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Jay, No. You would need a Premium Store for the 50,000…
I posted this on another thread, reposting here. It’s long, but I try to break this down:
The extent of the change depends on your seller level. For non-store owner and starter store owners, there’s an increase in the freebies, with NO category limitation. So, today, non store gets 50 free auction or FP listings per month. That will jump to 200 in August. Today, starter store gets 100 auction or FP, that will jump to 250 per month. Again, NO category restrictions for those sellers.
The Basic Store owners get a hybrid : Today, they get 250 FP, and 250 auction in “Fashion and Collectibles”, a term which actually encompasses 13 ebay categories. In August , the free FPs in ANY category will jump from 250 to 350. (Auctions stay the same). BUT…Basic store owners, if they are in Managed Payments, will get an additional 10,000 free FP listings, but those freebies are confined to certain categories.
Premium, Anchor and Enterprise , unlike Basic and below, get NO unrestricted free FP listings beyond what they get now. So these larger stores DO get additional freebies, but they are confined to certain categories. In other words, if you have a Premium (or higher) store and only sell in a category that is NOT one of the specified categories, this doesn’t change anything for you. But…let’s say you list ONLY in Collectibles (which is one of the specified categories). Then this is great for you, because with a Premium Store, you get an extra 50,000 freebies in the specified categories. With an Anchor, you get 75,000 extras, and with Enterprise, you get 100,000 extras.
So, to figure out whether this is no benefit, some benefit, or a tremendous benefit, Premium and above need to look at the specified categories. There are six full categories:
- Collectibles
- Music
- Books
- DVDs & Movies
- Stamps
- Crafts
And there are four where we aren’t dealing with EVERYTHING in the category, but ONLY a specified SUB-category:
- Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop > Sports Trading Cards
- Toys & Hobbies > Collectible Card Games
- Video Games & Consoles > Video Games
- Home & Garden > Greeting Cards & Party Supply > Party Supplies
So, for Premium and up, and for Basic too, it’s important to know which categories and sub-categories apply to your business, if any.
For me, this is pretty great, because I’d guess about 2/3 or 3/4 of my stuff fits into Collectibles, another chunk is Books and Music, and a few odds and ends in some of the others. I also sell in some non-specified categories, but I probably have enough FP freebies to cover that stuff, since, as a Premium Store, I have 1,000 FP in any category in addition to the new 50,000 in specified categories. I might drop to Basic, my store renewal comes up in October, so if just wait a couple months, I can change to Basic without an Early Termination fee.
Jay, that’s right, a seller with a premium store could list up to 50,000 books and collectibles listings for free every month, plus use the other free FP listings he normally gets for non-books, non-collectibles, or for that matter, more books and collectibles. So, yeah, the really big benefit here is for those who list heavily in the selected categories, AND who have sufficient inventory/time to create thousands of listings. (of course, you still have your store fee to pay)
Jay, I think the only part left once the Classifieds sale is finalized is the marketplace business. If they want to sell that they could presumably sell the whole shebang, or they could sell off the different sites to different buyers: eBayUK to one, ebay.com to another, etc.
It’s been the 64,000 dollar question since the “activists” sent their letter…..is the end game really to improve the Marketplace business, or is it to sell off the marketplace business?
At this point, especially with ebay’s stock rising and the pandemic’s economic uncertainty, I doubt ebay is going to shop the marketplace like they did the Classifieds, but of course a hostile takeover attempt could occur anytime. As for me, I’m going to treat this as business as usual, with a degree of hope that ebay really will focus on improving the marketplace, especially for small businesses.
As always, time will tell…..
Mr Schiavo and almasty, ebay was asked about waiving the early termination fees in a recent Weekly Chat and said there were no plans to do so. I suppose that could change, but I wouldn’t count on it.
07/19/2020 at 3:56 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 472: Biggest Sale, Biggest Scavenge #79713Listening now. Ryanne, the additional free listings thing recently announced by ebay is NOT a limited time Promo. It is a permanent (well, at least as permanent as anything subject to change can be) change. The extent of the change depends on your seller level. For non-store owner and starter store owners, there’s an increase in the freebies, with NO category limitation. So, today, non store gets 50 free auction or FP listings per month. That will jump to 200 in August. Today, starter store gets 100 auction or FP, that will jump to 250 per month. Again, NO category restrictions for those sellers.
The Basic Store owners get a hybrid : Today, they get 250 FP, and 250 auction in “Fashion and Collectibles”, a term which actually encompasses 13 ebay categories. In August , the free FPs in ANY category will jump from 250 to 350. (Auctions stay the same). BUT…Basic store owners, if they are in Managed Payments, will get an additional 10,000 free FP listings, but those freebies are confined to certain categories.
