Anyone worried the 50K free listings will hurt their sales and cause issues on ebay?

[brettyg599]

I find some big issues with the free 50K listings to everyone. 

1. For those of us that pay $300 for anchor store probably have as many free listings as we want, and with this new promo a starter store for $8 can list as many items as they choose with no item listing fee.  That doesn't really seem fair to me, and allows lots of competition in the categories I sell without the sellers incurring any risk in listing. I am literally paying $300 the next 2 months for no reason considering I could get the same out of a basic level store for $8. 

2. The servers have had trouble loading certain pages for months as well as lots of other technical glitches. Can the servers handle a huge increase in total number of listings especially in light of a lot of the employees are home because of COVID 19. IF a serious problem arises will there even be employees to fix the server?

3. If ebay wants to help us during this crisis why not give a discount or a free month of whatever level store you currently have? I mean they are cutting support down pretty heavy so they can actually justify less of a price since we are getting less service for the same price since phone call support is down.

4.This seems like another ploy by ebay to increase profits as much as they can without ever having to make a sale. I assume they are hoping after the 2 months free people will either forget to end their listings or decide to keep them active and start to pay the listing fee, which if they don't have a large store even 1000 items would add up super fast in fees.

What is everyones thoughts on this, is it really helping anyone? Why is the number so huge 50000? What percent of sellers on ebay list more than say 2000? Has to be only the top 1% of mega sellers list anything in that volume.  The other thing I can think of is drop shippers it benefits. Goodluck all, and stay safe!

[upgradedendmills]

Your post makes a lot of sense. I have always thought that promos with mega numbers only encourage people to list more junk than desirable items. I am grateful for the promo and will use it as best I can to try to stay even with my sales. I think a more reasonable promo would have been to double the amount of listings that existing store owners are already paying for. No matter what eBay does, it will not be enough for some sellers.

[chapeau-noir]

Maybe it's to get a lot of the Amazon sellers on board who can't sell on Amazon (FBA) right now.  Store owners and mega big listings?  Makes sense to me.

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-amazon-suspends-all-non-essential-shipments-to-warehouse...

[myboardid]

I would speculate that a seller with a basic store would not own, nor would have access to anywhere near 50,000 items to list.

[fun-snowbunny]

Just a heads up, I don't have a store and I didn't get any free listings at all.  So not everyone got the free ones. 

[mam98031]

It would take an incredible amount of work to create anywhere close to 50k in listings.  Not to mention that only a few would have inventory at such a level to even consider trying to get all those listings used up.  Then they need to make sure they end them at the end them before they roll into the next month where they would have fees on all those listings.

While I'm confident lots of sellers will use some of those listing.  50k is a pie in the sky number and not likely to be used up by many.

Ebay's profits only increase if there are actually sales.  Flooding the site with listings isn't going to help if people to come and shop.  Ebay needs to be advertising and bringing in the buyers.  Reminding them that we are still here, ready and willing to ship products.

[slippinjimmy]

This theory (site glut) has been around since the time when eBay started regularly handing out free listings (around 2012?).

For a number of years I would check the listing counts for a few categories to see what effect they actually had. While it may vary a lot I fount that listings only increased by about 5% and that was back in the days when eBay had about 25% of the listings they currently have.

Back in those days many of the promos were for very large numbers of listings including the somewhat odd 500,000 free!

[mam98031]

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@slippinjimmy wrote:

This theory (site glut) has been around since the time when eBay started regularly handing out free listings (around 2012?).

For a number of years I would check the listing counts for a few categories to see what effect they actually had. While it may vary a lot I fount that listings only increased by about 5% and that was back in the days when eBay had about 25% of the listings they currently have.

Back in those days many of the promos were for very large numbers of listings including the somewhat odd 500,000 free!

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YES.

But I can't even imagine how much time it would take to create 50,000 listings.  Pics, descriptions and finding that many things to sell.  Seems like a crazy job with way to much work to have to close them before they start auto renewing.

[chapeau-noir]

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@slippinjimmy wrote:

This theory (site glut) has been around since the time when eBay started regularly handing out free listings (around 2012?).

For a number of years I would check the listing counts for a few categories to see what effect they actually had. While it may vary a lot I fount that listings only increased by about 5% and that was back in the days when eBay had about 25% of the listings they currently have.

Back in those days many of the promos were for very large numbers of listings including the somewhat odd 500,000 free!

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At least in the several categories I used, it did make a difference - both an aggregate increase in items listed (because people would dump all of their old stuff in), but when one- and three-day listings were still included, they would list and end - relist and end - relist and end daily through the entire campaign (usually about a week) so that buyers had to look at the same old recurring stuff day after day.

I think we're going to see a lot of Amazon sellers here, that's all.

[go-bad-chicken]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@slippinjimmy wrote:

This theory (site glut) has been around since the time when eBay started regularly handing out free listings (around 2012?).

For a number of years I would check the listing counts for a few categories to see what effect they actually had. While it may vary a lot I fount that listings only increased by about 5% and that was back in the days when eBay had about 25% of the listings they currently have.

Back in those days many of the promos were for very large numbers of listings including the somewhat odd 500,000 free!

---

YES.

But I can't even imagine how much time it would take to create 50,000 listings.  Pics, descriptions and finding that many things to sell.  Seems like a crazy job with way to much work to have to close them before they start auto renewing.

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It takes nothing to list 50,000 items if you already have those listings sitting in a 3rd party listing manager ready to deploy the moment that eBay gives out large promos like these. As we speak the Book Category is literally getting carpet bombed by the big bot warehouse book sellers.

