Act now to get up to 15,000 FREE listings

[skylarstuff]

15,000 Free Fixed price listings by invitation.  3, 5, 7, 10 and 30-day listing durations are included in this Promotion.

[mr.elmwood]

Years later, the same mistake are still being made. That is disturbing.

[treasure.hunter.d]

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@pierrelebel wrote:

I did not get the invitation but it does not mean I am not eligible.  Same for all of you.

Check your "selling manager" tomorrow (once the promotion becomes effective) under "Promotional Offers" (right panel) and it may be there!

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Thanks for the heads up Pierre, I had not considered that.

Alas, having checked, I have still not received the promo!

thd

[treasure.hunter.d]

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@pierrelebel wrote:

As predicted last night, no email, no message, yet, I have been invited.

http://pages.ebay.com/promo/2014/0804/ZIF.html

"I don't think there could be that many people who have 15000 items to list."

It is your choice, if invited, to list 5, 50, 500, 5,000 or whatever number of listings for "free".

Personally I expect to relist 100 to 150 items.  It is all good!

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Lucky you...Nothing for me, sigh!

[rose-dee]

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@pierrelebel wrote:

You are correct.

The mistake only appears on eBay.ca promotion page.  The eBay.com page correctly states "fixed price listings" only.

It is not the first time the eBay.ca page gives the wrong information.  Unfortunately.

Carelessness, that is what it is.  Rush to get the job done.  Understaffing.  Whatever.

Just to make sure, I just tested listing an auction on eBay.ca and it was not included as a "free listing" in the current promotion.

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Many thanks (I'm sure from all of us) for checking on this Pierre.  This is exactly the type of promotion I've been waiting for -- fixed price without restrictions in my categories -- woo-hoo!!! 

[pierrelebel]

Have you checked BOTH eBay.ca?  and eBay.com?

[treasure.hunter.d]

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@pierrelebel wrote:

Have you checked BOTH eBay.ca?  and eBay.com?

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Yes sir and nothing. I don't know which I am more right now, angry or depressed!

[pierrelebel]

"angry or depressed!"

Do not worry too much about it.  It is only a promotion.  I also was not invited to the first promotion in July (that was a good one). And life did go on.

At the end of the day sellers with a store - not invited to this promotion - have choices:

1) use their 300 "free listings" (150 each .ca and .com)

2) wait for later in the month hoping another promotion will come along

3) pay the listing fees (in all candour they are relatively small compared to what we were paying ten or fifteen years ago).

[pocomocomputing]

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@pierrelebel wrote:

"angry or depressed!"

Do not worry too much about it.  It is only a promotion.  I also was not invited to the first promotion in July (that was a good one). And life did go on.

At the end of the day sellers with a store - not invited to this promotion - have choices:

1) use their 300 "free listings" (150 each .ca and .com)

2) wait for later in the month hoping another promotion will come along

3) pay the listing fees (in all candour they are relatively small compared to what we were paying ten or fifteen years ago).

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The big difference is that items actually sold 10-15 years ago for the higher listing fee. eBay is flooded with more listing from more sellers today (in part because of the free listings) with more buyers but the ratio of listings to buyers is way higher. So many individual small sellers get less of the sales made by eBay.

Just 5 1/2 years ago if I listed about 50 7 day auctions when insertion fees were charged on everything (25 cent minimum if I recall correctly), I would sell 5 to 10 items on the first try and if I relisted, I would sell another 5 of those relisted and get insertion fee credits.

So comparing insertion fee costs of yesteryear to today's insertion fees is not a valid comparison. Out of context to the eBay of today to the eBay of 10-15 years ago. The eCommerce market is way different, the buyers are different (attitude and experience), the flood of inexpensive Asian goods to eBay, and so on.

[rose-dee]

I agree with 'poco'  - the game is radically different from what it was even 5 years ago.  

Although current listing fees (and even free listings) may seem like a gift from eBay to sellers, in effect they increase the competition on an already over-crowded site. 

Until eBay can find a way to increase visitors (buyers) to the site by the same proportion, sellers will continue to look to the promotions to save pennies wherever they can, and so the cycle continues -- more listings, fewer sales per time period, so try more free listings, and so on.     

[artofpatents]

Treasure Hunter read my message earlier about going to the USA Ebay discussion board.  A user there provided a link to click on, to accept the offer.  I used it last night on one of my other ids and it worked before I got any other notifications.

[artofpatents]

The message is from my other id skylarstuff

[treasure.hunter.d]

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@artofpatents wrote:

Treasure Hunter read my message earlier about going to the USA Ebay discussion board.  A user there provided a link to click on, to accept the offer.  I used it last night on one of my other ids and it worked before I got any other notifications.

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Thanks mate. I tried that and received a page stating that the promo was by invite only.

I spent about an hour on the phone with Ebay this morning as I wasn't satisfied with just letting it go. After wasting 30 minutes on the phone with a front line CSR I got a supervisor. Turns out, and this is no surprise to me, the promos are not given out randomly. Ebay directs the promos to specific classes of users. When i found that out it made me even angrier as here I am one of the unlucky few who are taking it on the chin with the new rules and promos with excluded categories and I'm not receiving the first promo i can actually use.

I suggest that everyone who was excluded from this promo call Ebay and complain but don't do it to anyone but a supervisor. the first level CSRs are clueless to say the least and either lie or don't know how things work.

Anyway, this is just another tidbit of news showing that nothing at Ebay is random and their behind the scenes machinations are usually to sellers' detriment!

[treasure.hunter.d]

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@rose-dee wrote:

I agree with 'poco'  - the game is radically different from what it was even 5 years ago.  

Although current listing fees (and even free listings) may seem like a gift from eBay to sellers, in effect they increase the competition on an already over-crowded site. 

Until eBay can find a way to increase visitors (buyers) to the site by the same proportion, sellers will continue to look to the promotions to save pennies wherever they can, and so the cycle continues -- more listings, fewer sales per time period, so try more free listings, and so on.     

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Ebay can't even be bothered to upgrade their server infrastructure to accommodate the current traffic. The site runs so slow at times now that I'm actually noticing how much extra time I am wasting just waiting for pages to load when I am listing items.

Ebay keeps manipulating the circumstances so that they are taking more money from us and give less and less in return. Not to mention that while Ebay is scheming new ways to take more money from us margins on sales are going down for a variety of reasons but down they go.

Where does it stop?