Share your thoughts: June 19 SIF to Auction Free Listing promotion

[vaughan@ebay.com]

Hello,

Hope everyone is well. Once again, I am hoping to get some input from you all regarding the most recent June 19 SIF to Auction Free Listing promotion. Some questions I had include:
-Were you aware of this promotion?
-Did you take advantage of this promotion? Why/why not?
-If so, how much of your inventory did you move into auction?
-What could we do to make this promotion more effective for your business?

As always, your comments would be much appreciated. Both Enzo and myself will be around to read your answers.

Cheers,
Vaughan

[kiddsrus]

Hi; Yes I did take advantage of this promotion.
I think that it is great, because since ebay express has opened I have noticed quite a decline in sales. I am presuming that the eBay traffic is much lower as many shoppers are now going to eBay express. At least this promotion helps us Canadian sellers a little with this transition until we are able to be included in eBay express as well.

I did move a lot of store inventory over to fixed price listings, but I did have one question. When moving store inventory over to either auction or fixed price format listings, can we move more than a quantity of 1 in a listing and would it still be free? I would like to move more than 1 of each item but was afraid that I might only get the 1 free and be charged for any extra quantity over 1 per listing.

[zarzuella]

I used the promotion too.

I did get an email the day before, and so I was better prepared.
I set up about 270 auctions, most moved from store and the rest (those that did not qualify) at the 10 cent listing price. I also utilized the last promotion with good results for the time of year, so I was pleased to do it again!

Thanks! Ann

[bookelph]

Count me in among the enthusuastic YES!!! group.



I moved over 1000 items from store to auction both during this promotion and the last one.
I also listed several hundered with the 10cent promotion.



I would love to see more of these promotions.



HOWEVER, I used the "Send to online auction" feature in MY EBAY, and found that it was a nuisance to have the default starting price set to .99 cents
I had to change each one (Bulk edit wouldn't work, because I wanted all different starting prices)



It would have been a great feature to have a choice to use the existing Store listing price as the starting price. Is there a way to do this that I am unaware of? If not, perhaps you could suggest this functionality could be added????

[vaughan@ebay.com]

Hi kiddrus,

Thanks for your feedback. You can definitely move listings with multiple quantities during the listing promotion with no extra charge.

Cheers,
Vaughan

[straw11]

Hi all I also used the promotion and I love love love it the sales have pick up and would love to see it more often I wish though that there is a bulk relist back to the store after the auctions are complete on the ones that did not sell Is there such a thing thanks again Pat

[zarzuella]

There is if you subscribe to SM Pro.

Ann

[yogagirlvancouver]

HI Vaughn!

RE: SIF moved to Genral Auction Promotion

THANKS for this last promotion - the changes to it were excellent ie: INCLUDING GALLERY for free on store listings that were moved, and also allowing for the BUY IT NOW feature to be ADDED to auctions.

Thanks for listening to our feedback - that is MUCH appreciated!

I also have noticed that sales are VERY DOWN (dramatically!) so these promotions are VERY appreciated - especially right now.

Take Care, and have a great day! 🙂

[rgilbert15]

SUPER! --- again.

I LIKED it last time and LOVED it this time ... with the FREE gallery. It's obvious in this situation you (ebay) listened to our comments and helped us out.

I would also ask the same as bookelph with regard to the process of sending items to auction from your store (all defaulted at $.99) and the Buy It Now enabled? Is there an option to put them at the same price at the store listing price? This would save lots of time!

All in all though, a great promotion and very helpful during this very slow period. KEEP 'EM COMING!

[getgiz]

I appreciate any help in ebay fees...thank you!
Question: Do items sent to auction from my store, that did not sell this time, qualify for free re-list? And, if they don't sell the second time, what is the fee...is it free or is it the standard listing fees.

[coastwindchimes]

It was Great! Yes, I knew about. Yes, I took advantage of it. I think I listed about 25 things, moving most of those over from my eBay store.

The only thing that was not clear to me was if BIN was added, whether or not the credit would still apply. I did not look around much to see if this was the case, and spelled out somewhere, but it would have been nice to have it very clear on the annoncement page. (I understand that a fee would still apply for the BIN feature~ but was worried that the credit would not apply for auctions with that feature added... if you see what I mean).

Also getgiz raises an important point that I also wondered about. Thanks!

[zarzuella]

Do items sent to auction from my store, that did not sell this time, qualify for free re-list?

No. You will get the listing fee refunded if it sells the second time. Ann

[rgilbert15]

I had't thought about that. Of course, as Ann said, all that would be refunded would be the original listing fee (which was 0) if it sold the second time.

I'll have a bunch of auctions that will end without bids and will likely put some to auction again, but dump the rest back to the Store.

[systemagic]

What th... where am I? Oh... I'm a Power Seller again!

Power seller status is quite unusual for me at this time of year. I can credit this directly to the two free listing days in June.

I put all of my store inventory up for auction and the sell-through rate, both times, was extremely low. Only seven or eight percent. Certainly if the intent was to demonstarte that it's cost effective to routinely transfer store items to auction then these promotions were a failure. At eBay's usual rates the losses would have been enormous. As it was, however, I made about $700 each time and was very happy with the promotion. It was a lot of work, however, particularly when it came to reconnecting all the store inventory cross-promotions. This took in excess of 4 days.

In light of the fact that the listing fees are only refunded after about a month or so this must have been hugely successful for eBay. It amounted to an interest-free loan for a month, each time, of how much? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions? More? That plus the revenues from the, otherwise unrealized, Final Value Fees must have added up to gargantuan income. I've always maintained that, with eBay fees maxed out, eBay should concentrate on increasing the frequency of Final Value Fees. Good for everyone!

I'm optimistic that, in light of the unqualified success of these promotions, notwithstanding the recurring cross-promotional challenges, eBay will host another one of these store-to-auction promotions in July.

Thanks for showing up, Vaughn. It's a significant improvement over the days when pinks were absent.

Marty

[systemagic]

It seems to me that eBay earned substancial new revenues from these promotions and have a duty to their stockholders to continue to do so as frequently as possible.

I'd also like to see, perhaps a week-long, promotion offering free gallery fees. Or... perhaps eBay already has enough data to determine which has the higher efficacy in terms of eBay revenues earned - free, or regular gallery fees. EBay has stated that including a gallery photo increases a listings success rate by 30%. If this is true and accurate then it seems probable that the 39% increase in revenue from Final Value fees would outstrip the revenue from gallery fees. If offering free gallery photos generates more revenue clearly making them permenantly free would be the right thing to do.

If this happens to benifit sellers as well then they'll just have to find a way to live with that.

-What could we do to make this promotion more effective for your business?

In the automatic email for all unsuccessful store-to-auction listings offer a 'Rrelist As Store Item' hyperlink that maintains the integrity of any cross promotions. This would save days of work recreating new store inventory cross-promotions manually each time this promotion runs.

Marty