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. 

[wide-world-of-stamps]

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@countessalmirena wrote:

There may be a possible benefit if you have competitors who don't put in the workk ending, relisting and managing, davewil. But if so, it may feel like a benefit with a bad taste in the mouth.

This doesn't affect me (I'm not about to start up an eBay business selling things) as it would sellers, yet it comes across as the most absolutely ridiculous and throat-cutting way... I've been trying to think about what eBay is hoping to achieve with this.

I suppose the first thing to consider in those terms is... are the big name sellers going to be affected by this?

Are anchor stores going to be affected by this?

What about Chinese sellers?

Is eBay seeking to increase fees in a sneaky way with this measure? Or are they seeking to discourage smaller sellers in order to make eBay more of an Amazon-style marketplace? Is it an "oh no, we can't survive this" measure to pave the way for higher fees in return for a friendlier and less work-intensive listing format? (A little like beating someone, and then stopping the beating, so that the victim's primary emotion is thankfulness that the beatings have ceased...)

It surely cannot have made sense to anyone in the decision-making cloud (aka eBay executive/management level) that this is an improvement for sellers... hence there must be another reason behind this.

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We feel the same way and often wondered what Ebay gained from increasing the free auto-relists from 3 to 8 or 9.

This could be the next step - having sellers used to listing larger numbers of items so that they will pay insertion fees for the extra listings or upgrade to a store (or the next level up).

Or just throw their hands in the air and say "I can't take this any more!" 

[jfmgray]

Soooo I assume a GTC listing if you list quantity as 1 will still end once the item is sold unless you have "out of stock" set??

[pirie_online]

Just use the advanced listing page instead of the quick listing tool and you will still have the 30 day feature.  At least that's how I've read it.  Feel free to correct me

"Listing duration options with the Quick listing tool:

• Auction-style – 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 days
• Fixed price – Good 'Til Cancelled

Listing duration options with the Advanced listing form:

• Auction-style – 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 days
• Fixed price – 3, 5, 7, 10, 30 days and Good 'Til Cancelled"

[digital*ghost]

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@countessalmirena wrote:

It surely cannot have made sense to anyone in the decision-making cloud (aka eBay executive/management level) that this is an improvement for sellers... hence there must be another reason behind this.

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eBay rarely introduce enforced changes from a perspective of improving things for sellers - if they are enforced (rather than optional), it means it benefits eBay's bottom line and / or buyers. 

To see the potential benefits, you just have to scale the predicted effect(s) from eBay's perspective - and this is aside from my earlier post where it may mean they can more "accurately" (I'm using that word very loosely) determine which listings are "underperforming" after a set amount of time. 

Take for instance the number of sellers who use a 30-day duration listing cycle, yet consistently relist the same items regardless (I am not saying I think there's anything wrong with that, BTW 🙂 ). This means they gain a small advantage in search results for a brief period [over those who use GTC], it means all the links to the previous listing(s) are useless (eg in watch lists - particularly now that eBay no longer take buyers to the ended listing, but currently active ones instead), and probably puts a heavier burden on their servers because they have to archive all the ended listings for 60 or so days, rather than simply maintain one over X amount of time. 

If a buyer doesn't purchase a seller's item because their watch list or cart says it's ended or no longer available, that's a potential loss to eBay. The buyer may never have purchased that item, and they may more often just go on to purchase a different item from another seller, but for ebay, it would only take a very small percentage of increased sales (and it does have the potential to have that effect), for it to be considered a success - 1% to a small seller is negligible, but to eBay it's potentially huge. 

[joztamps]

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@pirie_online wrote:

Just use the advanced listing page instead of the quick listing tool and you will still have the 30 day feature.  At least that's how I've read it.  Feel free to correct me

"Listing duration options with the Quick listing tool:

• Auction-style – 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 days
• Fixed price – Good 'Til Cancelled

Listing duration options with the Advanced listing form:

• Auction-style – 1, 3, 5, 7 and 10 days
• Fixed price – 3, 5, 7, 10, 30 days and Good 'Til Cancelled"

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That's what it says at present.

The unknown is whether it will still say that after 19th Feb.

[digital*ghost]

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@oz-e-seller wrote:

My issue with the GTC changes:

I have a store with 1500 free listings per month, over that I pay insertion fees. I usually have around 3000 items listed. I no longer have the free relist option because I went over the threshold ages ago. So my items end every month and I relist them in specific order to save fees. I list the non media first then the media items because they are only 6c insertion fee. If they are all changed to GTC I will have no control over which items I get charged insertion fees for (and I can guess which ones it will be). This potentially increases my insertion fees (above my free allocation) from approximately $90 per month to $330.

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But with GTC, whatever is listed first will end and relist first, maintaining your original order (except when you have new items, but you can time when you list new items, or schedule them). 

[dazzledayz]

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@oz-e-seller wrote:

My issue with the GTC changes:

I have a store with 1500 free listings per month, over that I pay insertion fees. I usually have around 3000 items listed. I no longer have the free relist option because I went over the threshold ages ago. So my items end every month and I relist them in specific order to save fees. I list the non media first then the media items because they are only 6c insertion fee. If they are all changed to GTC I will have no control over which items I get charged insertion fees for (and I can guess which ones it will be). This potentially increases my insertion fees (above my free allocation) from approximately $90 per month to $330.

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A side effect of this policy change will affect all sellers free listing allocation.

Every item you sell will now clock 2 insertions as the GTC item will auto relist post sale with 0 stock if it's a single qty item.

Even mutliple qty items will still clock a relist with every sale (as the do now).

If you sell predominantly single qty listings, your free listing allocation will be reduced by the number of sales you make.

ie 1 insertion when first listed and a second when it sells and relists with 0 quantity.

Great new policy ebay!

[davewil1964]

I haven't used GTC for a while but it certainly never used to relist sold single quantity items.

I don't have 'out of stock' enabled though.

[digital*ghost]

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@dazzledayz wrote:

A side effect of this policy change will affect all sellers free listing allocation.

Every item you sell will now clock 2 insertions as the GTC item will auto relist post sale with 0 stock if it's a single qty item.

Even mutliple qty items will still clock a relist with every sale (as the do now).

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Thankfully, that's not how it works.

It's just a simple relist once per 30 days, there is no re-list on sold items, whether it is a multiple quantity listing or not, because sold items don't end a listing, whether out of stock is implemented or not (that's actually the point of the OOS feature, to not end the listing, and 'out of stock' is optional, too).

It works that way on the other E**y site, with multiple quantity listings until 0 is reached [then they just end], but not here. 

[oz-e-seller]

davewil1964 - where does one check if  'out of stock' is enabled? Or does that only show up once you have GTC listings?