250 items per month free listing limit
Any idea why Ebay has this limit? You'd think the more a seller would try and sell, the more money Ebay could make. Is there a way to not have this limit on my account. Other platforms have unlimited free listings
17 comments
stephenmorgan
·1 year agoAs other have said you can open additional accounts. Each account would need to have its own eMail account. Two accounts could get you 500 listings, three account 750 listings and so on.
Another way is if your items are allowed to be sold using Variation Listings then you could have 1000's of items listed and still keep with the 250 listing limit.
stainlessenginecovers
·1 year agoWhat's amazing is: 20 years ago, the 'listing' fee to list 1 item was:
.10c for items under $9.99
.25c for items over $9.99
etc. etc.
There were NO free listings.
Since the 1800's there has been a FEE to list in
magazines
books
newspapers
The 'autotrader' 'greensheet' 'whitesheet' etc. had a FEE to advertise your item or service, upwards of 100's of dollars per day, week etc.
If there was NOT a limit, the site would have 200 BILLION listings because people would list the broken pencils in the cup on the desk, used kleenex, empty water bottles etc etc.
There HAS to be SOME type of control.
Even more important, get a store for $25 a month and have 1000 free listings, with 10,000 free auctions AND get 1% Lower Final Value Fees.
lan20fan
OP1 year agoI guess I can see paying if selling was my business. It's not. I'm just trying to purge things. I don't live by the motto spend money to make money. I guess I'm not in the majority
onefootflipper
·1 year agoJust open a second account. They don't care.
If they let you have unlimited free listings then the website would immediately be overrun by entirely machine driven accounts that would copy other listings, other wbesites, etc, increase the price 20 percent. Have the original seller or website ship to their customers and make a fortune on the 6 percent spread.
Normally listing something 20 percent more has a very low chance of success, but when you can do it millions of times over then suddenly you are making a fortune.
Even if they kept that from happening. Account listing limits are literally the only thing stopping some sellers from overrunning the website with listings that will never sell. Sure, you might only have 400 listings, but there are people out there with 70 year sell through rates that are only held back from listing more by the limit on their account.
mam98031
·1 year agoI get the resistance to calling yourself a business. But you are a Business. There is no personal transactions on Ebay, every single one is a business transaction. And you need to claim your sales / income from selling online to the IRS on your Federal tax return. Whether you end up profiting $10 or $10,000, it is reportable income.
You will spend money to make money if you sell on the internet. There is no way around it. Heck you would have to spend to make even if you had your own website. Things cost money. Services that Ebay offers cost money. Shipping costs money. Sourcing your inventory costs money.
buyselljack2016
·1 year agoBeen doing since 2001.
As you know, back then we did not get 250 "free" listings, and sometimes we paid extra to have enough photos to show what we were selling.
Even before the 250 I had more than one selling account. Separated my selling by category inventory.
Time was that I could have 750 "free" listings. Still can, (don't) so "no limit" on my account(s) stopping me from listing as much as I want.
onefootflipper
·1 year agoThey limit the number of free listings so the website doesn't get bogged down with crap that is never going to sell and automated dropshipping stores that swell to unlimited size.
Other platforms also don't sell much. A week ago I copied 40 of my ebay hat listings onto another website, but I reduced them all to around $6.40 free shipping. (Basically giving them away for free after the fees, shipping and box cost). In the last week zero of those hats sold, however 2 of them sold on ebay where the customers paid an average of $14 shipped for them and I had to pull those 2 from the other site.
Why am I giving away free hats? I just want to get unlimited listings on that website so I can make videos about crosslisting statistics. I need more sales before it lets me have as many listings as I want.
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoEbay used to charge a listing fee for every listing.
Sell through rates for many sellers were so low that they decided to stop selling on Ebay.
Ebay experimented with a variety of levels of free listings and decided that 250/mo was best for Ebay, with certain categories selected for a higher number of free listings when a seller has an Ebay store.
Ebay has people who can use a spreadsheet and work the numbers. And they have plenty of data they can use to calculate sell-through rates.
This is a straight forward decision making process, but not as simple as you think it is. You just want a chance to make money without risking any of your own. Your interests does not match Ebay's interest or the interests of many other sellers.
lan20fan
OP1 year agoBy restricting free listings, they reduce available listings, and that reduces sales and Ebay's profits. Wonder how Mercari and Poshmark stay afloat without limits?
jonathanbrightlight
·1 year agoFree listings have nothing to do with how many items you can list. Your listing limits are entirely separate from your free insertions. Most sellers wishing to list more than 250-300 listings don't hesitate to pay for a store subscription in order to save money, but even without that you have a very different limit to how many items you're allowed to list.
mam98031
·1 year agoThis site has 1.5 to 2 BILLION listings active on the site on any given day. More listings is not this site's issue. Getting more buyers to come in and shop is the challenge.
When if is free listing fees for an unlimited amount it leans to getting a bunch of junk posted on the site. Sure many sellers will post good stuff that buyers actually might be interested in. But some sellers would just post anything and everything they could find whether it had value or not. Then buyers would have to weed through that many times to find what they are looking for. That can be very frustrating for a buyer.
Having a store saves a seller money as long as they are regularly going to have 300+ active BIN listings. That would be the Basic store for these sellers. There are benefits to having a store that more than pays for the cost of the store, so they are a good value too.
stuff4divas
·1 year ago@lan20fan so that's good for u to list on other platforms with the unlimited free listings
each business conducts themselves differently
lan20fan
OP1 year agoSo unless I do the store subscription, the max free listings a month is 250? I guess I still don't understand why they would limit the amount of free listings in the first place. I've been a member for 26 years.
buyselljack2016
·1 year agoCosts money to operate eBay.
eBay is here to make money for eBay (shareholders)
Everything for "free" does not equate to a good business model.
The more money eBay makes for store fees/listing fees the better for eBay's bottom line.
eta:
I don't list my things to lose money. eBay operates their business the same way. To make money.
Unlimited "free" listings equates to a larger "glut" of garbage (not speaking of your actions) being listed because its "free" to do so.
jonathanbrightlight
·1 year agoI don't understand the question. This is not a free place to sell items. One of the costs is for listing insertions, but you get 250 free to get you started. I would be grateful that they're not all charged the same up front.
postcardcountry
·1 year agoThere was a time when it was 300 free listings. And another time when it was 100 free listings. Emphasis on stores has varied as well.
There have been all sorts of changes to eBay in 26 years.
jonathanbrightlight
·1 year agoYou are not typically limited to 250 listings, you just only get 250 free insertions/relistings. Your listing limits are completely separate from that and can be found on your Seller Hub (unless you have been selling long enough and well enough that they removed your listing limits, which is the case with our selling account). You can pay for a store subscription if you'd like to have more insertions without paying per listing.