GTC Newly Listed and Ending Soonest

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I've seen people posting incorrect information about this topic ever since ebay announced the new GTC policy, and people are still posting wrong information no matter how many corrections have been posted. I'm not posting this to argue about whether GTC is good or bad for anyone's business. I just think people should have basic facts, and am hoping maybe having a separate thread will help get the information out there.

GTCs are newly listed only once, when they are first listed. Their auto-renewals are not treated as a new listing, so they do not rise again in newly listed search. (Most people get this part right)

However, GTCs are treated like 30 day listings when it comes to ending soonest search. As they approach the end of each of their 30 day runs, they DO rise in ending soonest. And ebay sends notices to watchers that the listing is about to "end", just as with 30 day listings.

[tunicaslot]

Thank you for writing that out as people do seem confused. They are also confused and think auctions will automatically relist - which they don't.

[mam98031]

Yes, thank you.  I've tried explaining this several times but some that are just so angry about the change just can't see to accept the information.

[gamersbaystore]

This is exactly why I don't like GTC, everything you list just gets buried in the ebay abyss. What I'd like to know is what happens if we end a listing and renew it. Does the listing go back to the top of search results? My thought was to end listings early and relist them to get better exposure, but not sure if this actually makes any difference.

Either way, these changes with forced GTC, along with ebay promoting identical items in all my listings, has caused my sales to come to a crawl.

And look at the image below, notice where it says "market", the entire market for video games and dvd's/blu-rays is down by 9% in just one month! Those figures represent the entire ebay marketplace! A 9% drop in total sales across these 2 categories alone is easily in the tens of millions of dollars of losses.

Simply put, ebay is losing tons of sales, and its sellers are clearly suffering.

In my case I don't think its really the GTC that's a huge issue for me, not so much as ebay promoting identical items in all my listings. You have a huge price war going on right now because ebay wants to force everyone to lower their prices, or lose all their sales if they refuse.

ebay now tells all my buyers to do business elsewhere, then bills me for a non-existent store front that doesn't even promote what I sell. No matter what I list, ebay will promote the same identical item from someone else, in my own listing.

ebay is clearly undercutting its sellers, forcing them to lose on every sale in order to try and compete with Amazon. As for GTC, they did that as a way to increase fees and short term profits to make things look good for their investors.

Somehow ebay thinks the destruction of its sellers is going to help them to persist, it definitely is not.

[tunicaslot]

Ebay stock is down 6 points from this date last year. I know it fluctuates but it had gotten up to 42 and is now under 36. It's hard to tell is it's the economy in general re the beginning effects of the GTC.

[dhbookds]

GTC has only been in effect for 1 month.........the stock price went down big time in Nov/Dec 2018........

[tunicaslot]

I realize that GTC itself would not make a difference at this time but myself and other sellers have been moving items off the platform big time since the announcement of GTC - so less items that may have sold here and being the atmosphere with sellers being upset - they aren't buying as much on Ebay - if at all. People seem to forget that the actual policy has more wide spread consequences when it comes to the market here.

[gamersbaystore]

I wholeheartedly believe a lot of what's going on here has as much to do with the economy as it does with ebay's bad decision making. But ebay isn't helping the situation by enacting policies that destroy sellers ability to conduct business here.

Even if the economy were great, ebay's policies are forcing sellers to drop their prices to the point where profits are non-existent, and if sellers are losing money, so is ebay. If anything, ebay destroyed the economy that existed within its own platform.

It also doesn't help that this platform has a narcissist for a CEO who has no conscience for anything, and lacks empathy for others. The policies that exist here today were intentionally designed to make more money for ebay, without taking any consideration as to how those policies would affect others. There's something fundamentally wrong with the way this platform is run.

As for the economy, its down the tubes as well. All the jobs here where I live in St Louis don't pay a livable wage, are part time only, and offer no benefits of any kind. Some tax bill, which I was smart enough to know was a joke to begin with.

[lacemaker3]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

Thank you for writing that out as people do seem confused. They are also confused and think auctions will automatically relist - which they don't.

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Auctions are not part of the GTC change, that's true. But, auctions may be relisted automatically. Up to 8 times, if they don't sell before that.

It's the default if the seller uses the Quick Listing Tool, and it's available with the Advanced Listing Tool. Since many new sellers, smaller sellers, or sellers who don't read the forums often, use the quick listing tool, their auction listings  will relist, and they may think it happens for all auctions.

The 8 relistings are free (don't even count against the 50 free listings) if the seller is not a business seller. I believe that eBay blues have said that this applies to sellers who don't have a store, or who use the Quick Listing Tool (and possibly one of the eBay App mobile listing tools as well). However, I am not sure what about a seller who registered a business account on eBay. This seems like it should be obvious, but I don't recall this being addressed before.

