eBay

upgradedendmills · ‎06-14-2019

Very strange deal!!! Got an eBay message this morning inviting me to join a free 500 listing promo. Great if needed, but why offer me a promo when my store subscription still has 8,848 "free" fixed price listings and 950 "free" auction listings left to use. There is zero chance of me as an individual seller even coming close to using up my store listings and needing 500 additional.

There are many sellers right now that could take advantage of this sort of offer and realistically use 500 extra listings. Many sellers seem to be struggling badly and it seems this could help. It would also pad the "new listings" numbers for eBay and could easily lead to increased sales and FVF's.

Why give it to a seller that has no use or need for it??? Not a complaint, just trying to make sense of it. The only possible advantage to this offer for me would be to cancel my 25 auctions and use "sell similar" to relist them with a BIN price or do additional auctions with "free" BIN.

abfabvintage · ‎06-14-2019

@upgradedendmills

I keep saying I wish I could "give" those free promotional listings to someone who I know could use it. And I, too, know a lot of sellers that could use them. And for no payment, no gratuity, just be able to transfer it over. Ain't going to happen. Because if for some reason we were able to do that, then there would be no need for ebay to keep pushing sellers to Upgrade their stores to get more free listings. In particular, with this required GTC debacle.

I ain't got the brains to make this up (Fantastic Beasts)

dasarock · ‎06-14-2019

@upgradedendmills wrote:
Very strange deal!!! Got an eBay message this morning inviting me to join a free 500 listing promo. Great if needed, but why offer me a promo when my store subscription still has 8,848 "free" fixed price listings and 950 "free" auction listings left to use. There is zero chance of me as an individual seller even coming close to using up my store listings and needing 500 additional.
There are many sellers right now that could take advantage of this sort of offer and realistically use 500 extra listings. Many sellers seem to be struggling badly and it seems this could help. It would also pad the "new listings" numbers for eBay and could easily lead to increased sales and FVF's.
Why give it to a seller that has no use or need for it??? Not a complaint, just trying to make sense of it. The only possible advantage to this offer for me would be to cancel my 25 auctions and use "sell similar" to relist them with a BIN price or do additional auctions with "free" BIN.

they want sellers to use the free listings, be it 100 500 or 1000. many who use them would use BIN which go in as GTC. if the seller forgets to 'cancel' those GTC, then when they expire and renew, if it pushes the seller over his/her free limits, gotcha 😛 .... they get paid listing fees.

i agree the free listings are/or can be great for those who can use them. i am still about 300 free listings short of my limits, so i always iggy them. (i also love the messages offering free 'Anchor' store for a month -- maybe someday.) but before that i would add a few secondary stores at the $4.95/month and build up a large enough inventory to make the anchor feasible. but that is dependent on where ebay goes in the next year ... and were ebay winds up ... 😄

for me, and my little niche, ebay is still the best venue and i will play their game ... even while i point out what i perceive to be problems, confusion or suggested improvements along the way.

upgradedendmills · ‎06-14-2019

Maybe they do this knowing that they get credit for a giveaway, but it won't be used. I only have the big store because they gave me a promo to upgrade for 2 months at the same price I was paying for the other store. Seems wasteful, but the 10K listings is allowing me to cancel GTC listings and relist without regard to how many I am using.

I actually spoke to CS (USA based) on the phone and informed them that I won't be keeping the 10K store when the promo runs out. They seem happy enough with that. I have made a major purchase of items I normally sell and will be doing some math over the next week or so to see if I can justify the bigger store at $350 for one more month with the idea of dumping all the inventory I can in a short finite time.

upgradedendmills · ‎06-14-2019

I have the Anchor store because it is a 2 month promotion for the same price as my smaller store. I have been spending as much time as possible getting new listings ready to take advantage of it. GTC (I am over my anger!) has been taking up a lot of time also.

With sales down, the promo is letting me list a bunch of similar items as individual listings that make very small profit margin and cause no concern as to rather they sell or not. My thought pattern here is that maybe I can get enough straightforward sales from it to pay for a bigger store for a month or two and generate good feedbacks and more traffic towards more profitable items.

