Is a featured store worth having?

[wadds5]

I have had a standard store for some years and would love to hear from anyone who has gone to having a featured store - what benefits did you get? Many thanks - Sue

[digital*ghost]

I upgraded to a feature store a few years ago, but purely for the additional free listings and FVF break (it's only 1%, but I have enough listings for the price difference to be worth it either way).

There aren't really any other benefits to a featured store over a basic one, there used to a couple of small additional features (eg featured stores used to be able to remove the eBay search bar at the top when people were browsing their store, but now only anchor stores can do that), but you don't get any additional exposure or other benefits aside from the cost breaks. 

You can use the tool linked below to check whether you'll save any money by upgrading, you just have to input how many listings (on average) you have per month, what your main categories are, how many sales you average per month, and the average value of each sale (including postage).

http://www.subs.ebay.com.au/feeweb/feeillustrator

[chameleon54]

Twelve months ago I had two featured stores. Combined sales from the two stores where incredibly consistant month in, month out. The first store had more listings than the featured store,  freebie allocation so I started a second store selling similar, but slightly different products. I never got around to using my full allocatiion of freebie listings on the second store, only having 300-400 listings. The second stores sales started to gradually decline over time and so last year when ebay increased store fees, I downgraded the  second store from featured to standard.

I was very concerned that I may be downgraded in listing visibility etc. and was prepared to close the second store if sales declined further as a resiult of the downgrade. What actually happened was a complete suprise. It was like some-one had released the handbrake on sales, resulting in a dramatic increase in sales. ( over 50% increase ). The only change was the store classification. Listing numbers and products did not change at all.

Sales appeared to be less regulated and more responsive to seasons, listing numbers etc. The increased sales have stuck and twelve months later the standard store is still selling more than when it was a featured store. There are various theories around, regarding how ebay treats individual sellers in searches, visibility etc. While no-one knows for sure, my guess is that featured stores sales may be more regulated than standard stores.

The only reason I would change a standard store into a featured one was if you intend to dramatically increase listing numbers and can use most of the extra freebie listings. Even then I would consider running two standard stores, specialising listings on each. That way you are not placing all of your ebay eggs in the one ebay basket. 

[wadds5]

Thank you very much for your input - it is very much appreciated. Best wishes Sue

[wadds5]

Thank you very much for your input - I don't think I will change. Best wishes Sue

[djavusydney]

If your sales in a month x 1% is greater than the cost of feature store subs, you need to take the feature store.