GTC - Good Til Canceled - another rip off?

[fiestapedro]

I'm totally against the Good til cancelled procedure BEING FORCED ON ME

tried to list an item a couple of days ago on ebay.com - didn't give me a choice - and that REALLY ticked me off.

If I don't sell it within 30 days, I want to take it off the market and try at a later time. If I accept then I have to monitor and delete the listing -  just another thing to cancel. It's easy enough to relist - as long as Ebay doesn't change their policy and delete my file within a couple of days after the 30 days are up .

I see it as another way for EBay to nickel and dime their clients, because it certainly isn't HELPING me if I have to pay more.

What ever happend to having a CHOICE ? Is EBAY selling SHAREs in the company to the RUSSIANS now? That's excactly what I expect Putin would implement.

[femmefan1946]

I've used GTC for preference for years, but it was my choice. I find it less work than constantly monitoring short term listings.

You have 50 Free Listings each month and at the moment you are only using  18.

So if those automatically relist on May 22, it will not cost you a penny.

If you want to use all 50, monitoring will be more important, so write the relist date on your calendar.

And put your Active Listings in chronological order, so you can easily see which are about to end.

I notice that you have a couple of listings that have two or ten days left to run.

If these were listed on dotCOM, they would just end as they used to do.

Hmmm- at a closer look they were listed on dotCA, and the new GTC policy will not be affecting us until Dominion Day. So you have time to adjust.

Only the listings you just put up on dotCOM will be affected in the short run.

Actually, did you use a different ID to list on dotCOM? I don't see any dotCOM listings under this ID?

I don't trust any website with my pictures and descriptions - so I have 20 years worth in folders on my desktop. Others use websites like Auctiva or TurboLister.

Since you know you can list on both dotCA and dotCOM, in the short run you could put the items you want to close automatically on dotCA and those which will take longer to sell (or which you have in multiples) on dotCOM and let them ride.

EBay tells us that GTC listings with views are more likely to be picked up by Google or Bing, when customers browse on those sites. We'll see.

[andre8114]

In another word, Ebay is deciding for us what to do. If i have 300 BIN items to end on a certain date i have to end them before they renew automaticaly otherwise the fees will be charged for the 300 renewed items. What about i forget to end them? $120 fees in their pocket. How can they decide i want to renew all of my 300 BIN and not only 100 or 25. They count on this situation not to ease the process but to make more money. It's a shame that over the years Ebay is taking more and more control on our business. I conpletely disagree with this and instead of making everything more complicated they should give back the control to the sellers who are paying their salary.

Ebay was so great 15 years ago now so poor. They are lucky there is not another top selling website, i would switch in a blink of an eye!

[mrdutch1001]

I now have about 80% of my 1400 items listed on other venues and am continuing to list on eBay until the other venues bring in more consistent sales. In the meantime I am working with eBay as best as can and am using auction format more even though I'd prefer to use fixed price as most of the categories I list in really do better with the fixed price format. I do not have a store on eBay so having hundreds of items listed at any given time only happens when I have a free listing promo for 500 listings (it seems the days are gone when we received promos for 1000 or more free listings); otherwise it is the 50 monthly free listings on dotCOM and 50 monthly free listings on dotCA. Since eBay has become what it has become, it is up to sellers to either adjust and work with the site the way it is, or move on...

[reallynicestamps]

@andre8114 

$120 fees in their pocket. How can they decide i want to renew all of my 300 BIN and not only 100 or 25.

With 300 items to list, you would not be paying $120. With a Basic Store you would have 250 listings at 10cents each and 50 at 35c each for a total of $42.50.

Less if you go for the annual rate.

You have to control your own actions. Opening a Store is one way of doing that.

Since tyler@ebay has told us there is no bump in Best Match for About to Close or for Newly Listed (and said he was surprised too) you may as well mark your calendar at Day 28 or Day 29 rather than waiting till the last second.

[pjcdn2005]

Since tyler@ebay has told us there is no bump in Best Match for About to Close or for Newly Listed (and said he was surprised too) you may as well mark your calendar at Day 28 or Day 29 rather than waiting till the last second.

There may be no bump for best match but when a buyer searches using 'ending soonest'  they will see those gtc listings near the top of the list if they are ending in the next few days.

[reallynicestamps]

@pjcdn2005 

You're right. I actually first wrote "no bump in Search" then changed it to Best Match which I think is not only the Default but also the most used.

[pjcdn2005]

It may be the default for a new user but I think that those who shop here often do not use best match.  Just my opinion of course.

I know that whenever there is a discussion about this on .com, those who reply never use best match...I know that I don't. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@reallynicestamps  @andre8114 

Regarding fees and the savings, it really depends on the categories you list in. Using the basic store, only stamps (guessing) , books, dvds, Cds, Nintendo games & similar are 10 cent listings. (I may be missing a few others.) Almost everything else are .20 (.21 w/gst) listings. Best value with a store varies based on your product mix. That's why in the past I saved any of those items til last, over my 250 limit(10 cents).

-Lotz

[ricarmic]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

Since tyler@ebay has told us there is no bump in Best Match for About to Close or for Newly Listed (and said he was surprised too) you may as well mark your calendar at Day 28 or Day 29 rather than waiting till the last second.

