GTC Rip Off - Be careful when downsizing your store.

[jayjaspersgarage]

I knew this would happen to me and I only have myself to blame.  Be careful if you downsized your store in the GTC era.  I used to list 2200 items and downsized back to a basic store.  I went on a business trip for three days and just logged in to see 689 items ending today.  I checked and about 300 were ending in ONE minute.  lol.  I couldn't click fast enough and only ended 100 or maybe 150 fast enough.  I shouldn't have had breakfast first before shipping items today.

What a waste of money!  At least it's a tax write off but I could have avoided the ebay rip off of auto relist if I had paid closer attention.

[patd3283]

@lightlily_arts

You don't have to end your listings one at a time.

Go to actives and put a check in front of the ones you want to end.

Then go above to Actions pull down menu and select end and follow directions.

Easy!

[lightlily_arts]

I have tried that multiple times and it didn't work.  I just keep getting error messages

[lightlily_arts]

Another thing that really annoys me is that my active listings end dates are all out of order.  How can I get my listings in order by date ending soonest.  The current list is see is all over the place.  It seems like eBay tried grouping similar items together.  I didn't do this.

[jayjaspersgarage]

That is true if I hadn't been away for three days on business.  My mistake was in not checking ebay first before I ate breakfast.  No one could end 689 listings in less than a minute.  I managed to get the number that relisted automatically to 320.  So I must have closed about 350 listings in about two minutes.  It still cost me about $80, most of which I would not have relisted before Sept. 1st had I not been away for three days.

It's all good.

[jayjaspersgarage]

I've been on ebay for almost ten years and love selling the smalls here.  As for waiting for managed payments I only mentioned that because they are not going to allow coin sales under managed payments.  I am not going to sign up because ebay states that "most" sellers will be required to use MP.  I won't be part of that group if ebay prevents me from selling vintage coins that don't circulate anymore.  Their concern seems to be bullion sales which I rarely participate in on-line.  That's where my "elsewhere" coin sales happen in a retail setting.

[disneyshopper]

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@lightlily_arts wrote:

Another thing that really annoys me is that my active listings end dates are all out of order.  How can I get my listings in order by date ending soonest.  The current list is see is all over the place.  It seems like eBay tried grouping similar items together.  I didn't do this.

I customized my Active Listings with an END DATE and START DATE columns.  I click on END DATE and they are listed in order, so I can quickly see which ones are ending, and if they have been listed for 90 day or more, I can END them in one fell swoop.

[schloopertz]

This may sound incredibly stupid for all the time I've been selling on Ebay, but what do you mean about ending your good 'til cancelled listings? You didn't end them when you downsized to a basic store? From my understanding we are charged 25 cents for each active fixed price listing every month-is there some sort of work around not to be charged these fees?

I pay a lot of fees, and I end my listings at the three month mark to relist them as "sell similar" with a lower price and sometimes other small tweaks. Am I doing this all wrong and paying way too many relisting fees? If anyone can enlighten me, I would appreciate it!

[nobody*s_perfect]

Yes, there's a workaround: Upgrade your Store subscription.

The number of free basic insertions you get ech month depends on the level of your store. Those free insertions can be used for new listings, relists, or when a GTC listing rolls over.

If you have a Basic store then you get 350 free insertions per month. You currently have 745 listings. So you would be paying insertion fees for nearly 400 listings. At 25 cents each that's $100!!  If you end and relist after the item's rollover date, you'd pay two insertion fees for it in that month.

If you upgrade your store subscription to Premium, then the subscription will cost more than the Basic subscription ($38 or $47 more depending on whether you have an annual subscription) , but you will get 1000 free insertions and the extra cost will be less than what you're currently paying for those extra insertions.

[schloopertz]

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

I will definitely be getting a Premium subscription. Ebay has been morphed and changed so much, and it seems they are constantly inconsistently adding and charging higher fees for every little thing, I find it difficult to keep abreast of it all.

[jayjaspersgarage]

Not sure why you can't end listings in bulk.  I've been ending up to 200 listings at a time.  Usually I set my account to only show 50 active listings unless I see a day coming up with hundreds of GTC listings about to end.

If you check the box above the first listing it checks them all.  That's how I end listings in bulk fifty at a time.

[jayjaspersgarage]

Hi,

I had the 50,000 free listings offer for five months so i didn't need to eliminate any of my 2,200 listings until the end of August when I happened to be away on business.  I don't plan on throwing good money away and will keep reducing my listing this month until I decide to close my store or relent and sign up for mangled payments.

[jayjaspersgarage]

Not sure if this was meant for me but I used to have a premium store and the cost did not work out for me when I was working full time.  I downsized to a basic store to save money and it has worked out great!  Since I was pandemically laid off in mid March I have had more time to list on ebay so I am in a months long decision process as to whether I will continue on ebay or go somewhere else.  I am starting to think switching to etsy is a better choice than sticking around ebay.  A new start, a fresh beginning?  Not ready to decide yet and probably won't until November 4th.