I believe I figured the real WHY on the GTC change, and its not what you think..

[crownsfieldcellular]

I've been on these boards voicing my extreme dissatisfaction with the loss of listing time options for several days.  I've called ebay multiple times, and I've ranted and raved.  I think a lot of this came out of shock and confusion, as I just could not figure out why in God's name they would have done this.

To ME, in my mind, eliminating the urgency that short duration auctions provided was basically suicidal for eBay, and homicidal to my business by eBay's hand.

It's taken me a few days to digest this change, and really put it into perspective.   I think I have finally come up with the bigger picture answer here, and I have begun to see this from eBay's perspective.

Let me start this by saying this:  eBay is not an evil, greedy corporation, looking to suck everyone's blood and destroy everyone's businesses. 

eBay is simply a BUSINESS themselves.  But eBay is a different kind of business than any of us run on their site (unless any of you are running a global, publicly traded corporation on eBay - then you are excluded from that statement). 

They are a Multinational GIGANTIC global corporation, which is publicly traded on Wall Street.  They have shareholders to answer to, board members, and also of course almost 7 million sellers. 

So while I may not agree with everything they do (all of us might not)?  It's important to try to think like them, and consider that they are trying to keep eBay afloat and viable for EVERYONE, including their sellers that depend on them and this website.

If they do not produce profits, growth, dividends and good stats for their shareholders (who may be some of you too), and get their stock price to go up?  There will be no more eBay. 

We will just wake up one day and our favorite market place will be gone.  It's a sobering reality to think about.  I would be extremely, extremely upset and crushed if eBay were to be no more personally.

That said, many of you may become very angry at what I am going to reveal here, some not so much, and some of you might not care.  But understand I am not writing this to "unmask a villian" here and reveal the "evil master plan"..

What's going on here is simply a calculated business decision, and it actually makes a lot of sense (whether you agree with it in full or not).  

What I've seen on these boards (and some of these opinions were previously espoused by me as well) are some basic (incorrect I believe) assumptions, and judgements as to why eBay instituted this GTC change -  and took away our previous options:

1) "It's a sneaky fee grab because they are depending on my unwanted GTC renewal fees as a cash cow because they can't produce more sales!!"

I don't believe this is true.  I firmly believe eBay will remedy this unwanted consequence somehow, because I do not believe this was their intention.  They have also come out vehemently that this was NOT their intention by doing this.  I do not think they are lying to our faces that blatantly.  This was not their real intention for this change (In my opinion).

2) "They're idiots who have no idea how to run this website!!  They arent actual eBay sellers and they are making changes just to make them without realizing how much they are going to hurt my (and their) sales!!"

I was one of the people saying this initially.  I do not think this is the case anymore.  One thing is for certain at least?  They are NOT idiots.

3)"They are trying to push all the small sellers off the site!! They dont want us here anymore!! They just want big China companies (Big corporations, etc)!!"

Again, no I do not think this is their real intention either.  Although it might be an unfortunate collateral consequence it seems, to early to tell.  I do not believe that this was the "spirit" behind this decision though.  It just doesn't make enough sense.  "Casual" sellers who create bad buying experiences for customers are already being weeded out by their other systems, so it just wouldn't make financial sense to axe 30% of your sales force in this way.  The revenue losses would be tremendous, and there would be little to no way to make up for them (again in my opinion that is).

4) "They want to force me to buy a store subscription even though I don't want one!!"

This is probably true, but it's not the whole picture.  Us buying store subscriptions though makes them more money, so obviously if this was one of the reasons for the change?  It would make sense, and I couldn't argue with it as a capitalist understanding they are running a business as well, and knowing all the things I said initially.   So this one?  Probably true, but not the main intention (in my opinion again)

Why is eBay really doing this?   Here is my synopsis:

I believe now that forced GTC is a way to basically nudge more sellers to start using promoted listings.

It's a very covert way of raising their Final Value Fees without actually announcing that change (and really pissing people off)...

I think they thought the change to GTC really wouldn't upset too many people, because they claimed that 80% of listings on the site are already GTC anyway.

I think they underestimated how many people would be upset about this though, and this amount of backlash was not what they were anticipating. 

It's just ironic that all that backlash has been coming from complaints that were incorrect about their agenda (in my opinion).

I believe eBay figured something out here as far as the short term listing duration options go:  I believe that they figured out that sellers were getting "free" organic boosts on the site, using these options.

