eBay Email Preference Update Irks Sellers Flooded Marketing Spam & Promoted Listings Push

As eBay's incessant need to keep revenue growing continues, sellers have been flooded with a constant barrage of promotions, marketing banners, fee discounts and popups exhorting them to use Promoted Listings advertising or other tools to boost sales, leading to increased pushback in recent months with sellers turning to the community forums looking for advice on how to stop the spam.

Can't unsubscribe from eBay's internal "promo" messages?

I'm getting bombarded by eBay's nag advertisement messages. Not emails, only messages that appear under: My eBay \ Messages. There's no unscribe link in the messages, maybe because they're internal to eBay and not emails.

I have everything unchecked under: My eBay \ Account \ Communication Preferences \ Promotions and Surveys, except "surveys and research" which is something different.

Any idea how to stop getting this junk?

I am also having this issue. The internal ebay promotions are so excessive it is difficult to find legitimate communications that I actually need. Like you, I have everything unchecked in promotions and marketing, but presumably they believe that saturating the internal site In-box is immune from these settings.

There seems to be no way to disable them. I can't believe they don't at least filter them into a dedicated stream. I have all but stopped using ebay because of it.

Common sense would suggest this problem should be easily solved by editing one's Communication Preference settings - but as these (and many other) sellers have experienced, even unchecking all of the boxes for the various types of communication under these settings often doesn't stop the annoying messages.

And now eBay has informed users they've made an update to email preferences which appears like it might make opting out of marketing messages targeted to sellers even more difficult.

Here's what eBay says is changing about how the communicate with users:

We want you to have a seamless experience with us, so we’re changing how we communicate with you.

What’s new?
We’re removing the Selling Promotions option from our Communications Preferences center. This will streamline the information and updates you receive from us.

What this means for you
You are now subscribed to our general marketing communications, which means you’ll receive emails on deals, selling tips, inspiration, and more. Not for you? Just unsubscribe below.

That sounds fairly straightforward and easy to unsubscribe from in theory - but when comparing the old settings to the new settings, you can quickly see it's not so simple after all.

Old Communication Preferences

The previous settings had 5 options, with general email promotions as a separate selection from seller email promotions.

In theory that would have allowed a user to select to receive fee and listing discounts, selling tips and selling news without also receiving the more general marketing emails about hot new listings or buyer facing discounts, deal and events - or vice versa.

New Communication Preferences

The new settings have only 4 options - and it appears eBay has simply stuffed much of the previously separate Seller promotions under the General heading instead.

So now if you still want to receive notifications about tips, events, and discounts related to selling, you also must accept receiving the more general notices as well and again, vice versa - if you want the general notices but not the selling related ones, you're now apparently out of luck.

The update was met with negative reactions across social media, with users expressing frustration at having their previous settings ignored or changed rather than respecting previous opt outs.

What do you think about eBay's email communication preference updates? Let us know in the comments below!