Does Fast N Free get more sales??

[little_whimsy]

I see eBay says that fast and free give an average of 11% more sales. Has anyone else found this to be true??

I already meet the requirements, however i charge shipping on the item, but am happy to include that into the price of the item if its worth while. 

What do you think most buyers prefere to see:
xx product cost $20 with free shipping 
OR
xx product costs $12 with $8 shopping?

Would love to know your thoughts and experiences! 

Thank you! 

[brerrabbit585]

One benefit of sellers listing a separate postage charge is that it reminds buyers that it does actually cost something to post things.

[brerrabbit585]

The word average can be played with a bit.  I wouldn't trust what ebay says anyway, but they could definitely be using a different meaning of the word to portray what they want us to see/read.

I remember someone I worked with doing the same thing.  He was the regional director of the Education Dept for a large rural area in Victoria and he quoted a stat about how an average high school in the region had a budget of $X for furniture, or something along those lines.  He received a lot of calls from irate high school principals who said their budget was nothing like that, to which he replied that he was talking about a specific school (and he named it), which is "an average high school".  He was really good at twisting things when it suited him!

[gec2002]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

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@little_whimsy wrote:
@gec2002 I dont use Turbo Lister but will look into that, thank you for all this information, will come in handy in the future. I have only started back with eBay again after a break and business overhaul, so in the future i believe that will be very very handy!

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I wouldn't bother. eBay won't be supporting Turbolister after the end of this month.

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Yes, while no technical support (other than category updates) will be available you can continue to use it after June.

eBay have stated

From June 2017 we’ll no longer be supporting Turbo Lister with feature updates or bug fixes, and we suggest you move over to Seller Hub now.

Update on Turbo Lister

As previously announced, from June 2017 we’ll stop technical support for Turbo Lister, including feature updates and bug fixes.

You can carry on using Turbo Lister for now, but we strongly recommend you move over to Seller Hub or a third party tool to avoid any potential impact on your business. We’ll give you advanced warning before we shut Turbo Lister down permanently.

[davewil1964]

There you go. I should have my new computer up on Monday, so that will be the last of my TL listings. I'm not going to migrate TL.

I've uploaded the ones due to be listed after that from TL to inventory. Which is excellent as there doesn't seem to be a limit, at least for templates within the inventory. For the others, I will do drafts up to 60 days ahead.

[gec2002]

Yes the Seller Hub and Inventory are good but they don't provide the one major advantage that Turbo Lister provides, which is Off Line permanent storage.  If you have a small to medium number of listings its not an issue, but I have 5000+ listings I want to be able to keep them longer than 3 months,and save them securely, plus be able to make easy multiple changes such as postage etc.  And when eBay crashes were's the back up!  Unfortunately looks like I will be forced to commercial software and more monthly fees.

[davewil1964]

I have 2500 listings over 3 IDs.

All my pics are stored on my computer, all my descriptions are stored on my computer. All my accounting is stored on my computer. It takes 30 seconds to recreate any one of them. I certainly wouldn't ever rely on eBay to manage MY business.

[heihachi_73]

I wouldn't say it does, Fast 'n Free is just eBay's attempt to make the website resemble a physical shop, by hiding the postage costs in the item price, since in a real shop people don't pay postage for items when they buy things. "Free" postage artificially inflates prices by changing eBay's average price estimate to include the postage cost, which also has the effect of doing the same in actual shops, where the shop itself then unknowingly charges postage for an item on their shelf because they saw the same item on eBay and matched the price!

All in all (you're just another brick in the wall - on eBay!), free postage is a complete farce unless you're a Chinese seller, where they can seemingly get away with selling thousands of things at $1 each with free international postage and not go broke in the process.

Also, what's stopping people for charging $7+ postage in the item cost (with "free" postage of course) and then sending something with 2 stamps on it because it was under 2cm thick?

[*tippy*toes*]

A few years ago when eBay was pushing the free postage thing I tried it. I had items listed for $8.99 + postage, which we'll say was $6.95 at the time (I can't remember now). Those items sold OK as they were, but got totally ignored when listed for $15 with free postage. I believe buyers saw $15 and thought no way are they worth that much, which they weren't. If they'd bought multiples of the ones with added postage, they'd get a discount as I think 8 would still come in at under 500g.

The downside to free postage is, if a buyer changes their mind, normally they would only be refunded the purchase price, not the postage. If you have postage included, they get the whole lot refunded.

Like others, fast and free does nothing for me. Not everything shows it as that for everyone. If I buy something from my own state I get the logo. If I'm buying something from the other side of the country, I don't see it, even though buyers in that state do see it. Over all cost is what matters to me. If it's listed as free postage and I want it, I buy it. If it's price + postage and I want it, I buy it. As long as the overall price is what I want to pay.

[bluebudgies]

The complications with returns is a really good reason not to offer it but it's not my primary reason for not offering free postage (I rarely get returns).

If offering fast & free is supposed to only get you an extra 11% in sales then I think it's hardly worth offering anyway. If it got you 50% more sales, or even just 20%, it might be worth thinking about, but a mere 11% shows that it doesn't make a real lot of difference to buyers. I suspect it's just a coincidence that sellers who offer fast & free get more sales, and that they don't get them BECAUSE OF fast & free but because they're better sellers or because they sell the sort of products that people need quickly.

The ONLY way ebay can state that you get more sales when you offer fast & free is to compare what happens when a seller changes to it, or from it (back to standard practices), and even then you can distort it by offering fast & free at a more favourable time of year. Comparing a store that offers it with a store that doesn't offer it is meaningless because of the differences between each store.