There may be no bump for best match but when a buyer searches using 'ending soonest'  they will see those gtc listings near the top of the list if they are ending in the next few days.

---

....................................................

I'd say in the stamp world ending soonest might be used more.

I am "always" getting people telling me if my GTC item doesn't sell they'll be interested (at a lower price normally). 

This means they're seeing the end date, now I suppose that doesn't necessarily mean they're looking via ending soonest, but I get a "lot" of these messages.

My standard response is that the item will autorenew and it will continue running until someone purchases it. Sometimes they buy it sometimes they don't.

[reallynicestamps]

@lotzofuniquegoodies 

https://pages.ebay.ca/seller-centre/selling/ebay-stores.html#packages-pricing

As I read this, I would pay $25 for a monthly subscription and get 250 "free" listings.

Which is 10 cents each if I use them all.

Then the next 50 (or two  or 100) would be 20 cents each for Fixed Price.

And any item that sells has the insertion fee credited. (I never noticed that before. Huh.)

Which makes the fees even lower than I calculated.

And the "free" branded supplies.

@pjcdn2005 

I agree that experienced users rarely use Best Match, finding other choices make more sense for them , but the default is going to be used by newbies and occasional users.

[andre8114]

Probably true, but i just list that many items when i have free offers, for mostly low value items, otherwise i use my 50 dotCA and 50 dotCOM  free monthly offer. I do not want to pay for a store.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@reallynicestamps 

Appears that credit is only for Auction listings. Would be awesome if it applied to BIN also. Can't even remember the last time I tried using Auctions?

-Lotz

[reallynicestamps]

Thanks for reminding us that we can list on dotCOM and on dotCA for free.

I'm told we can add 20 free on dotUK as well.

And of course, that also goes for Stores- 250 "free" with Basic Store on  dotCOM and another 250 on dotCA.

This is something almost no US sellers have noticed so I guess we could consider it a perk for imaginative Canadians.

[esclyons]

my self who is a coin seller and buyer, i check newly listed items, constantly to see what others have listed and the pricing they are using.. best match, is a joke..not reality.. and ending soonest, if i want to see that i have it on my watch list, so newly listed is the only option i use 99% of the time..   aGain, eBay needs to allow sellers to list item duration's as they see fit, to their business model..

We are not the big guys selling multiples of the same item forever..  If i had 20 of the same exact item, i would use gtc, otherwise i choose not to..

[hlmacdon]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

EBay tells us that GTC listings with views are more likely to be picked up by Google or Bing, when customers browse on those sites. We'll see.

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There is a certain amount of truth to that. When you have impermanent skus there isn't really anything to index for natural SEO results, more of an issue for unique skus. Stuff still gets selectively pushed out to google shopping feeds when they feel like it but that is less commonly used by the average buyer since you need to move a mouse pointer or finger over slightly to load it. The hope is with longer term listings with unique identifiers like a part/model number you may get some natural search traffic but in practice I've never found that tremendously effective in ecommerce outside of niche things or items with limited availability elsewhere due to shortages.

The best match algorithm relies a bit on historical information for a specific listing to generate relevant metrics it uses to rank the listing, so having a longer history can be beneficial for say multi-quantity listings although your conversion rate can have an equally negative impact there. 

I suspect more people were annoyed by this as it doesn't allow people to game the newly listed item search results as much. People are convinced their skus don't have visibility these days, but that is as much a factor of crowded categories and the fact that eBay's active user base growth is...challenging, and now  you have zip/postal code pairings and deliverability speed having more of an impact than previously. Ebay is pushing customers to the fastest delivery experience.

With promoted listings spawning dozens and dozens of items spamming every item page I'm not sure how much people's preferred strategies previous years are really relevant anymore. Ebay has always been very poor at item discoverability and now it is one big gigantic mess. You probably benefit more from having a long term listing that the somewhat imprecisely defined algorithms that link items can pick up on and populate your skus onto other item pages. 

[teenytrinkets]

How do you list on .com and still specify Canadian shipping?

And don't you lose the equivalent of the listing fee (and then some!) when you exchange your US paid sales to Canadian $???

[femmefan1946]

FWIW I have a RBC bank account which is a US bank. I t belongs to the Royal Bank.
The idea is that you are Lilongwe at the big picture. Are your sales improved enough to make the 1 p/o difference in fees worthwhile?

[drygallen]

GTC IS KILLING MY BUSINESS. Almost all my listings are BIN with about 1/2 including best offer. I have found that I get most offers in the last few days of a listing because people think item might not be relisted. Since the last of my listings went GTC, I have had exactly 5 sales and no offers at all. That is on over 500 listings. I chose many years ago not to use GTC. I like to have control over what to relist or not. Now I have to go through and cancel each listing individually. I note also that Ebay sales on categories I list in are both way down in month to month and year to year. Ebay had better wake up. Just too easy to migrate to Amazon. Many sellers already have. I've been with Ebay since 2004 but if this policy does not change, my days here are numbered. They are killing the golden goose. Anyone else have similar experience? I hope someone in that Ivory  Tower actually reads this.

[drygallen]

My stock is 99% used in most cases does not even have an original SKU. The Ebay catologue is just about useless. I see errors in most of the items I have looked at. Nothing matches what I am selling. Losing control over listing duration is a killer for me.