Premium, Anchor and Enterprise , unlike Basic and below, get NO unrestricted free FP listings beyond what they get now. So these larger stores DO get additional freebies, but they are confined to certain categories. In other words, if you have a Premium (or higher) store and only sell in a category that is NOT one of the specified categories, this doesn’t change anything for you. But…let’s say you list ONLY in Collectibles (which is one of the specified categories). Then this is great for you, because with a Premium Store, you get an extra 50,000 freebies in the specified categories. With an Anchor, you get 75,000 extras, and with Enterprise, you get 100,000 extras.
So, to figure out whether this is no benefit, some benefit, or a tremendous benefit, Premium and above need to look at the specified categories. There are six full categories:
- Collectibles
- Music
- Books
- DVDs & Movies
- Stamps
- Crafts
And there are four where we aren’t dealing with EVERYTHING in the category, but ONLY a specified SUB-category:
- Sports Mem, Cards & Fan Shop > Sports Trading Cards
- Toys & Hobbies > Collectible Card Games
- Video Games & Consoles > Video Games
- Home & Garden > Greeting Cards & Party Supply > Party Supplies
So, for Premium and up, and for Basic too, it’s important to know which categories and sub-categories apply to your business, if any. For me, this is pretty great, because I’d guess about 2/3 or 3/4 of my stuff fits into Collectibles, another chunk is Books and Music, and a few odds and ends in some of the others. I also sell in some non-specified categories, but I probably have enough FP freebies to cover that stuff, since, as a Premium Store, I have 1,000 FP in any category in addition to the new 50,000 in specified categories. I might drop to Basic, my store renewal comes up in October, so if just wait a couple months, I can change to Basic without an Early Termination fee.
Sorry this is so long….
Old Dad, Ah, OK, that makes sense.
Old Dad, you didn’t get the 50,000 free listings in June and July for your anchor store?
Jay, they address your question in the FAQs. And keep in mind, IF they simply increased listings in every category, they’d probably be increasing the store subscription fees too. I think the main reason is, they’ve for a few months worth of data (from the COVID free listing specials) that show them that these categories really benefited from the freebies. Even before COVI, I saw many sellers complaining that clothing, for example, was swamped….so would ebay really want to throw the doors wide for even more clothing oversupply?
We’re going to take a good look at this, and might downgrade from Premium to Basic, since we sell a lot in Collectibles and can load up a lot more in the media categories. But we’re on an annual subscription, so we’d have to pay the penalty…have to figure out what that would cost….
The announcement itself,, without all the details, is here:
from 2018 through 2020, the range is $65 through $135….if I were selling I’d err on the high side I think….
I see a range of prices, from $13.58 or so to $135.00
daisy, I believe Google Ads are actual ads. Google Shopping is a Google site. So, I think there may be two different things going on here. But also, I think (not sure) that Google Shopping has been made free for sellers who have their own sites. I think marketplace sites continue to pay to list on Google Shopping. But that’s not clear, either.
Just gonna drop this here…thought it was interesting:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/21/business/people-signing-up-for-coffee-subscriptions/index.html
Jay, I think the Big Change is : before this, you could get the commission on your own stuff and other sellers’ stuff. Now, you get the commission on others’ stuff (that hasn’t changed) but on your own stuff, you are basically getting more than the commission, you are getting the FVF wiped out. So, before, if I sold my $100 item through the Partner Network and it had a 10% FVF and the category had a 2% Commission, I got 2 bucks, which reduced my FVF from $10 to $8. But now, I get the 2 bucks commission PLUS another $8 to cancel out the FVF.
So, I think the incentive to push other people’s stuff is pretty much the same, but the incentive to push my own stuff is much greater. So, think of someone who uses Instagram to push their stuff. A lot of people say: Why use ebay if I can sell on Instagram for free? But this changes the equation somewhat: Why not list on ebay, and also list the ebay item on Instagram…..if it sells through the Partner network, it basically sells for free even as an ebay sale.
It’s a bit of a game changer for me, at least to the extent that I will re-evaluate my barely used Facebook business page and look into Instagram, etc. I like the idea of using ebay as home base, AND having the opportunity to sell my ebay stuff for free on social media. Right now, with the 50000 free listings through July, I’m basically paying ebay my store subscription and fVFs. I’d be happy to get some free FVFs in there. Especially on higher priced items.
Better Half just told me they have apparently announced the change….So, if I’m in the Network, and I post my ebay item on my Facebook page, buyer clicks through to ebay and buys it within 24 hours, I pay the FVF but its credited back to me. And if I post one of Jay’s items on my FB page, buyer clicks through and buys it within 24 hours, I get a commission (the percentage is determined by the category, looks like from 1% to 6%).
So it does provide some incentive to use Social Media to push my ebay stuff.
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