EBAY - Slowed down all the Free Listing Promotions.

I noticed, that the free listing promotions have slowed down considerably and I haven't seen a free listing promotion for BUY IT NOW type auctions in the last 2 months.

I think they are tryiny to discourage Buy-it-Now/Fixed price lisitings unless you have a store. This is what they sent me in an email a few weeks back:

Our research shows that in many popular categories—particularly fashion and collectible items—listing your items auction-style is the best way to make a sale. That’s why the standard selling fees will be updated to give sellers without an eBay Stores subscription up to 100 free auction-style listings per month* in the following categories:
•Antiques
•Art
•Baby
•Clothing, Shoes & Accessories
•Coins & Paper Money
•Collectibles
•Dolls & Bears
•Entertainment Memorabilia
•Health & Beauty
•Jewelry & Watches
•Pottery & Glass
•Sports Memorabilia, Cards & Fan Shop
•Stamps
•Toys & Hobbies
Starting May 15, 2014, the following changes will be made to eBay’s standard fees:
•There will no longer be an allotment of free fixed price listings in these categories for sellers who don’t have an eBay Stores subscription. The insertion fee to list fixed price in these categories will be 30¢.
•You still have your 50 free listings* every month that you can use for auction-style or fixed price in other eligible categories—or you can use them for auction-style listings in the categories listed above.
•Plus, starting May 15 you’ll have an additional 50 free auction-style listings* that can be used only in the categories listed above.

They really messed with the costs to sell a vehicle if you list more than 6 a year. Now that was a truly sucky change.

They are trying to push people towards store subscriptions..  I have a store and I get the 150 Free listings, but I have like 300 items listed on eBay and a whole lot more I would like to list, but I can't until I get free listings or the sell down the other items I have listed.

My options are to upgrade to a bigger store, which I don't want to do, I don't even want the one I have.. Or wait for promotions..

I personally feel that they are going after the people who are selling under multiple ID's to avoid listing fees..

It makes me wonder if this is a good eBay strategy, if I was a shareholder.

Does the cost of some additional subscription revenue, outweigh the cost of the Final Value Fee they would of received from people who will no longer sell a ton of items on eBay.

And does the lower price an auction might bring from a sale (people will sell more) out-weigh the higher fee they will eventually collect from a final value fee.

Then are their people with stores selling the same items that people who didn't have stores are selling - So ebay really won't being losing the FVF, since they will just collect it from a different seller.

I'm sure eBay crunched their numbers and projected the revenue growth by the changes the implemented.

one thing I notice is when i was doing storage auctions for my ebay stuff i was really focused on listing fees however now when i have a store i could care less about listing fees if i used to have to pay them or do now.

the only reason to really be focused on listing fees is because your items aren't selling and your worried about paying a fee to list, not having it sell and repeating that cycle several times before it sells. yeah maybe it eventually sells but how much time has it taken to sell that its taking up space in your ouse and that your sitting on it, having to relist it, etc.

if  your running into that problem you may be better off not listing items you dont think are going to sell as that drives down your % of items selling vs sitting and that hhurt you in search overall.

i catch myself doing this with my persona non business ebay account. i got stuf sitting around the house i dont wnna donate it or toss it as i see value in everyting and i continue listing it knowing its never going to sell or if it does for nearly nothingand im packing and shipping crap for almost no profit.

if an item doesn't sell after a time or two id donate it and take te write off