people would agree they'd prefer to be told before instead of trying to figure it out afterwards. I notice they still haven't issued anything to users about the change, and have also removed the link to the help page from the bump pop-up. It's here for future reference https://help.adverts.ie/hc/en-us/articles/360001336969-How-they-work

They said the lack of retrospective credit was an "oversight", but they bumped the ads that were missed. Yeah, sure, "oversight" 🙄. I can confirm that they did bump the missed ads, so they got something right.

And they say that relisting a withdrawn ad still works as normal. I can't disagree with that point, but only because I haven't tried it myself yet.

@TheGunns, the credit is per ad. So if you have 3 ads that go past the 30 day mark all on the same day, you'll get €3 credit, and not just one. Or at least, you're supposed to. For the last few days, mine hasn't been working out properly. Hopefully I'll have better luck this time getting a straight answer out of Support.

NuMarvel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118286766#Comment_118286766

Thing is, the way they're dealing with it means I won't be a paying customer in the future. I'm never likely to be a business or shop, but I've paid for Priority and Premium bumps in the past. They way they handled this means that's not going to happen in the future. That's definitely not going to be enough to put them out of business or anything, but it's still less money in the bank for them.

As I said before, I can see what they were trying to do (i.e. increase their revenue with another form of paid bump), and if it was implemented and communicated properly, I would probably have used that too from time to time.

TheGunns

Relisting ads now working for me again, so no issue there.

It's not as bad as I initially thought, getting credits instead means you can decide to bump all ads that expired or premium bump one instead for example. Don't like the way they did it though, should really have been some warning

NuMarvel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118345662#Comment_118345662

I don't think the credit can be used towards other types of bumps, just the basic bump after 30 days, i.e. ads that would have been free under the old system. At the very least, I'd suggest checking with Support before anyone does that.

LillySV

Once donedeal bought them over , that was the start of the end for them… no competition whatsoever now and they increasing the costs… lots moving over to Facebook marketplace … it’s free so donedeal going to pay for it in long run when everyone goes this way

ShazzM

I was told that you have 10 days to use your free bump credit. I normally bump daily to stay on top of it. However I had my shop off for 5 days when I took holidays and made sure to turn it make on after day 5 just in case there was a problem and now I see I would have to pay nearly €300 to bump some of my Adverts which isn't going to happen as I was told 10 days.

The free bumps haven't worked properly for me since day one. Always an issue and very hard to get help from the support system . Shame really. I enjoyed trading on Adverts but the new system is greedy. Shop Accounts on Adverts already pay fees to Adverts Monthly. Seems like a lot of us are having a similar experience with Adverts.

tuttidafrutti

I bought credit of €50.00 on 11/01/2016 to pay for fees before they were abolished by adverts.

I had a credit balance of €17.00 prior to the bump credit coming into place.

This has been in my account for a few years MOD- <SNIP>Please don't use language like that.

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I have over 2000 ads and I spread out my bumping of the ads over the 90days, so I got cought out.

At the moment I have over 500 hads I cant bump for free and its saying my credit is currently -€314.

whiterebel

What did Adverts say about it?

SonOfTheBear

Anyone get any resolution on this?

Per adverts rules free credit will expire after 10 days. 

My credit is only lasting less than a day (estimate about 16 hours) rather than the 10 days (240 hours). Getting frustrated with adverts support.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118286766#Comment_118286766

if you change how something is charged with out telling them sounds more like a means to catch people out.

TheGunns

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118701014#Comment_118701014

Are you bumping/creating/marking as sold new ads whole you have credit? I think this was causing issues with the credit for me

SonOfTheBear

I have been creating ads, also mark as sold when they are sold however I have tried days where I haven't done either listed or marked items as sold but still seem to loose credit.

I get credit at about 08:00 (yesterday it was €40). I used €20 during the day to bump ads. Went to bump others after midnight and the balancing €20 credit was gone however that should have lasted over another 6 days!

Flinty997

Life too short for this messing...

NuMarvel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118701014#Comment_118701014

A few weeks back, someone on Support suggested I try bumping by clicking on the links in the emails, and I have to say that seems to work. Since I started doing it that way, I haven't lost any credit, though so far the longest I've left an ad unbumped is 5 or 6 days.