Does eBay still offer free insertion promotions?

[ThatAnonymousWoman]

I have sold on eBay for several years now and up until this year, eBay would give me promotions for free listings all the time. I haven’t received one of those promotions at all this year. I have a premium store subscription and several thousand listings but not quite enough to make an anchor store subscription worth my while (but getting close.) I track everything on a spreadsheet and my total store subscription + insertion fees are nearly $900 more at this point in the year than they were a year ago, so this does add up. Do you still get these promotions?

[Jay]

I haven’t seen a free listing promotion in months.
Are listing fees really the barrier to you listing more?

[ThatAnonymousWoman]

Not a barrier to listing more, I just would have liked to have saved that $900. I just went over my July invoice and compared it to last year. Paying for listings plus the 50% reduction in the top rated plus discount is significant, at least to me. The amount of insertion fees I paid plus the TRS reduction cost me $137 more for July than I would have paid with the 20% TRS discount and free listings.

[Jay]

Understood. It’s nice to not have to pay for listings. But the free listings obviously did their job like any good drug dealer. They got you hooked on eBay!

We have always made sure to build our business around the actual cost of buying inventory, listing, storage, etc. If we get anything free or a discount, then its just a bonus.

[sonia]

I haven’t gotten any free insertions since I signed up for a store.

[Inglewood]

I sell on some of the international sites (mostly Canada, a bit on UK) and they are still offering 30 free listings to me a month. ebay.com hasn’t offered me any free listings in several months.

Over the last few years I noticed the best promos were in October – both for listing, and also ebay cash rewards to buy items (last year if you sold a Halloween costume they gave a code for $10 off a purchase). Also had a lot of free shipping promos from various carriers in October and November last year – if eBay doesn’t have a promo, always see what the shippers are offering – I jump from the postal service to UPS to FedEx whenever they have good or free offers.

[pythonesk]

@Inglewood, I’ve never seen shipping promotions. Where do you see those?

[Inglewood]

I have accounts with the major carriers and they tend to email me promotions. Sometimes I get them in the regular mail as well. In July, I had a promotion from PayPal offering 15% off postage using there shipping tool.

UPS sends me emails all the time when I don’t use them for a week offering huge discounts or a free item shipped – seems to be every 2 to 3 weeks.

FedEx also sends me offers for a heavily discounted shipment every 4-8 weeks. Last November during Thanksgiving/Black Friday, they had a flat 50% discount.

DHL has a few a year – I can’t remember the last time I used them though as they were a pain to come pick up items at my home.

Shippo has had some offers, but I haven’t used them yet.

I’m in Canada so the offers may vary, but I would assume that the major carriers would offer similar discounts/promos in the U.S.

I also take them up on free boxes/envelopes or other supplies. I’ve noticed the post office doesn’t care if you use a FedEx box, etc.

[Retro Treasures WV]

I have business accounts with UPS, paypal, and FedEx. I have never received offers like that of any kind from any of them. I’m thinking it may be a Canada only thing to try and win your cross-border business long term.

[Sharyn]

I did receive a listing promotion recently for 500 additional GTC. The reason could be that I just arrived at the near 1000 level, and maybe they are making sure I don’t stop! I don’t recall getting these promotions many times before this.

[Author]

Posts