Save to Inventory Feature - Changes Announced at Spring 2022 Seller Update

[dsnelnd]

At the March 10, 2022 Spring Seller Update, I heard the announcement that the Save To Inventory feature where you can remove items such as seasonal items from your active listings and preserve the titles, descriptions, photos, categories, item specifics, etc., so you can later bring that item back to active listings with the click of a button, is (a) going to only be available to those with Premium or higher level stores, and (b) not be available to new store subscribers, soon. I use and benefit greatly from moving some active items to inventory in my basic store where I sell Disney collectibles, many of which are seasonal in nature. For me, the decision is whether to pay an additional $38 per month JUST to have this feature, since I won't need any of the other features for Premium over Basic Stores. Of course quarterly I'll get $25 more in Ebay supplies, but that still makes it difficult for me to justify the added cost to each item I sell that I'll have to spread this $38 per month over.  If you haven't heard this info, go to youtube and search for Spring 2022 Seller Update in the Ebay for Business channel. It's a great hour long program, but if you only want to see this segment, scoot to 46 minutes and 46 seconds into the program and you'll hear about this. When will this happen? It sounds like soon. I'd like to delay upgrading my store as long as possible, but I don't want to lose my current inventory. What do you think? 

[slippinjimmy]

I think if you need this functionality and you have to upgrade to a Premium to get it the money could be better spent using a third party tool such as SixBit or WonderLister (there are a few others).

For the same amount of money you would get MUCH more bang for your buck (SixBit) or almost as much bang for less Dollars (WonderLister).

I'm a SixBit user, I have over 20 years of eBay activity available with just a few clicks.

[chapeau-noir]

I sell seasonally, also, and would also use a third party rather than paying for something for no other reason.  Depending on what you chose, you would get other perks such as longer archiving and not being dependent on a sometimes wobbly platform (eBay has been losing my listings for years, sometimes less than a month after I list them and regularly loses items far sooner than the 90 day lapse time).

As it is, I'm so small these days that I just c/p descriptions and photos into directories.  If I sold a lot more I'd probably go with a good third party.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I watched the video segment. It sounds like the feature is NOW available to Premium and Anchor Store subscribers, and will continue to be available to new subscribers for a short time, but afetr that, it will no longer be available to new subscribers of Premium and Anchor store, BUT they intend to make it more widely available at some indeterminate time "in the future." 

I'm going to make a guess here: this is currently a perk you get at those two store levels without paying anything additional. My guess---ONLY a guess---is this will be grandfathered in for sellers who subscribe while it is still available at those two levels, but...."in the future" it will be "more widely available" as a standalone feature for store (and maybe non-store) sellers, AT A PRICE. (Possibly determined by the number of inventory listings you create)  Of course, it could be made available for free, but....at this point, we don't know.

As others have said, I, too, use a third party tool (SixBit) which is not free but provides a lot of features along with the ability to retain created listings indefinitely. You might want to look into a third party tool , which might be cheaper in the long run. 

[chapeau-noir]

I've never trusted bolt-ons, and this new feature strikes me as a bolt-on.

[lacemaker3]

Inventory Management has always been part of Selling Management Pro, which was available free to subscribers of the higher level stores, and also available separately by subscription. However, I just checked while researching an answer to another thread, and you can't subscribe to either Selling Manager or Selling Manager Pro as a stand alone subscription any more.

As I read the Winter 2022 Selling Update, they are moving most of the Selling Manager Pro features to the Selling Hub, where they will be available for free to all sellers. However, Inventory Management will only be available to sellers who already have it, and new subscriptions to the higher level stores will not have access to Inventory Management.

So basically, sellers with higher level stores will be grandfathered in and will still be able to use Inventory Management, but new store subscriptions at that level will not be able to use Inventory Management. Presumably, those with standalone subscriptions will still be able to use it, but you can't sign up for this anymore.

I suspect that this feature will eventually be discontinued completely, but that remains to be seen.

[luckythewinner]

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

As I read the Winter 2022 Selling Update, they are moving most of the Selling Manager Pro features to the Selling Hub, where they will be available for free to all sellers

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You mean just like they promised that the functionality of Turbo Lister would be moved to the Seller Hub and be available for free? Fool me once, etc. 

[lacemaker3]

TurboLister was an offline tool, which could not be replicated  by an online tool like Seller Hub.

Selling Manager Pro is also an online tool, so it's quite feasible that they can simply  move the features from one to the other. As I understand it, the features from Selling Manager Pro that are being moved/retained should already be available in the Seller Hub.

Inventory management seems like a very useful tool, but I suspect it might not have been utilized that much. The main advantage seems to be the ability to save listings as inventory/templates indefinitely. But I don't recall anyone suggesting that a subscription to Selling Manager Pro would make that possible, whenever sellers were asking about how they could save their listings for more than 90 days.

[thepowersource]

I just noticed this when I was about to end some listing. And I gave it a try. It moves all of your listing to Unsold instead of deleting them. Nice feature.