"The best laid plans...………………………………." Never know, it might work.

tunicaslot · ‎06-14-2019

I received the promo too but have a different mindset as to why they are doing this. Many people downgraded stores or left due to the GTC. Many are cross posting and ending items here that sell elsewhere. Their numbers are down and they need to have as much listed so hopefully buyers will find something to buy even with the horrible search. Again my opinion as I think most sellers do watch their items to see how many watchers they have and once bitten with a relist will definite be keeping an eye on items to end them before they roll over.

janet9988 · ‎06-14-2019

@upgradedendmills wrote:
Maybe they do this knowing that they get credit for a giveaway, but it won't be used. I only have the big store because they gave me a promo to upgrade for 2 months at the same price I was paying for the other store. Seems wasteful, but the 10K listings is allowing me to cancel GTC listings and relist without regard to how many I am using.
I actually spoke to CS (USA based) on the phone and informed them that I won't be keeping the 10K store when the promo runs out. They seem happy enough with that. I have made a major purchase of items I normally sell and will be doing some math over the next week or so to see if I can justify the bigger store at $350 for one more month with the idea of dumping all the inventory I can in a short finite time.

Do you have a yearly store subscription? If you do then read the fine print as you may pay penalty fees when you go back to downgrading your store. Just an FYI

Lift your left leg at midnight to start off on the right foot. Happy new Year!

dhbookds · ‎06-15-2019

Why give it to a seller that has no use or need for it

They've always said the promos are random.........don't know why that doesn't make sense to you........ Trying to discern which sellers will use it, which won't is obviously something they are not trying to do...... which makes sense because sellers can/do change their models so someone may not "want/need it" this month, but may next month and how is ebay to figure that out? If you/anyone were forever excluded from promos, at some point there would be complaints of unfairness, etc.

go-bad-chicken · ‎06-15-2019

I received this same listing promotion as well.

I wish that eBay would stop offering these welfare listing promotions all together. I personally feel that it is not fair to all of the other sellers here who are paying monthly/yearly store subscription fees and now have to compete against another seller who paid absolutely nothing at all to list.

Either that or eBay should consider adopting the Big A's buisness model, and charge $0.00 to list.

upgradedendmills · ‎06-15-2019

Not trying to be sarcastic in any way. Do you plan on using any of the free promotional listings? My honest preference would be for eBay to completely do away with any "free" listings completely, including the normal monthly allotment of 50. If they ever go to the Amazon no listing fee model, it will be the end of this site.

upgradedendmills · ‎06-15-2019

It doesn't make sense to me because I have 5X the listings right now that I could possibly use by the end of the month at no additional charge. Another 500 will not entice me to do more listings, it might for someone else.

go-bad-chicken · ‎06-15-2019

@upgradedendmills wrote:
Not trying to be sarcastic in any way. Do you plan on using any of the free promotional listings? My honest preference would be for eBay to completely do away with any "free" listings completely, including the normal monthly allotment of 50. If they ever go to the Amazon no listing fee model, it will be the end of this site.

Not trying to be sarcastic in any way. Do you plan on using any of the free promotional listings? No I do not nor have I ever used any free listing promotions. My honest preference would be for eBay to completely do away with any "free" listings completely, including the normal monthly allotment of 50. I agree 100%. If they ever go to the Amazon no listing fee model, it will be the end of this site. I would not go so far as to say that it would be the end of eBay, but it would definetly change the landscape of this place for sure.

upgradedendmills · ‎06-15-2019

No, this is a straight up two month promotion. I will never change to a yearly subscription due to the early ending penalties. I do not want to be locked in with eBay with all of these updates and changes.

dazzlecity · ‎06-15-2019

dasarock said "i also love the messages offering free 'Anchor' store for a month -- maybe someday.) but before that i would add a few secondary stores at the $4.95/month and build up a large enough inventory to make the anchor feasible."

I've been screaming for a middle tier between premium and anchor for years now - I did the 3 store thing to build up inventory but it's just too dam hard keeping track of everything for me. AND the jump from $50 a month to $300 a month to just too much especially with all the glitches and lack of sales. If there was a 5,000 item level I'd be there right now. Apparently ebay thinks this is a stupid idea.

BTW would would use that tier? answer: long term - experienced sellers who've already been here for awhile now - who know the ropes and have great feedback and merchandise (exception would be those tricky chinese)

upgradedendmills · ‎06-15-2019

I would like to see a store with about 2500 allotted listings. Maybe in the range of $125 per month. Most of the time I end up having listings left over each month, but GTC has put a damper on that because I cancel and relist or sell similar on a 7 day or so schedule. I have built up plenty of inventory over the years to carry about 1500 listings at any given time. If I have the extra listings, I can list individual, if not, I list in larger lots, but they can be slow to sell.