@Anonymous , tyler@ebay , doug@ebay :

Would you please confirm how eBay determines if a seller is a "business" seller or not? If the member registered as a business account on eBay, does that mean they will be charged fees for auctions that automatically relist? what are the other situations that will allow  or prevent a seller from getting free automatic relisted auctions?

Also, I wanted to mention that all of the sub-headings on this help page are the same, which appears to be a mistake on the page.

[coolections]

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@tunicaslot wrote:

I realize that GTC itself would not make a difference at this time but myself and other sellers have been moving items off the platform big time since the announcement of GTC - so less items that may have sold here

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I believe sales are the same and have sold to those who stayed. My guess is the ones who stayed are happy as there should be less competition if those who say they left actually left.

[gracieallen01]

One might think that the biggest benefit of GTC would be for ebay, in the fact that it keeps the numbers up - and perhaps at a more constant level, as well as putting things on more of an 'auto-pilot' level, with less oversight and management needed from ebay .  Unfortunately, that doesn't, necessarily, equate to a higher sell-through rate, or good prices, but it is probably good for the prospectus and encouraging to the street.  And, one might not think it helps velocity as much as 'freshly' listed offerings.

GTC definitely appears to cause much more of a distraction for a good many seller, which doesn't seem to be advantageous to keeping a smooth running system.

(personal musings - your mileage may vary)

[tyler@ebay]

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

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@tunicaslot wrote:

Thank you for writing that out as people do seem confused. They are also confused and think auctions will automatically relist - which they don't.

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Auctions are not part of the GTC change, that's true. But, auctions may be relisted automatically. Up to 8 times, if they don't sell before that.

It's the default if the seller uses the Quick Listing Tool, and it's available with the Advanced Listing Tool. Since many new sellers, smaller sellers, or sellers who don't read the forums often, use the quick listing tool, their auction listings  will relist, and they may think it happens for all auctions.

The 8 relistings are free (don't even count against the 50 free listings) if the seller is not a business seller. I believe that eBay blues have said that this applies to sellers who don't have a store, or who use the Quick Listing Tool (and possibly one of the eBay App mobile listing tools as well). However, I am not sure what about a seller who registered a business account on eBay. This seems like it should be obvious, but I don't recall this being addressed before.

@Anonymous , tyler@ebay , doug@ebay :

Would you please confirm how eBay determines if a seller is a "business" seller or not? If the member registered as a business account on eBay, does that mean they will be charged fees for auctions that automatically relist? what are the other situations that will allow  or prevent a seller from getting free automatic relisted auctions?

Also, I wanted to mention that all of the sub-headings on this help page are the same, which appears to be a mistake on the page.

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Hi @lacemaker3 - good call out on the subsections! I'll get those reported.

I'll see if there are any further specifics I can provide that that Help Page doesn't mention. Thanks!

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@lacemaker3 wrote: ... The 8 relistings are free (don't even count against the 50 free listings) if the seller is not a business seller. I believe that eBay blues have said that this applies to sellers who don't have a store, or who use the Quick Listing Tool (and possibly one of the eBay App mobile listing tools as well). However, I am not sure what about a seller who registered a business account on eBay. This seems like it should be obvious, but I don't recall this being addressed before...

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tyler@ebay I suspect that this overlaps with the use of the term "Business tool" when referring to the Advanced listing form.  

I am not a business nor a store subscriber, yet the Advanced listing form indicates that these 8 automatic relists are NOT free, and I'd be charged an insertion fee if I opt into the automatic relists. So that is inconsistent with the Blues' explanation as described in the above quote. It looks to me like the Quick listing tool offers 8 free relists and the Advanced listing tool (AKA Business tool) offers 8 relists that aren't free regardless of who's using it. This is what I see on the Advanced listing form:

[tyler@ebay]

Thank you for this screenshot @nobody*s_perfect! I'm working with a few different teams at the moment, trying to sort through what the experience should be, and this helps clarify what's actually happening. 

Quick question - I can't remember if this is a posting id of yours or not. If it is, would you let me know so I can reach out for your selling id privately? I want to be able to come back to them with a solid example of what you're seeing. 🙂

[nobody*s_perfect]

Yes, this is usually a posting ID.  But it's also the account that I used to generate that screen shot.  

It doesn't matter whether I used this ID or a different one.  I'm pretty sure that any eBay account that doesn't have a Store subscription will see that if they set up an auction-format listing using the Advanced version of the listing form (AKA "Business tool").  Try it yourself!