Here is just one seller who has dropped over 10,000 book listings in less than 5 hours. I could not search over 10,000 "Newly Listed" books as eBay's little AI brain was over heating, at least not without me choosing to refine my search and breaking the search down into sub categories.

And this is just 1 book seller.

[nilis13]

I agree with you 100%!!! Could not have said it any better...thank you!

[outdatedrecreated]

I have to be honest and say that I have been one of eBay's biggest critics over the last 18 months for all of the very documented reasons. I also completely understand your concerns and especially regarding their infrastructure which has been unimpressive to say the least. That being said, I am appreciative of the fact that they are even acknowledging that there is an issue going on with a significant impact. Their previous attitude has always been to completely ignore very obvious issues, or make excuses when they cannot outright ignore the problem. When I saw the announcement for the 50,000 listing thing, I was genuinely puzzled initially but the more I thought about it from a big picture point of view I think it is one of the better strategic decisions they have made for this reason: Amazon is not doing FBA right now. Those of us who are more experienced all know how many sellers have migrated to Amazon for many justifiable reasons, and many of us are selling on both platforms. There are a huge number of FBA sellers that are genuinely angry. Many are afraid to come right out and call them out because of their track record of squashing competitors to their own "basics" products, as well as their well documented habit of retribution against anyone who is critical in any way. Strategically it can be a very great play to gain market share back and dangling that carrot to high volume sellers is a great way to do it, especially with their own fulfillment push. My biggest concern about it is their execution which they have not been very good at. But, if they are able to execute, many sellers who have written them off completely may have a change in their attitudes simply because Amazon has not shown any flexibility. eBay is for the first time in along time being at least a little flexible. Could they do more? Sure they can! The issue you have raised is a very legitimate one. But don't forget that there are perks that a larger store will have that basic stores do not. Whether the value of the perks is worth the cost of it will vary greatly. They do seem to be doing more than they ever have before. I genuinely hope this is a sign of greater things to come. Only time will tell.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Why is the number so huge 50000?

As you say, very few sellers will be able to use this full amount. Forget the 50,000 number: In practice, this will be a fully customizable listing promo where the seller decides how many freebies he gets in March and April. Can you use 50? You got 'em. 500? 5,000? Here they are. In other words, any regular store seller can list as many listings as he wants between now and the end of April without having to think about his store limit or listing fees. At the end of April, he needs to evaluate whether to keep all the listings or end some (because of the rollover) But until then, list without worrying about listing fees.

I'm not going to sorry about the site getting inundated with listings. In some categories, sure, that will happen. But other sellers will probably stop listing entirely, for any number of reasons. So I say let's wait and see. And, as for me, I'm going to list.

[m60driver]

Doesn't bother me that Ebay has given me well over two hundred times more free listings then I could possibly use.  Basically it is just unlimited free listings for everyone except the largest of sellers who already have minimal listing fees (5¢) after their store exemptions.  I only have a starter store, I am a nano seller, but over the past two days I have relisted nearly all of my low priced dead inventory that has been sitting around waiting for such bonus free listings.  And you know what, this week my mid-week sales have been relatively robust.  Of course I am just trying to turn this old inventory into cash by selling at what would be my cost after fees and shipping.  Better to have cash in hand rather than dead stock on your shelves.  Goes back to the first rule of retail: take your first loss.

[cynthealee2]

I'm confused...

If Amazon isn't doing FBA, then what good does it do for those sellers to list the same books on here? (or same items).

By definition FBA means Amazon has the items in Amazon's warehouses and the sellers don't have them stored in their house or their own warehouses so if the items sell how on earth are they going to get the items to send to their buyers?

If the sellers actually have the item or access to their items, and create them on third party listers (like Auctiva), it's a mere click or 2 to change where they are listed and the amounts have no meaning (if I sold on Amazon I could, with 2-3 clicks, put my entire inventory over there within minutes, which Auctiva is begging me to do weekly) So in theory dropping 50K listings on eBay wouldn't be that hard at all. And from what I can tell Auctiva (at least) will keep up with your stuff so that if one sells on one site it auto pulls if from the other... Can't swear to that though as I haven't read enough about is since I don't want to sell anywhere BUT here to start with.

Back before photobucket went stupid and the store level I have only had 500 listings, I had 2-3k worth of listings stored on Auctiva just for these promos to come around.  Soon as they started I'd get those going and get another 2-300 built as the promo was going.  I'd sell 15-20 comics, craft things, bro's collectibles ect every time, and since (at the time) storage for the listings and pics were free was no skin off my back to do so.

Once photobucket went stupid and due to other factors ate 90% of those pics before I could get em transferred, and the fact that Auctiva only gives me 1G of 'free' pic storage most of those have either been completely pulled or with the comics I turned 2K listings into 500 (or less) MVL and they are listed full time on eBay to start with. Ebay hasn't had a large listing promo like this in years so I wasn't in any hurry to get them all back up and working...

But Hey I'm stuck at home and so are the kids, and the items are (for the most part) still in the basement along with new stuff I'll get it going again.  Biggest thing is still going to be redoing of the pics, but photobucket taught me a lesson, and I am saving all the new pics, scans, and what not on my terra bite hard drive thingy hubby gave me.

Every day for the last 2 weeks we've listed something and on average something has sold daily as well (rarely are they the same things on the same days).   I have a feeling that if I could get the craft things back up, and other things that people with cabin fever can work with or do at home I'll get those sold as well (puzzles, card games, books, church cook books).