The 50,000 Promo ...

[mr_lincoln]

It takes me a couple of minutes to do a good photo shoot, inspect, measure, weigh, and take notes on an item then organize and store it.

It takes me a little time to name all the pics to be ready to upload to the listing form.

It takes me a little time to create the listing on the advanced listing form.

So I figure on average about 9 minutes per listing

So assuming I would actually have 50,000 items to list that would mean 450,000 minutes of straight work time or 7,500 hours.  Divide that by 40 hours per week = 187.5 weeks

Okay, even if I worked really fast and cut my time in half to 4.5 minutes per listing it would be about  93.75 weeks.

If I went out and bought some Raging Bull super caffeinated coffee and cut the time in half again to 2.25 minutes per listing it would be about 47 weeks ... there are 52 weeks in a year.

Just wondering what the thinking was behind the 50K Free Listing promo?

[fern*wood]

It is flashy and gets your attention--maybe even publicity.  

Many people have lots of unlisted items needing relisted, so this should get them back in the game.   Obviously we use what we can.

[zylor4200]

The virus must have infected the mind(s) of whoever sent out that wacky promo or ebay is desperate to get more listings and sales. Whatever - it is a pathetic attempt coming from a company reeling because of the crisis.

[biggymoe]

Very good analysis.  As to your question about "why", I don't know the answer.

My thoughts are that I will certainly add some new listings, but will not go gungho and add 1000's of new listings.  Doing so will create a new problem after the promo ends.  I will not have enough free listings to continue relisting all of them.  That means I will have to pay to relist, or let them die.  Then the question is, was it worth the untold hours of creating them, only to let them die after a two month window of opportunity to increase sales.  Since I don't list high $$ items, I don't feel all the time and work would be worth it.  

Gotta go start scanning and listing.  Hope this works well for everyone.

[dhbookds]

lol, people gripe because ebay hadn't given free listings.......now they gripe because they do.....

50,000 is just a number.........use what you can and be grateful..........

However, I remember several years ago, two somebodies with ebay talking about the time they gave either 100,000 or a million free listings......believing that no one could use them all.......  Well, someone in Germany did......

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Mr Lincoln, If ebay had offered 50, or even 500 listings instead of 50,000 (well, actually 100,000, since it's 50,000 in March and another 50000 in April), some people would be complaining that ebay offered too little. I think it's safe to say that very few (if any) ebay sellers will use all 100,000 listings. So what? This is like giving each store seller a CUSTOMIZED free listing promo. Did you want 50 free listings? You got em. Did you want 500? 1,000? 5,000? You got 'em. ebay has pretty much covered every store owner with this.

And there's no gotcha here. ebay actually assumes most store sellers understand their own business well enough to recognize that they will need to choose whether to end some or pay for them in May (assuming they even list enough to be over their store limit by then.) If a seller can really ramp up enough to go from 1000 listings (premium) to anchor level (10,000) by the end of April, then, yes, maybe that seller should consider getting an anchor store because it might very well be a smart business move. But ebay isn't trying to play gotcha....in fact, those who say that ebay is playing gotcha are actually insulting their fellow sellers, assuming sellers are too dumb to understand the consequences. ebay assumes we are smart enough to understand them and that we can make proper business decisions.

[mr_lincoln]

---

@fern*wood wrote:

It is flashy and gets your attention--maybe even publicity.  

Many people have lots of unlisted items needing relisted, so this should get them back in the game.   Obviously we use what we can.

---

Maybe it gets the share holders STOKED with the potential to see their stocks soar ...

[mr_lincoln]

---

@zylor4200 wrote:

The virus must have infected the mind(s) of whoever sent out that wacky promo or ebay is desperate to get more listings and sales. Whatever - it is a pathetic attempt coming from a company reeling because of the crisis.

---

I was thinking more along the lines of a Prop 64 break ...

[craftysandy1961]

I have quite a few listings that are multiple listings, with up to 200 titles in the listings.  I plan to leave those listings up with a few placeholders and then list everything individually. I already have most of these listings created because I use them for auctions on other IDs (not my store ID unless there is a promotion for auctions).  It will take me a few hours (okay, more than a few), but I think it is worth doing and will be approximately  1000 listings.  But it won't take anywhere near 9 minutes each to create.  The advantage of this is visibility (I think) and best offer.  You can't do best offer on multiple type listings.  So I'm hoping to sell a ton by  taking advantage of their generosity.  And no, I won't come close to maxing out the 50,000, but it is nice not to even have to worry.  Plus I may try to create a few extra listings through creating lots.  Most of these listings already exist in turbolister, so it is just a matter of uploading.  

I think they are doing this because they are afraid they're going to inevitably lose listings when people start to get sick, and so they want those who are well to be able to keep the listing numbers up high.  I would bet there are big box places that could get pretty close to the 50,000 and they need those numbers to prop their business up.  Just my opinion.  

[placeintimepostcards]

Actually, this promo will probably put me out of business.  I list in a category that regularly gets flooded with one penny sellers.  When that happens, I experience a slump in sales for about 10 days.  The number of new items jumps by about 50 to 100K, in a single day and it happens at least twice a year.  Since I pay for an anchor store, once the flood or floods happen, I probably won't be able to make enough to even pay my fees.  And really, once everyone lists everything, won't everyone's sales go down? 

And of course it irks the heck out of me that I have to continue to pay for my 10K listings while everyone else gets freebies.

[mr_lincoln]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques   Good post and in the back of my mind I sort of thought, okay, it's  basically saying no insertion fees on anything you list through April 30 because the probability are low that they will all be used.

And to others who have posted about GTC rollover insertion fee charges, well, there's that too where the site stands to gain some insertion fees once the promo ends.

So on paper its a win-win as long as folks END items on time to avoid GTC rollover fees ...

[tkinnebrew]

Sounds like a lot of submitting...Well, it beats the 0 listing promotion.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

mr lincoln: I'll just add this:

"So on paper its a win-win as long as folks END items on time to avoid GTC rollover fees ..."

IF they WANT to avoid those fees. There are (believe it or not) a lot of sellers who view the fees as a basic business cost and they are willing to pay the fees when the listing rolls over. If a seller is selling enough dollar volume to adequately cover the cost, many will do that. It should be a business decision based on each seller's individual situation.

[rpalma]

Many people have saved listings that aren't active on ebay.

Many people have a "death pile" of items that have not been listed yet and aren't high priority.

Personally, I also have a stack of similar items that aren't worth listing giving the likelihood of them selling and I can create a listing in a minute or two per item when working on bulk items.

I will be using the free listings for that, but I will probably cap out at under a thousand.

[pops_paper]

This really bothers me. eBay acting as though this will help people and is an honest promotion, when it is not. Say the average person does not read the fine print that your listings will be renewed at the store rate (30 cents starter to 5 cents Anchor), this adds up to thousands of dollars for ONE MONTH of you forgetting to end all of your listings after April. So eBay will win out with this one duping many people due to the fact that the promotion does not clearly indicate that these "FREE listings" are only FREE for one month and a week. After that, expect to pay somewhere in the ballpark of $15,000 per month if you use all 50,000 listings and do not sell much and you are a starter store! For Anchor stores this will be around $2,500 per month in addition to your $300 subscription if you get to 50,000 listings. Hah! Totally a scam if you ask me.