Especially the 3 day option, which is basically all promoted organically..You get the newly listed boost for a while, and then pretty much right after that ends you are getting a free ending soon boost as well.  Plus you are getting free buyer urgency to help you make a sale.  You were charged nothing for all this before (except the FVF fee and a nominal listing fee if you had no store)

I believe that eBay  came to the realization and made the decision: "Why give sellers something for free?  when we can start charging them to promote instead?" 

I think this the biggest reason they have done this now.

Also, and I know this is true for me; I don't use promoted listings for shorter duration BIN listings. I don't have to really.

So by allowing those duration options there for my (our) use?  They were actually losing money on a big segment of sellers who they believe will now start paying for promotions instead. 

They were leaving money on the table before.  This closes that gap.

Now with this change?

It totally levels the playing field for everyone and there are NO organic boosts anymore.  (outside of "newly" listed, but how long does that last when all your listings start going through the GTC cycles, if they do?)

With everything GTC there is no longer ending soonest boosting, as nothing ever technically "ends". Plus there's no more organic urgency. If you think how great that is for eBay, with their promoted listing structure in place to fill the gap?  It's almost astonishing.

It's a complete win - win for them. Now as a seller you can have slow or moderate sales compared to what you had before with your short duration's? OR you can promote your listings to get them to sell faster, and pay higher Final Value Fees voluntarily.

And of course? You can always lower your prices to get faster sales. Either way? eBay wins (in their minds at least I think).

Eliminating the shorter duration's to me now is just eliminating a few freebies they were giving away for a long time - Organic listing boosting is definitely one of them.

In one fell swoop they took that away completely, and also took away the free URGENCY that those listings created for buyers as well. 

I couldn't figure out why in god's name they would have done this.  Until this all hit me.  Because that URGENCY?  Is also a FREE TOOL they had been giving us. 

Now?  No More.  Now it's basically just paid promotions.

eBay has very, very brilliantly changed the entire landscape of their market, in a very simple way.  To accommodate and usher in a whole new "promotion" game it seems to me. 

And they are proving that there is no free lunch out there big time.

I'm not as angry now that I understand this.  I'm not thrilled about it either, but I'm also not as confused.  Now this all makes sense from their perspective at least.

I've also heard that they will be initiating a feature where you can send offers to watchers.  I think this is brilliant, and it will actually help very much to convert GTC listings (which in the past you simply could not do at all, except running a sale maybe). 

I also like the idea that every listing now with have automatic Make Offer included for free (at least this is what I heard they are going to start doing site wide). 

I think these two features will help with sales a lot.  I don't use best offer too much now, but admittedly in the past it has helped me make a lot more sales when I did.  So they aren't wrong about that.

In a nutshell?  I think what I listed above was the "master plan" though..

It's really the only thing that really makes sense from a big picture, macroscopic lens that eBay sees the world and the market place through.

All in all, I do not think it's a bad idea.  I think it balances out their needs as a business to survive, and our needs to make sales and money pretty well.  If you think of it in those terms, which you really have to.  If you want eBay to be here to sell on.

If this truth **bleep** you off?  I'm sorry, but it seems it is what it is at this point.

I can't say that I am definitely going to start promoting my listngs, but maybe I will at 1 or 2% to compensate for the other lost free tools.  Luckily my profits on my items are usually good enough, and my FVF's in my category are pretty low as to where I wont really feel a 1% increase or so in FVF's.

But that's just me. 

I have no idea how others will fare with this, and I doubt eBay does either. 

This seems like a very calculated "hail mary" play, where if it works?  It might work wonders. 

If it blows up in their face with the sellers?  It could also spell catastrophe as well.

I guess we'll see how it plays out. 

That's my new take on all this.  It's their sandbox, and I need and want them around as a venue to sell on.  

So I'm going to stick around and see how this all plays out.

It could wind up being for the best. Or it could wind up being the worst thing they have ever done/tried and sink the entire website.  That's the cold reality of all this.

We shall see

Good Luck to you all.

[castlemagicmemories]

Interesting but the reasons that eBay has given for this, although they may just seem to be ostensible reasons to you, may actually be a large part of what has motivated this~that those who search via Google will supposedly be better able to find what they want on Ebay, thus, hopefully resulting in more sales.  More sales mean more FVFs for Ebay~so I don't think you can leave this out of the picture completely.

Good luck to you as well.

