eBay Bad At Math? Store Subscriptions Don't Add Up

[unusual_retail]

About a year and a half ago I made a comment on the Weekly eBay Chat about the price disparity with the “subscription” plans. Basically, the way they have the plans setup aren’t equitable or make any sense. I checked back, and did some math, and they DID make some changes...but they still don’t line up or make much sense. Warning, metrics and analytics below. 

2020 Price Per Listing 

 

2021 Price Per Listing 

 

And here is a chart showing the price value per plan. 

 

I used “price per listing” aka “fixed price insertions” because it seems like it’s eBay’s selling point on value (it’s the first two highlights). You can see the Starter plan stayed the same, Basic and Premium dropped dramatically, Anchor is about half the original price and Enterprise stayed the same. I get Starter staying the same, but not offering a better deal for their biggest sellers? Doesn’t make any sense. 

I broke down the numbers comparing Anchor and Enterprise and it would actually be cheaper to start FOUR Anchors instead of ONE Enterprise (Anchor 4 x $300 = $1200 and 100,000 listings versus Enterprise at $3000 and 100,000 listings). The only “perk” to Enterprise is you get an allowance for additional FPI, but you could actually get even more with another Anchor store ($300 for an additional 25,000 listings). To me, it seems like the Enterprise subscription should be around $1500 to offer the value you are getting. You’re getting ripped off.  

When I originally brought all of this up, I was sent a link to a survey to see what improvements could be made to the subscription plans (I REALLY should have screen recorded it). They made it seem like they wanted to make a more customizable plan system where you could sign up for a dedicated customer support (even at the Starter level). I don’t know about you, but they could ditch the Terapeak and other “perks” if we could just speak to someone that could actually help. 

Let me know what you think, thoughts, ideas, etc. Do you feel like youre getting ripped off? Would you pay extra for CS across all plans? 

[richard1rst]

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@unusual_retail wrote:

Let me know what you think, thoughts, ideas, etc.

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OK.

This strikes me as the written equivalent of Monty Pythons Ministry of Silly Walks.

You gave 2 items listed. You have a total feedback in the past 12 months of 15.

Strikes me that you are over-analyzing something that doesn’t even come close to being in your vicinity.

I have an anchor store with 11,000 listings. I get 100,000 listing for free. So your whole rant about the “price per listing” is completely irrelevant as I do not pay anything for any of my listings.

Your whole deal about preferring 4 anchor stores is laughable. Do you really envision having 400,000 listings?

You said

The post isn't about me, it's for everyone else

Except you are wrong. Anchor stores get 100,000 listings, not 25,000. And we DO NOT pay $0.0299 for ANY of those listings.

[unusual_retail]

Yeah, not a rant. Just information. 

Also, check your information again on the subscriptions. Anchor gets 25,000 fixed price insertions a month.

[richard1rst]

That was changed some time ago..

That's a whole lot of selected categories. And, as it happens, I have a lot of collectibles. The price that follows each line is the cost for any ADDITIONAL listing beyond the allocation.

[unusual_retail]

Thanks for pointing that out (I use the FPI for all categories as a baseline because it applies to everyone. The select categories only cover 6 categories and 4 specific sub-categories). All that does is prove the point that much further. 

Anchor gets a total of 100,000 total FPI listings for $300 a month, Enterprise gets 200,000 total FPI for $3000. It still doesn't add up. If you sell within certain categories, it would never make sense to move up to Enterprise since you get half the listings at a tenth of the cost.

Just to clarify, this post is to raise awareness and have dialog with sellers about something that doesn't add up. It's not about me, it's for everyone. eBay made a change once because it was brought up, and hopefully they make a change again so we can all improve our margins and get more value for a service many pay for.