eBay

tyler@ebay · ‎02-26-2019

As we work on building a banner year in 2019 we want to further simplify the listing process and strategically focus effort where we feel it will bring you business and make us more competitive in the e-commerce landscape. Read about the specific changes to listing format and catalogue adoption here and here and let us know your questions below, we’ll be here to address them and work on getting you answers!

Tyler,

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎02-28-2019

The recurring theme on the dot com board:

@biblioboy wrote:

Ending early is a penalty in itself. Lots of customers wait until the last day to buy items. If you pay for 30 days you should get 30 days of listing time and not have to do all the extra work of shutting down listings sooner and not getting what you paid for.

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I'm screwed again. Just last month I went thru listings that I could stop the GTC on and went back to 30 days.

I tried for a year on around 25 items in different categories and price ranges with the GTC listings.

NONE of the items SOLD with GTC, lots of views, lots of watchers, but no buyers. Once I ended them and put them back at 30 days some has sold.

If I have a non selling item why would I want it to auto relist, I want and need my own control, especially with seasonal items.

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The main difference I was seeing from the posts between the 2 boards on average the posts on the Canadian board were a bit more polite and less hostile. Crazy Canuncks!!! Whodda thunk it???

-Lotz

ight.coin · ‎02-28-2019

If this wasn't a fee grab, there would be no need to have 30-day listing duration for GTC listings in the first place.

Why would GTC need ANY EXPIRY, if it so important that google index the listing? (hint - it is for the fees, especially those trick fees that come around on average every 30 months)

Nothing is stopping ebay from changing GTC duration to 90 or 180 days. (well nothing but those fees that would not come around at the end of the month when your store has gone over the 1000 free listing and you forgot about those extra 250 listings set to renew yet again in the last couple days of the month - dang)

30 days wasn't a number picked at random, it is a number that maximizes ebay's fee revenue by tricking (as often as they can get away with) its most important customers, namely sellers.

tryubik-useonlyasdirected · ‎02-28-2019

Wait. What is it exactly eBay is trying here? Is it attempting to alter the definition of fixed price listings to 90 days at x3 the cost?

In Canada the law stipulates that any charged auto-renewal must alert the party of the expected end date & time and renew date & date. As well as allow for the final ending at the said date & time without renewal. (I'm nearly certain its the same in the US.)

eBay is required to allow us to cancel a listing at the end of 30 days as this is the date of the renewal charge. It is illegal in Canada to charge for an auto-renew without the ability to decline the auto-renew.

This is why they have to notify us that our Stores subscriptions are ending prior to charging and renewing our contract for the same period of time.

tryubik-useonlyasdirected · ‎02-28-2019

From the Government of Ontario's Consumer Protection website:

QUOTE:

Changing, renewing or extending without your permission

The business must provide you with written notice of any changes that they want to make to your contract. This includes renewing or extending it. They must also provide you with the option to not accept the changes to your contract.

Under the CPA, a written notice must include:
- all proposed changes to be made to the contract the date on which the change, renewal or extension would become effective
- how the consumer must respond to the notice (mail, email, fax, etc.)
- what would happen if the consumer failed to respond to the notice

If a business doesn’t follow these rules, any changes to your contract are invalid. You don’t have to pay for any charges or fees that are a result of invalid changes to your contract.

In these cases, you can write the business to ask for a correction or refund. If a business refused to correct the mistake, you can file a complaint with the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services.

FURTHER QUOTE:

From the Government of Ontario's Consumer Protection website: "All fees and charges must be what they say they are." --> This means they cannot charge you for 30 Days and force you to end early or charge you twice, or thrice.

Additionally: "Some businesses add clauses to a contract that say that you must use a private arbitration process to resolve complaints instead of going to court or seeking assistance from the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services. You are not bound by these clauses, even if you have accepted the agreement."

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎02-28-2019

Hello tyler@ebay

Could you confirm why sellers on dot ca do not have access to Automation Preferences as it is available to dot com sellers? This may be a solution for all the sellers this is going to affect in Canada. Discovered this info doing a bit of a deep dive through the numerous threads on this proposed GTC situation. Any clarity would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

-Lotz

Go to "Manage Active Listings" - see below:

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tryubik-useonlyasdirected · ‎02-28-2019

@lotzofuniquegoodies

Interesting find for the dot coms.

But this applies to all listings in the shop? And not different times for different listings? More useful for closing a store than managing bulk inventory.

It's important to keep a fresh inventory. I typically add a few new listings a day and thus have listings ending every day.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎02-28-2019

It just seems to be something that is available on dot com but not on dot ca which I found a bit intriguing. In general, most sellers WERE using 30-day listings to keep their inventory fresh or for the other fun task of modifying/improving listings WHEN they ended. Now, this fundamental concept has been completely removed as an option. As it was suggested in another post on dot com it's similar to how Wally World does not sell rock salt for driveways in July.

-Lotz

reallynicestamps · ‎02-28-2019

@ight.coin

Why would GTC need ANY EXPIRY, if it so important that google index the listing? (hint - it is for the fees, especially those trick fees that come around on average every 30 months)

Well, I would guess that eBay does want sellers to review stale listings and if they can make money on fees when a seller insists on listing stale inventory, it's a win/win for them.

EBay is a business. A profitable one.
And there are plans afoot to start paying dividends which in my opinion (formed at the altar of Warren Buffet) that a business whose shareholders demand a dividend will be run to produce real profits.

Nothing is stopping ebay from changing GTC duration to 90 or 180 days.

Not a bad idea. But still doesn't stop the problem that some sellers see of clogging up the site with unsaleable/long-train listings.

