Free Listings

[amethyst1415]

How often does eBay offer free listings? I won't list anything again until they do because if I don't sell my stuff with a free listing why would I pay to list when it doesn't sell? Then I will be out money. Also, why does eBay charge for listings when if it sells they take a final value fee?

[recped]

Have you used your 50 "free" for April?

Listing promos are pretty frequent, usually at least 2 a month, sometimes more (one just ended today). Most of the promos are invite only, not all sellers qualify. Promos sometime get offered with an email directly to you, sometime they just show up in My eBay or maybe a banner ad when you log in. You need to keep you eyes open.

Why do they charge listing fees? Primarily it's for the money of course, a secondary thing given that over the years fees for listings have fallen considerably is that if there were no listing fees at all eBay would become a dumping ground for every piece of garbage on earth.

If you are smart and flexible you can pretty much avoid paying any listings fees.

I predict the next listing promo will coincide with Easter, the last one was for Fixed Price so hopefully this one will be for Auctions, look for something maybe on Tuesday next week.

[amethyst1415]

Thank you. 🙂

[reallynicestamps · Accepted solution]

I tend to either ignore 'free' listings or list less during them, because so many unsaleable items are up during them that good items get lost.

What eBay offers 'free' is 80 keystrokes for a title and a gallery picture. Both of these are relatively new (in the last five years, I think). Before that titles were shorter and pictures were paid for.

A good title will bring customers to your listing. A good photo will keep them there long enough to consider purchase.

The FVF on 'free' listings is often higher than the FVF on paid listings, btw.

[amethyst1415]

Really? I did not know that. I was going to say why charge sellers to list stuff when there is a final value fee but that makes sense. How much higher for the final value fee?

Anyway, I broke down and listed anyway. I guess it isn't that expensive. It would be nice if I would sell something though. IT seems like sales completely stopped this month.

[recped]

There is no higher FVF! There were one or two promos a long time ago where the FVF was a flat percentage regardless of the selling price but that was back when there was a sliding scale to FVF's the higher the selling price the lower the percentage. Since the last big fee rejig they did away with the sliding scale.

As for avoiding listing during a promo because of a glut, first there already is a glut and second all it means is that other sellers who do participate are getting the sales.

[bozonet]

"if there were no listing fees at all eBay would become a dumping ground for every piece of garbage on earth." 

That is a perfect description of what happens during a free listing promo. Every piece of garbage that was listed in the past 3000 promos is listed yet again. It really would be nice if there were some reasonable limits on how much could be listed. Or if there was a way to exclude sellers who repeatedly list the same unsellable **bleep** from appearing in your searches.

[recped]

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@bozonet wrote:

"if there were no listing fees at all eBay would become a dumping ground for every piece of garbage on earth." 

That is a perfect description of what happens during a free listing promo. Every piece of garbage that was listed in the past 3000 promos is listed yet again. It really would be nice if there were some reasonable limits on how much could be listed. Or if there was a way to exclude sellers who repeatedly list the same unsellable **bleep** from appearing in your searches.

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What are the actual numbers?

Do you follow them? Do you know how much they go up and down? can you correlate this with listing promos?

Over the past 6 months there has rarely been a single day when there were not listings running that were launched under a promo.

I do check the numbers for my category, they don't really change that much (5 - 10% at most) which is nowhere near the seasonal changes that have nothing to do with promos.

I know one thing for a fact, sellers who utilize the promos to list stuff they would not pay to list sell more stuff. Those that don't participate miss out.

I also know for a fact that some of the **bloop** that you refer to is bought by buyers, clearly they buy this **bloop** because they want it.

Sellers sell more

Buyers have more stuff to buy

eBay gets more fvf's

Looks like a win win win to me.

[bozonet]

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@recped wrote:

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@bozonet wrote:

"if there were no listing fees at all eBay would become a dumping ground for every piece of garbage on earth." 

That is a perfect description of what happens during a free listing promo. Every piece of garbage that was listed in the past 3000 promos is listed yet again. It really would be nice if there were some reasonable limits on how much could be listed. Or if there was a way to exclude sellers who repeatedly list the same unsellable **bleep** from appearing in your searches.

---

What are the actual numbers?

Do you follow them? Do you know how much they go up and down? can you correlate this with listing promos?

Over the past 6 months there has rarely been a single day when there were not listings running that were launched under a promo.

I do check the numbers for my category, they don't really change that much (5 - 10% at most) which is nowhere near the seasonal changes that have nothing to do with promos.

I know one thing for a fact, sellers who utilize the promos to list stuff they would not pay to list sell more stuff. Those that don't participate miss out.

I also know for a fact that some of the **bloop** that you refer to is bought by buyers, clearly they buy this **bloop** because they want it.

Sellers sell more

Buyers have more stuff to buy

eBay gets more fvf's

Looks like a win win win to me.

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I browse the Canadian vinyl records category. On a "normal" day there may be a thousand or so items listed. So far today (the first day of yet another promo) there has been more than 3x that. And most of it has been listed before. Many times. Obviously if you throw enough junk up someone is likely to buy something. I'm not looking for regular everyday items. Using searches and keywords and excluding words (yes, I do know how searches work and last time I tried adding one I was maxed out) is not an option because I am looking for items that look interesting that I don't yet know about. If I do know about it I probably already have a search for it and it isn't something likely to show up, promo or not. If I don't know about it, I can't very well search for it. Browsing through listings is a potential way of finding new items that I would be interested in. However the noise level during a promo is so high I usually don't even bother looking.

Maybe eBay should just get rid of the promos and let everyone list as much as they want as often as they want for free. I would have an amazing selection to choose from. I could find every record I ever wanted. And eBay would make even more money from fvf  than they would ever make through listing fees. What a wonderful world this would be.