EBAY'S NEW HEALTH CHECK - I think it is seriously SICK!!

[6508.froggy]

Just received eBay's latest assistance to sellers *Ebay's NEW HEALTH CHECK* .

This may be old news but they are moving timed BUY IT NOW and will move all my listings to GOOD TIL CANCELLED. Well that is not what I want but then again we have no say. 

This does not suit me for many reasons with something new I like to use 10 days as an option. The rest are 30 day listings which gives me the option to adjust the listings if they are not attracting buyers or watches. I will sometimes group them with other items etc. 

I find the 30 day listings far more manageable for my business needs. 

So if all fixed listings are good til cancelled I dare say the next step will be for those with ebay stores will be reduced with the amount of fixed listings in their subscription. 

Good til cancelled also means there will be a hell of a lot of old stock on there for years or if I remember correctly they were bringing in limited time for listings.

I have had my vent but OH SO FRUSTRATING makes me wonder why I am doing this. 

[minimum_56]

Don't you love ebay's involvement with the discussions on this board regarding the changes to 30 day listings...
ABSOLUTE SILENCE

The last post by ebay staff on any discussion was on 21/9/2017!!
Do we actually have any ebay staff or have they all been replaced by bots?

[dazzledayz]

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@brerrabbit585 wrote:

I'd suggest that this is designed to weed out a lot of the slower selling items (in many cases NON-selling).  The items that sell are obviously the ones the buyers are interested in, and the ones that don't sell obviously don't interest buyers, so it doesn't make sense to have the site cluttered with thousands of items that have very little chance of selling.

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Unfortunately, those slower selling items represent eBay's main strength as a marketplace; its "long tail".

Remember the old motto "if you want it it's on eBay"?

When you cut slower moving lines, the site is reduced to the level of a retail mall selling nothing but the latest fad items.

Books are a very good example.

There are fast moving titles to be sure, but there are also many niche titles that can take a long time to sell, which they always do.

What you are suggesting is that we should only stock from the bestseller lists and ignore the unusual or niche.

If eBay go down that route a couple of other big sites stand ready with shovels right by the rotating knives.

[oz-e-seller]

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@eol-products wrote:

A higher store level has a lower fee structure so if you have enough sales it can work out cheaper.

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You have to make around $70,000 to $80,000 of sales per month to be worth jumping to the anchor store level for the 0.8% reduction in FVF's.

[gec2002]

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@dazzledayz wrote:

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@brerrabbit585 wrote:

I'd suggest that this is designed to weed out a lot of the slower selling items (in many cases NON-selling).  The items that sell are obviously the ones the buyers are interested in, and the ones that don't sell obviously don't interest buyers, so it doesn't make sense to have the site cluttered with thousands of items that have very little chance of selling.

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Books are a very good example.

There are fast moving titles to be sure, but there are also many niche titles that can take a long time to sell, which they always do.

What you are suggesting is that we should only stock from the bestseller lists and ignore the unusual or niche.

If eBay go down that route a couple of other big sites stand ready with shovels right by the rotating knives.

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If your on eBay as a business and the numbers say that you should being selling bestsellers that what you should do.  Better to sell 10000 books with $1 each profit after all costs, than 1 book at $1000 profit.  If your on eBay for the glory of selling the odd obscure book and showing your the worlds greater rare book hunter go for it.  But, my guess is that eBay is a giant multinational and are in it for the profit and if the numbers say bestsellers are the way to go, then that is what they will do.  If after some time it becomes obvious that rare books are the go then they will change back.  The CEO's mega bonus is based on what the current profitability is, not what will be in 5 years time. 

[imastawka]

I've only just skimmed (sorry) the posts, but as for the health check part,

I think it might be the announcement we got last year about taking down

listings that haven't sold for 12 months.   (Can't find it now)

This sounds like the way they're gunna clean out the old stuff, to me.

I have things listed for up to 3 years that suddenly sell, so there goes that, then.

GTC will not affect me, as far as I can tell,  except for that part.

I have never had free re-lists - due to stupidly listing as a business acount.

But if they start taking down a listing cos it hasn't sold in 12 months I'm in trouble.

[eol-products]

I would guess it would be better to have multiple featured stores over an anchor store unless you have a six figure turnover or more. There is an ebay calculator that will work out which is best for you but does not work at the moment when I tried it.

[eol-products]

I sell numerous spare parts which may take years to sell so know how you feel.But  I can't see how charging for listings older than 12 months will work as I will just cancel before the time limit then relist.

For every one that things are tough now, back when I had my first store you paid $9.99 for month and listings cost 10cents each per month. They would not show up in general searches and would only be seen at the bottom of the page if a search returned a low number of results. So you would have to run a few listings which would cost a few dollars each for 10 days depending on the price then try and drive buyers to your store.

[pnc75]

Hi Hope you're right pirie, but I think that's the way it is now. They've just copied and pasted the status quo, but gee I hope I'm wrong. What do others think?

I'm pretty sure it's going to change after 19th. I'm hoping they don't charge for iobsertion fees when they change them over!

[jfmgray]

Just off the phone from eBay selling team. They say that one of the changes with GTC listings will be no additional insertion fee. You pay the insertion fee only once when you first list and will no longer pay again every 30 days when the item relists. In fact they say it will never relist as it will remain listed until sold. They also confirmed that this also applies for stores with free listings (ie it will not come off your free listings every 30 days as it does now). And they also confirmed it will work the same if you have the out of stock feature enabled - you will not be charged additional listing fee or loose free listing credits.  

They also advised this change is not just for the AU site - USA and UK are changing at the same time.

[davewil1964]

I'll believe that when I see it.

That seems counterproductive on eBay's part. Who would pay for a store when you can add 40+ (depending on freebies) new listings every month without the old ones incurring costs or falling off?

The way I read the email is the initial changeover to GTC from 19 February would be free of charge. After that I would expect them to incur rollover costs like they always have. I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it.