[crownsfieldcellular]

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@castlemagicmemories wrote:

Interesting but the reasons that eBay has given for this, although they may just seem to be ostensible reasons to you, may actually be a large part of what has motivated this~that those who search via Google will supposedly be better able to find what they want on Ebay, thus, hopefully resulting in more sales.  More sales mean more FVFs for Ebay~so I don't think you can leave this out of the picture completely.

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I don't doubt that this is also part of the agenda, but I think it's a smaller part  and here's why:  While in theory that kind of makes sense (I've heard people talk about "no more broken or already sold" ebay links from google searches) - it doesn't take into account something very important in that picture; namely that sellers like me make up maybe 30% of the ebay market, and we sell "one off items"..

Meaning we have no inventory that will be piled on a GTC listing, leaving the listing up indefinitely. 

When my item is sold?  That listing automatically comes down, because I have no need to use the "out of stock feature", and I won't.  It's a hindrance to me to have to manually end items, and I never get the same item twice to sell, so it's a useless option for me.  All my phones I sell are unique one offs.

So in my mind, eBay had to know this.  They also claimed that 75% - 80% of the listings already were utilizing GTC formats.  So by default, they also knew that the other 20% - 25% of those listings were one off items with a quantity of one. 

So what sense does it make to change ALL of THOSE listings GTC's as well?  How does that help with google, when once those are sold?  It's exactly the same situation as they had before with listings like this and google?

That just doesn't make sense to me as the pure agenda here.  It's a good story, and maybe there's some validity there.

But in the end?  I can't see that being the real reason, simply because it does not solve the problem with google that were having. 

Not forgetting that also, sellers like myself are now manually ending GTC's every few days and relisting them, to get another organic boost in the engine, after we feel the listing has "gone stale" (when its been up 5 days or more with no sale)...They had to know sellers like us were going to do this as well..So again, problem with google not solved...Same issue of ended item links, just as before.

So..While I can agree maybe it was a factor in their rationale?  I don't think it was the only motivation here, and I firmly believe this was a big push toward changing their landscape to be more "promotion" friendly and inviting.

It's also very possible that both of these were equal considerations, and that's probably true as well, but we'll never know that with any certainty.

[weschurch]

This has been brought up already several times. You are half right.

What Ebay is doing is spreading a disease, than offering the cure for money.  They are structuring their system but need you not forget who is spreading the disease to begin with. Its entirely shady and reeks of desperation

[gracieallen01]

You may be right.   But, then again, .......

[mudshark61369]

@crownsfieldcellular,

 "With everything GTC there is no longer ending soonest boosting, as nothing ever technically "ends". Plus there's no more organic urgency. If you think how great that is for eBay, with their promoted listing structure in place to fill the gap?  It's almost astonishing".

To me it is almost astonishingly stupid!  The organic urgency of a 30 day listing ending soon, often causes items to sell at full price.  My strategy was to use two 30 day cycles, skip a month if there was no purchase, then relist for another 30 days. That's when they sold.  I have very few BIN listings, and those are usually low quantity available items.  Taking "urgency" out of the equation may result in many items languishing longer and or being sold for lower prices. That is going to cost ebay, IMO because sooner or later with a gazillion items sitting on the site for god knows how long, they are going to have to increase their server capacity. 

As for promoted listings I'm not going to pay more in fees to a site that is constantly breaking.  I just found out from 2 buyers that check out did not offer the 2 shipping options I have used for years. Only the standard 1st class option was available.  Also my fairly brief mobile friendly combined shipping and other terms of sale are not completely showing on some listings but are on others.  This has happened on templates I have used for the last two years without change.  

As for ebay stock, because of its ups and downs I use it mostly to mitigate gains I get on other stocks.  Now my shares are available for an interested party to use as proxy votes.

[pickermall]

What's GTC? I tried reading through this post and gave up after the third paragraph

[dhbookds]

It's ebay's job to monetize the site for the stockholders.......certainly this could be one way..........BUT add this to your thinking......the success of PL depends on their ability to drive sales ..........i.e. they don't get paid unless an item sells.......

As far as one offs are considered, certainly GTC makes sense and always has for long tail items.....  I don't know how many times I've read......."it takes 2-3 cycles for me to sell some items".  Some things take longer.  lol so what is GTC but an easy way to list in that case?   What alot of people are doing is conflating newly listed and ending soonest with waiting for the right buyer to come along......or waiting for the el cheapo listings of the same item to be bought out and your item to be the one purchased. 

