Tips On How To Adapt To Good Til Cancelled for Fixed Price Listings

[18704d]

Any positive thoughts? What is your strategy going to be to continue selling with fixed price listings here?

Yes I know many say they won't be able to do this, that it'll harm or end their ability to continue selling on eBay; but many of us are making enough profits to absorb this change.

How will non-store sellers with 100 or less FP listings be affected? 50 or less listings?

From what I can see, instead of using 50 'free' 30 day listings, sellers will have to pay 35 cents or so on the beginning of the month. Right?

Shouldn't small sellers be able to absorb those extra 50 fees at 35 cents each?
How will you adapt to this?

Thanks
Lynn

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Lynn, Non Store owners get 50 free listings per month. That isn't changing.

[buyselljack2016]

With 50 free listings I will have no relisting fee with the GTC policy.

The odds of me hitting a 1st-31st relist are slim, and I will monitor it to make sure it does not happen.

I have some listings that I have multiples of that I restock on a recurring basis. An auto GTC relist on those will not be a problem.

I will have to keep an eye on others that I may not want to relist right away.

So, for the 50 or so listing sellers I do not see this as a problem.

Bigger sellers/stores, I see that the GTC is going to create a lot of stress.

[castlemagicmemories]

Small sellers may be able to absorb those fees, but then again, they may not; they may also not care to do so, if sales are few and far between.  They may feel fees are too much as it is; eight years after Ebay initiated FVF on shipping, there are still complaints on this Board about that, and it is not uncommon to see a thread saying that Ebay's fees are too expensive.

I remember when you were charged for pictures, listings, etc.  and it was thought that it was too expensive to keep listing things that weren't selling and listings dropped.  Then free listings came along.  The more listings there are, the more competition there is, of course, but the more listings there are, the greater variety there is and there could be increased chances of sales that way.

[stickboy1974]

How do mean small sellers ?

Someone who has a limited amount of stock ?

Or someone who sells items for a small amount of money ?

Say it is the second option -

someone who posts an item for $4.00 and $1.00 shipping

For the next two weeks - Paypal takes 45 cents, ebay takes 50 cents. Seller clears $3.05

Mid March - PP 45 cents, ebay takes 85 cents. Seller clears $2.70.

Maybe somehow, ebay could/should exclude an item selling at set dollar amount since it would be a lot harder for them to absorb the extra fee.

[stickboy1974]

Wow - I forgot to put this into the equation:

Say it is the second option -

someone who posts an item for $4.00 and $1.00 shipping

For the next two weeks - Paypal takes 45 cents, ebay takes 50 cents. Seller clears $3.05

Mid March - PP 45 cents, ebay takes 85 cents. Seller clears $2.70.

Item does not sell first time - Now the $2.70 turns into $2.35

Item does not sell second time - Now $2.00

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[xray731]

I'm still weighing my options - upgrade to a larger store, keep my basic store open a couple more accounts besides the 2 others I have and split my items into even smaller categories.

I'll have a month to think about and see if either option is worth it as sales are pretty slow. I can also move my vintage to another venue as well as most of the clothing  - cancel my current store and use the 50 free for the odd ball items that aren't accepted elsewhere. Either way - it's going to be a lot of work to transfer listings to other accounts if I decide not to upgrade to a bigger store.

More listings  = more variety but lower sales for sellers - maybe more sales for Ebay - but that doesn't work in a seller's favor - especially those with OOAK. That's what Ebay was trying to accomplish months ago when it got rid of the "stale" GTC listings - now they are forcing all of us into the concept that they felt was diminishing sales on the site. I really don't know where their head is at.

[castlemagicmemories]

I'll have a month to think about and see if either option is worth it as sales are pretty slow

And that is my point.  Lackluster sales may not inspire anyone to embrace fee increases.

[18704d]

"Small sellers may be able to absorb those fees, but then again, they may not; ..."

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Yes, there's a couple examples above 'doing the math' to show how it can impact  lower cost listings.

So will this mean that some sellers will have to drop some listings which have a lower profit margin?   And only list those that have the potential to stay unsold on eBay for a few months, until the right buyer(s) come along?

?

Lynn

[18704d]

And of course, for the bigger sellers and stores,

are there ways for them to get 'leaner' and still make a profit under GTC?

?

Lynn

[hollysfinds]

I am really tired of ebay deciding how to best sell OUR items.

Each seller knows what works best for whatever they sell.

IMO ebay should let sellers decide which way to best move their inventory.

Being more intrusive will not help the already strained relationships

between sellers & ebay.

Of course they probably don't care about that I suppose

or things would be different.

A little consideration for sellers would go a long way !

[juststuffisell]

I am not sure how I am going to handle the mandatory GTC on all inventory items.

I use a software called Sixbit to manage listing inventory which is helpful. The software offers licensing for listing on Ebay, Etsy and Amazon. Not sure if they are expanding or not to additional platform - I hope they do.... but, it does help to manage cross platform listings and can be used to manage eBay GTC listing, but you will still have to manually cancel listings at the end of the 28 or 29 day cycle so they do not continue on eBay.

The developer will probably get requests from eBay users to implement a function to automatically do this - will see. They are always rolling out updates with "improvements" and hopefully this conversation is going on in their forum right now.

Cheers

[lugro_30]

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@18704d wrote:

Any positive thoughts? What is your strategy going to be to continue selling with fixed price listings here?

Yes I know many say they won't be able to do this, that it'll harm or end their ability to continue selling on eBay; but many of us are making enough profits to absorb this change.

How will non-store sellers with 100 or less FP listings be affected? 50 or less listings?

From what I can see, instead of using 50 'free' 30 day listings, sellers will have to pay 35 cents or so on the beginning of the month. Right?

Shouldn't small sellers be able to absorb those extra 50 fees at 35 cents each?
How will you adapt to this?

Thanks
Lynn

---

I can’t absorb the 35 cents, especially when we get 100 more free listings all the time. I’d loose my shirt because most of my items take 45-90 days to sell if they don’t sell in the first week. Tracking the dates of hundreds of listings costs more time and money. If you wanted to stay then just use the 50 and that’s it.

[jtro8059]

This is my plan, and my disclaimer is I know this won't work for everyone.

I have been having success with the thirty day listings and feel I have already been able to maximize my sales and profits. I monitor my listings and lower prices as needed.

I have 250 free listings a month, and I will be listing exactly half that. There is zero percent chance that nothing will sell, but I'm accounting for worst case scenario anyway that items will roll over before the month ends.

I don't think the 1st-31st scenario is nearly as rare as people think. If you initially list on say the second or third of the month, in a few 31 day months you're at the 1st to 31st day scenario.

I am able to cut into my profits and I refuse to babysit my listings so eBay can make more money off of me and cut into my profits anyhow. I hope those who are able will take a stand if they find this change to be unacceptable. So my solution is to try to force change. If this method hurts their business, then they may revert and we can start making money again. If not, I'm gone. Sorry if that's not positive enough, but I'm having a hard time finding anything about this that will benefit me.

[myjunqueyourtreasure]

List as many FPMV listings between now and end of March as I can (given the restrictions on which cats can use variation listings) to free up insertion slots in the stores.