Promote: Bumps and Sales

Promote is where you pay for visibility and run sales, in two tabs: Bumps and Sales.

Every change you make here goes to Reverb straight away.

Before you start

Add costs of goods to your listings, or set cost defaults in Settings → P&L Defaults. Without a cost, Verbstack cannot show a margin or check your margin floor, which you set in Settings → Pricing Policy.

Bumps

A Bump is Reverb's paid placement. Reverb charges only when a bumped listing sells. The fee is the rate you set, taken on the item price plus shipping.

Read the list

The Listings view shows every listing's bump state, impressions, units sold, spend and bump sales. Filter with the Bump group: All Listings, Live Listings, Bumped, Bump Off, Never Bumped or Underperforming (1,000 or more impressions while bumped, and no sale).

Bump a listing

1. Click the listing's row and drag the Bump Rate slider. It runs from 0.5% to 30% in 0.5% steps, and starts at the live rate, or 3.0%.
2. Read the breakdown under it.
3. Press Bump Listing, or Change Rate when it's already bumped.

What the breakdown shows

The table works down from the price to the profit:

Shipping Revenue and Revenue appear only when the buyer pays shipping.

Under the table, Verbstack writes how much of your profit the bump takes and whether the rate keeps your margin floor:

At 5.0%, gross margin after the bump is 28.4%, above your margin floor of 25.0%. The highest rate that keeps it is 8.5%.

Your margin floor is checked on Gross Margin After Bump, not Profit After Bump. Reverb's fees, shipping cost and supplies aren't part of it.

If the rate breaks a rule

Verbstack refuses the change, names the rule, and sends nothing to Reverb:

A 8.0% bump leaves a 21.3% gross margin (with your estimated cost of goods), below your margin floor of 25%.

Gibson MAP (New): bumps aren't allowed for Gibson (new).

Remove, refresh or read the history

Press Remove Bump to stop it on Reverb straight away, or Refresh from Reverb for its live figures. The History section lists every change, newest first, with bulk changes marked.

Bump many listings at once

1. Tick the listings and press Set Bump Rate or Remove Bumps.
2. For a rate, pick it, read the summary, and confirm.

The summary reads, for example: At 5.0%: lowest gross margin after the bump 22.1%, average 31.4%, plus how many fall below the floor. You can change up to 500 listings at once. Sold, ended and out-of-stock listings are left out and counted. Listings your pricing policy refuses stay as they are, with the reason.

Which listings you can bump

Only live listings with stock. Sold, ended and out-of-stock listings are read-only.

See how bumps are paying

1. On Bumps, pick Performance in the view menu.
2. Pick a period: Last 30 Days, Last 90 Days (the default), Year to Date or All Time.

You get bump spend, sales from bumps, and Gross Profit After Bump Fees with its margin. You also get a chart of the ten listings with the most bump spend, and a table by listing. With no bumped order in the period, Verbstack falls back to Reverb's lifetime figures ("All time" sub-lines). Gross Profit After Bump Fees then shows no figure, since those figures carry no cost of goods.

What Verbstack recommends

Verbstack compares a listing's days listed against how long similar items take to sell, softened by watchers and views:

• Sells slower: start or raise the bump.
• Sells faster: lower it.
• Well ahead: stop it.

A start never opens above your base rate (3% by default). A raise moves one 0.5% step per review.

Every recommended rate is capped where Gross Margin After Bump would fall below your floor, or Profit After Bump below $0. With no rate that keeps a profit, Verbstack starts nothing and recommends stopping a running bump. Your own bump is checked against the margin floor only. The no-loss cap shapes suggestions, never what you may do. Change the thresholds in Settings → Recommendations.

Sales

The Sales tab lists sales on your Reverb shop: Your sale or Reverb-sponsored, each Live, Scheduled or Ended. Create the sale itself on Reverb. Verbstack lists it after the next sync. Open Reverb's Sales Page shows when there are none yet.

Add listings to a sale

1. Click the sale's row, press Add Listings, and search by title, brand, SKU or category.
2. Read the Sale Price, Fees and Gross Margin for each listing.
3. Tick the listings you want, press Add N to Sale and confirm.

Verbstack shows the total discount if every listing sells, plus the average and lowest margin at the sale price. Listings your pricing policy refuses can't be ticked, and the reason is on the row.

Gross Margin is the sale price plus shipping, less cost of goods, as a share of the sale price plus shipping. It is the same measure your margin floor checks, so fees are not part of it. A listing under its margin floor is badged Below Floor. A cost from your cost defaults is marked Estimate. With no cost and no cost default, the listing reads Unverified.

Remove listings: tick them, press Remove N, then Remove from Sale. They return to full price on Reverb straight away.

Log advertising you pay for elsewhere

1. Open Sales → Ad Spend → Log Ad Spend.
2. Fill in the campaign name, amount, recurrence and dates, and press Log Spend.

This is not Reverb advertising. It is what you spend outside Reverb, counted in your Profit reports. Use the same campaign name to group spend together.

What needs a plan or a role

Editors and admins set and remove bumps, refresh from Reverb, and manage sale listings and ad spend. Viewers read, with the controls disabled. Only an admin changes margin floors or bump thresholds.

There is no "return on bump spend". Bump sales ÷ bump fees is always one divided by the rate, so it tells you nothing. A bump's worth is the profit and margin it leaves you, which every Promote view shows instead.

Three things people get wrong

• Bump Spend and Sales on the Listings view are all-time figures, not this month's. Use Performance for a period.
• Two margins mean different things. Gross Margin After Bump, which your floor checks, leaves out fees, shipping and supplies. Profit After Bump includes them. A bump can keep the floor and still lose money.
• A listing with no cost of goods and no cost default cannot be checked. The bump goes ahead, marked unverified.

Related

• Pricing Policy
• Recommendations and Approvals
• COGS Tracking