Downgrade Store from Premium to Basic

[thebluetortoise]

Hi all,

Has anyone upgraded their shore and then downgraded afterwards? I am thinking of upgrading from Basic to Premium for the fall shopping season, and then reverting to Basic after Christmas.

I imagine that eBay has fully fleshed out the upgrade process, but I can imagine conversion problems in downgrading, so I am looking for people who have done this to find out if they experienced any problems in downgrading.

Thanks very much.

[dutchman48]

Are you on monthly or annual for your store?

[thebluetortoise]

Annual.

[momcqueen]

If you've got an annual contract, there are some kind of penalties for upgrading and downgrading. I'd call Customer Service if it were me and get them to spell it all out. If you're upgrading from an annual basic to monthly Premium and then back again to annual basic, I don't see the harm but I'm not intimately familiar with the contracts we agree to when starting a stores subscription.

[pocomocomputing · Accepted solution]

Store fees terms here:

http://pages.ebay.ca/stores/subscriptionterms.html

You will have no issues upgrading. Annual renewal date for year contract will be reset to the date you upgrade. When downgrading in January you will pay penalties on the 8 or so months remaining in the year contract.

Most likely it will be cheaper to pay for extra listings on the basic store for the 3 or 4 months you need them than pay for the higher store fee and penalties. How many extra listings per month do you want? I would guess that 250 or 300 listing paid by insertion fees would be cheaper. You can probably calculate it from the help page I posted but it would be a challenge to figure out the exact amount.

Most likely eBay will have a few free listing promos in the fall to help with your basic store. Use some paid insertion fee listings to add inventory and this is probably the best way to add inventory temporarily.

[thebluetortoise]

Good point. I have already contacted eBay and they said no problem, people do this all the time. But I hesitate to accept one rep's response, and she didn't ask whether I was on a monthly or annual plan, although she could probably see that on her screen. She didn't say anything about penalties, so I'll call them back to check the details. Thanks!

[snoopwiz · Accepted solution]

If you are on a yearly "contract" then this applies.

If you cancel or downgrade a yearly subscription before the last month of your subscription, you will be charged an early termination fee equal to one-third of the remaining value of your yearly subscription.

[thebluetortoise]

Thanks for warning about the penalties. That could be a killer! I've done some math, and yes, it's probably best to just pay for the additional postings and stick with my Basic store subscription.

Thanks for all you thoughts. Saved me from making a costly mistake!

[thebluetortoise]

Thanks. That would have been my question to Customer Support. They haven't called me back yet, so this is great. Thanks.

[cooltoycars]

So I just went down this path and it was quite expensive to purchase my soul back from Ebay! I went from a 500 fixed listings and 500 auction listings to a 250 fixed and 250 auction store. For this privilege I was charged an early cancellation fee of $135.49 PLUS a "one time fee" of $67.73! I now have a basic month to month store that I will be closing as soon as possible!

Unless you enjoy paying big fees and penalties I would recommend you just pay the additional listing fees over your subscription level and save yourself a lot of grief and fees later!