The 30 day turnover allows eBay to charge a fee monthly for the listings.
As a GTC seller (and one of today's sales had been listed since March 2016) I am content with the service that I chose. I'd be unhappy if I was required to relist every three or six months.

If you don't sell GTC you would not know that eBay puts a note/warning on listings that have not had a sale in 16 months. I see them often. Sometimes I will pull down the listing, sometimes I let it ride.

kawartha-ephemera · ‎02-28-2019

In the end this GTC policy is all about business strategy, it is not a trick to extract more fees ... at least I do not believe that is the primary motive here.

As Tyler has mentioned ebay believes rightly or wrongly that this change will deliver higher traffic coming from search engine ( google, bing, yahoo etc) queries resulting in an increase in sales on the marketplace as a whole. The strategy may even succeed if enough existing and new users clue in to the idea that a few well chosen keywords in google search will in fact find just what they're shopping for.

Management must be confident this new strategy will succeed. Many were puzzled by the hatchet taken to affiliate commissions, it retrospect that news now makes some sense.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎03-01-2019

Throw another scenario out there to ponder:

We get an option to post 5 listings with a major reduction in final fees. We accept the promotion. Before we have a chance to create 5 listings, 5 older listings suddenly end and they get "automagically" GTC'd eating up the 5 we started working on. Suddenly a promotion is no longer a promotion. Selling on eBay is all about timing. Timing a seller would like to be able to control.

-Lotz

momcqueen · ‎03-01-2019

“Selling on eBay is all about timing.“

I’ve been using GTC for all my Fixed Price for years. My logic? I can’t sell it if it’s not listed and I’m not a mindreader or soothsayer to anticipate the exact moment someone will be looking on eBay to buy my particular widget. One $13 sale pays for 100+ GTC listings, a benefit that far outweighs the savings of cycling through 1,000 listings in batches of 250 at a time to save $30. The average price of my items is $30+ so one sale pays for all the rest of those listings and if it’s not listed, it can’t be bought.

Penny-wise, pound foolish.

As to the dilemma of activating an offer only to have GTC listings renew before new ones can be created? Yeah, timing IS everything. Activate the hypothetical offer at the right time and you’ve eliminated this tempest-in-a-teapot problem.

tryubik-useonlyasdirected · ‎03-01-2019

Maybe people aren't listening here. My beef about the policy is less the pros or cons of the GTC (its been a learning curve and something I've thought of using myself over the years).

The issue is not getting what I paid for 30-days or having to incur overage-charges at a sporadic and often random basis if a listing runs over. If the listings that ended in my shop went over yesterday (the last day of the month) I would have had $13 and change extra charge on my February bill. Instead they will be relisted manually this morning, the first of the month and no extra charges will be incurred. And the relist will still give eBays "better links". Maybe $13 isn't a big deal to you but every month that adds up fast. On a Basic store that's nearly 50% more a month!

eBay could use a carrot approach to encourage GTC usage rather than this stick approach.

A suggested half stick half carrot approach is give a way to have a GTC listing expire when a seller wishes rather than a mandatory 8 run without penalty. ie. Allow the seller control to end a listing at the end of the 30 days, like a store renewal if you cancel you still get the rest of the month paid for. Chances are we are all hooked and will let it auto-renew in good times.

around_again_records · ‎03-01-2019

tyler@ebay Has the rollout date for the GTC change been set yet.

We are into a new month and I'd like to put up some new listings. Will my listings at this point in time be considered GTC?

Can I assume that as long as I am being offered the 30 day listing option, that my items will be listed for 30 days and not roll over as GTC.

tyler@ebay · ‎03-01-2019

@around_again_records wrote:

tyler@ebay Has the rollout date for the GTC change been set yet.

We are into a new month and I'd like to put up some new listings. Will my listings at this point in time be considered GTC?

Can I assume that as long as I am being offered the 30 day listing option, that my items will be listed for 30 days and not roll over as GTC.

Hi @around_again_records - the currently listed start for this is mid-march. If you list a fixed price listing today you should be able to select a 30 day duration.

Your assumption is right - if you see the 30 day duration in the listing form it will be for 30 days, and not GTC.

Tyler,

tryubik-useonlyasdirected · ‎03-01-2019

@around_again_records & @tyler@ebay

"Any time in the middle of March" isn't a set date. According to the Consumer Protection Act Canadian law requires notification with a set date.

In eBay Store terms it says, "Amended terms shall automatically be effective 30 days after they are initially posted". Does the mean then that this can't take effect prior to March 26th (given the original notice was send on Feb 26th)?

tyler@ebay · ‎03-01-2019

@tryubik-useonlyasdirected wrote:

@around_again_records & @tyler@ebay

"Any time in the middle of March" isn't a set date. According to the Consumer Protection Act Canadian law requires notification with a set date.

In eBay Store terms it says, "Amended terms shall automatically be effective 30 days after they are initially posted". Does the mean then that this can't take effect prior to March 26th (given the original notice was send on Feb 26th)?

Hi @tryubik-useonlyasdirected - I don't have further details on these specifics at this point in time. Please keep an eye on the Announcement Board and your eBay Message center for any updates regarding this.

Tyler,

forester_studios · ‎03-01-2019

I do not have markdown manager as I do not have a store.

tyler@ebay · ‎03-01-2019

@forester_studios wrote:
I do not have markdown manager as I do not have a store.

Well that's okay too! Recently announced options like proactive offers to watchers will let you use Seller Hub to market your items to interested members without a store subscription or extra charge. 🙂

Tyler,