This IS a new ball game.........and many of us may have to adjust the way we sell......  Consider more carefully what we list, be more cognizant of good listing practices, etc.  But those things have always been true and will continue to be the most important things.    Paying more to sell  may be necessary also.....  The  internet is NOT the same as when ebay started, ebay cannot depend on it's uniqueness, because there are plenty of other places to buy these days..  and it and it's sellers have to adjust......and sellers will adjust......at least the majority as they have always done.  New sellers will come on and accept what, we as old sellers, find abhorrent because it will be the norm to them. 

[dhbookds]

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@pickermall wrote:
What's GTC? I tried reading through this post and gave up after the third paragraph

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GTC= a duration  term:  good til canceled.........  The listing runs for 30 days and then automatically relists for another 30 days.  This goes on until it's sold or the seller cancels it.  In other words a seller doesn't have to manually relist it.

Each time it relists, a seller is charged an insertion fee or their "free" listing #'s are decreased by 1........

[pickermall]

Oh, I think I figured it out.. Good Til Cancelled. That's all I do for my listings. I have 1000 free listings per month and I don't see the big deal, unless Ebay is forcing this on folks...

For me, no big deal. Some items take years to sell and I don't want the hassle of manually relisting every 30 days

[luckythewinner]

If they do not produce profits, growth, dividends and good stats for their shareholders (who may be some of you too), and get their stock price to go up? There will be no more eBay. We will just wake up one day and our favorite market place will be gone.

Sorry, I cannot subscribe to the argument that if the stock price does not go up, eBay might disappear overnight. That is just not how the stock market works.

[timmytoofless]

I believe ebay will have to go back to letting us choose the listing time.  They get more fees that way since, if the item doesn't sell, it is relisted again for short term and then again as needed instead of just sitting there for 30 days.  I list items where there are a lot of the same types also listed.  30 day listing period buries them way back and they aren't picked up by potential buyers until they reach a shorter time.  I usually list them for 7 days to avoid that but not anymore.   So my sales are already down and ebay isn't making as much either.  

Try as you did to find why ebay did this GTC is only showing that they "think" they will make financial gains.  This would be fine and dandy if sellers would also be making some gains.  But sellers just have to start paying more so we can make the same sales.  Yes that would make more money for ebay.   But not sellers.  And you don't think they are greedy???

[m60driver]

Ebay's big failure is lack of imagination.  Instead of incentivising GTC they took away choice, thus harming some sellers, especially the smaller sellers for whom GTC does not work for many items.   Actually they provided me one incentive by explaining the relationship between GTC and Google searches. And after reading that rationale I have decided to use GTC on a few of my higher priced items.  But they could have incentivized GTC listings in other ways such as a slightly higher one time listing fee for GTC listings.  Again, it is the lack of imagination at Ebay corporate level that lead to the taking away of choice from sellers.

But in the end the forced GTC listing is not a reason to leave Ebay as I can still manually end listings, but it does emphasize the need for a new management in San Jose.

[ultimate_collectables]

Dont agree with one part OP. that they were giving free boosts away. that was how 3 day listings worked. if u read my other posts/threads this has destroyed my sales so far. NOT one sale since switching to GTC or auction w/BIN (which also cost me a $1 to do the BIN w/auction) .

And if that is the case. 3-5 day BIN worked for me, nothing else does, so then frikin charge me an extra fee for 3-5 day BIN so my items at least still sell and i have an option.

since they didnt keep optonal listings with fees, your theory on that is wrong. adding a .50 or $100 charge for those types of listings would have made them more money. id be upset but would still list and get sales at least to combat the change. 

GTC has killed off my sales so nothing i can do but try bonanza, etsy, etc.

the theory they are trying to weed out small collectable sellers and rare nitch collectable in favor of high volume cell phone sellers and be more like amazon seems more likely!

[creekcoyote]

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@pickermall wrote:

Oh, I think I figured it out.. Good Til Cancelled. That's all I do for my listings. I have 1000 free listings per month and I don't see the big deal, unless Ebay is forcing this on folks...

For me, no big deal. Some items take years to sell and I don't want the hassle of manually relisting every 30 days

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But that is the big deal.  They are forcing it on  everyone by only allowing auctions or GTC.

Many sellers have tried GTC and it didn't work as well with their items so they choose one of the other options.  Those options, except auctions, are no longer available.