Ebay's Spring Seller Update Or Gotta Shake Things Up!

Seems like the changes are the same for Canadians on ebay.ca:

http://pages.ebay.ca/sellerinformat...e-plans.html

Firstly, I like the "free if it sells" incentive.

But I'm not sure if I agree with the OP that stores will be the ones most affected. The fixed-price structure for stores is unchanged.

So IMO this change will do little to eliminate the high-priced clutter from Powersellers that list @ crazy premiums. I assume if you're forking over $180-$120 a month, ebay doesn't want to ruffle your feathers.

Equally, free 10 day listings won't help with clutter. And I don't understand the premium on 1-3 day auctions. Nor the increase on reserve prices. Random..who here actually uses either...?!

For people like me who don't pay for a store, it's a mixed bag, depending on how many "specials" we're offered (ie 1500 free listings). I like that I can now do 20 fixed-price per month for free, but yeah, losing 60 freebies does suck. With the 4% differential in FV fees, the change might even induce some sellers on the cusp to go for a store.

Anyone know whether the "best offer" option is included in our 20 fixed-price listings? When I was selling 10 years ago, they didn't have this--it's a feature I really love. A 'third option' persay.

I think the trick for ebay going forward is how it induces listings that aren't so risky for the seller as pure auctions, but not so frustrating for buyers such as sifting through the overpriced fixed listings.

I would suggest incentivizing the 'best offer' option, or say, providing free automatic relists provided the BIN price is reduced by a certain % each time. In this regard, I'd say the changes miss the mark.

lambda.corp - It does affect store sellers who primarily sold via auction listings. If you had an anchor store you had an allotment of 2,500 listings that you could use for either auction or fixed price. After the update - that same number will be only for fixed priced items.

I don't use reserve prices, but there are circumstances where 1 or 3 day auctions make sense. In my line of work I occasionally have small, relatively cheap electronic devices given to me that I don't want or need, and of course I often sell those on ebay. You can list them with as long an auction period as you want, but they will get absolutely zero views until the last day or two of the auction. This is because there are dozens to hundreds of identical items up for auction at any given moment and there's no need for a buyer to look for the 600th listing to get what he wants. There's no sense in running a 7 day auction when a 3-day auction gets you your money 4 days sooner, and with the same results. You'd think if they want to reduce clutter that they wouldn't charge extra for these short durations, because it's going to cause the number of listings of some items to increase a lot, potentially up to 100%.

Artful: I understand how short listings make sense for you; so what does ebay know about short listings that you don't?

Maybe the guys listing items for 7-day auctions complain to ebay that they're getting sell-side sniped?

Example: A seller's 7-day auction is ending Thursday (for example), and some smart guy lists the same item on a 3-day ending on Tuesday with, therefor, earlier delivery. To the 7-day guy, it feels like his customer was sniped away by the 3-day guy. The 7-day guys might be thinking that "fair's fair" = "the first guy to list is the first guy to close".

Q/ How does the world look to ebay?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I probably only use the 3-day auction once or twice a year (maybe), so it's not really a consideration for me. I was just making an observation that there are circumstances and categories where shorter auctions make sense. For items that I'm talking about, there are often literally hundreds of the identical item (same UPC#) up for auction at any given time. These are high-selling items that will sell in the dozens to hundreds, every single day. The 7-day auction will get exactly the same number of views as the 3-day one, i.e none (zero) until 24-48 hours before the end of the auction. No one has an unfair advantage based on listing duration. They're all pretty much equal on the day they close.

I really don't know what ebay's point of view is on this issue, but I'm sure they have a reason. Maybe their research shows that longer auctions sell for higher prices. I'm sure they've got mind-boggling amounts of data that inform their decisions.

Very few lots in the stamps categories I visit are ever listed for only 1 or 3 days, andnot many are listed fr 10 days. Vast majority has been 7 days.

The number of items being listed in the categories I look at have fallen since the new fee structure has been put into place.