@mjwl2006 wrote:
At the risk of coming across as argumentative, ebay makes as much money without listing Promotions as they do with. If you sell something, ebay gets their Final Value Fee on the item plus shipping (if applicable) regardless of whether you paid to list that item or not. If you did pay to list it (whether one listing at a time or as part of a store subscription) instead of using a freebie, they also get that money. What does it amount to, is it 30 cents?
The more practical way to look at it is the only way for you to pay money is to sell something, and you can only sell it if you list it.
Sellers cannot count on ebay's promos to run a business here. Those promotions are doled out with the corporation's best interests in mind, not the individual seller's short-term plans in mind.
Well, I suppose I'm going to argue the opposite proposition...
Actually I'd say eBay makes more money by offering listing promotions because sellers are tempted to use them!
I've seen a lot of serious sellers over the years who do rely, if not entirely, at least to a large extent, on regular promos to run their businesses. EBay has offered these promos fairly consistently, and for a very long time, and I doubt they're ever going to stop, because it boosts eBay's income, too.
For a lot of store owners, the promos are a regular part of their business plan, permitting them to list goods they otherwise might not. Many have a bucketful of listings specifically ready to go when a promo is offered. I have to admit that almost every time I've taken advantage of a promo I've seen a jump in sales. Those sales mean more FVFs for eBay. Imagine the effect of these promos on eBay's cash flow across an entire site.
As I've said on another thread, it costs eBay virtually nothing to hand out free promos as long as they have the site capacity to absorb the extra listings. The more sellers list, the more we sell, and the more fees eBay makes from those sales. In that sense, promos are in eBay's best interests, but on the other hand, what seller is going to complain about more sales?
Admittedly the promo details per se are tailored to eBay's current cash flow strategies, not to sellers' needs specifically. So perhaps if eBay sees that sales of GTC fixed price items are top-heavy, they may offer an auction-only promo. This is one area where relying strictly on promos may be a little problematic if a seller is fussy about the listing type or duration.
