Help needed to change to free listing fees

[triber]

I have been cutting down on my listings and am now below 250. Can I just click on the free fixed price insertions? I don't want to suddenly find that my listings are missing!

[femmefan1946]

Do you mean you have dropped your Store and are just using the 250 Free Listings available to those who do not subscribe to a Store?

If you still see Free Listings, it is possible that those are time limited and based on your now-defunct Store subscription.

Be cautious when making new listings. You will be told if there will be a listing charge.

My Store seem to have 10,000 Free Listings in addition to the 1000 subscribed listings and those get used first, but one or two every month seem to come out of the subscribed.

The main thing is not to hit List before confirming that you will not be charged.

[lacemaker3]

@triber 

I currently see that you have 227 active listings, which is a bit close for comfort.

I think you still have a lot of your current listings that are going to renew this month (in March). I viewed your lisings with a newly-listed sort, in order to see when your listings were first listed. They are going to renew every month, on the same day each month, unless they are sold or ended early before they reach that date.

I can currently see 97 active listings, which were started in January 2025, beween Jan 12 (your earliest listings) to Jan 31, 2025. So all of those are going to renew when their dates come up in March.

In addition, I see 125 active listings which were started in February 2025, and only about 15 of them were started between Feb 1 to Feb 4, and have already renewed. The rest of them, 110 listings, were started between Feb 8 to Feb 28, and will be renewing later this month.

You need to check how many of your free listings have already been used for the month of March. You can see this in your selling hub.

https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/selling-tools/seller-hub?id=4095

If you have enough free listings left, to cover the 110 + 97 = 217 listings that are scheduled to be renewed later in March, then you'll be OK. Otherwise, you will be charged insertion fees for any current active listings that renew after you have used up the 250 free listings.

[triber]

No I have not dropped my store, I have had it for very many years, but I now want to slow down a bit being older. I don't know if I have to cancel my store, or if I can just change to free listing.

[triber]

Thank you for your reply.

I haven't used any of my free listing, I am just using my store with my monthly payments. I am just not sure how to go about it, I am listing very little now, so I don't want to go over the 250 a month.

[msau4301]

If you still have a store there isn't a way to "click on free listings" to use them, as you automatically get way more than 250 listings with your store. I used to have a store but cancelled mine a few years back when I was not listing as much and taking a few months off. When I returned it was easy for me to stay under the 250 free listings and I continued that way.

As you list, the seller hub has the section (I think called Promotions) which keeps track of the free listings by month and shows "Used/Left", in my case since I don't have anything listed right now mine shows 0/250.

If you know you will always be below the 250 you could cancel your store subscription and not have that monthly fee, however there are other perks (lower seller fees and extra listings if you did decide to go over) with the store so the choice is yours.

The only thing I'm not sure on is how the changeover takes place with your 200+ existing listings already and cancel the store, I hope they automatically carry over  but I'm not positive. In my case I had stopped completely for about six months and started again from scratch, after cancelling my store, and did my new listings then (there were no carry-overs in my case).

[lacemaker3 · Accepted solution]

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@triber wrote:

Thank you for your reply.

I haven't used any of my free listing, I am just using my store with my monthly payments. I am just not sure how to go about it, I am listing very little now, so I don't want to go over the 250 a month.

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Oh, sorry. I didn't realize you still have a store.

You could cancel the store, and then you would just have the 250 listings per month, instead of the much larger number you get with the store. Your existing listings will continue after you close the store. You don't lose them, they just continue as good 'til cancelled, renewing once a month until they are sold (or until you end them).

When they renew each month, after you close the store, then they will automatically use a free lising when they renew if you have free listings available. So with less than 250 now, if you close your store, you will have enough free listings to cover your existing listings, unless you add more and use more than 250 in a month.

Basically each listing will use a free listing when it renews, and each new listing you add will also use up a free listing that month, and then it will renew each month like the others until it is sold.

[triber]

Thank you! If I close my store, do I then lose the listings and have to re-list them all?

[lacemaker3]

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@triber wrote:

Thank you! If I close my store, do I then lose the listings and have to re-list them all?

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No, your listings  will continue uninterrupted.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@triber wrote:

I have been cutting down on my listings and am now below 250. Can I just click on the free fixed price insertions? I don't want to suddenly find that my listings are missing!

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@triber 

Most important thing to remember is if you have a store and are on a contract there are penalties if you close your store before contract ends. See attached. Best to close a few days before your contract is over. 

https://pages.ebay.ca/stores/subscriptionterms.html

[38e_avenue]

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@triber wrote:

Thank you! If I close my store, do I then lose the listings and have to re-list them all?

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Before you close your store, end all your listings first. After the store is closed, just relist the items. On one of my accounts I do not have a store - just 250 free listings. It works perfectly. 

And as Lotz mentioned earlier, do not forget about the store early termination fee: 

[38e_avenue]

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

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@triber wrote:

Thank you! If I close my store, do I then lose the listings and have to re-list them all?

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No, your listings  will continue uninterrupted.

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NOPE! At a store they are on very different rules and listing prices, so they will be all terminated. They will not "continue uninterrupted" at all. The items need to be ended BEFORE the store is closed, and then relisted. 

[lacemaker3]

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@38e_avenue wrote:

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

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@triber wrote:

Thank you! If I close my store, do I then lose the listings and have to re-list them all?

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No, your listings  will continue uninterrupted.

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NOPE! At a store they are on very different rules and listing prices, so they will be all terminated. They will not "continue uninterrupted" at all. The items need to be ended BEFORE the store is closed, and then relisted. 

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That's not what the eBay help page about closing your store says. It says they will continue. Auctions will end on schedule, and fixed price listings will continue as good 'til cancelled, until they are sold.

https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/ebay-stores/close-ebay-store?id=4091

[38e_avenue]

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

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@38e_avenue wrote:

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

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@triber wrote:

Thank you! If I close my store, do I then lose the listings and have to re-list them all?

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No, your listings  will continue uninterrupted.

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NOPE! At a store they are on very different rules and listing prices, so they will be all terminated. They will not "continue uninterrupted" at all. The items need to be ended BEFORE the store is closed, and then relisted. 

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That's not what the eBay help page about closing your store says. It says they will continue. Auctions will end on schedule, and fixed price listings will continue as good 'til cancelled, until they are sold.

https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/ebay-stores/close-ebay-store?id=4091

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You might be right, but personally, I would not take the risk. 

[lacemaker3]

I have never heard of listings being ended when a store was closed. Not auction or fixed-price listings, like OP's, anyway.

Fifteen to twenty years ago, when they had store-format listings, then maybe. But those are long gone. That was before fixed-price listings were available.

[38e_avenue]

In this glitchy Ebay system I am just trying to avoid any complicated procedures. I closed my stores many times in the past, and I always did after ending my listings first. "Just in case" - I try to keep the procedures as simple as possible - the number of glitches here keeps going up every year.  

[lacemaker3]

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@38e_avenue wrote:

In this glitchy Ebay system I am just trying to avoid any complicated procedures. I closed my stores many times in the past, and I always did after ending my listings first. "Just in case" - I try to keep the procedures as simple as possible - the number of glitches here keeps going up every year.  

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OK, so that means that you don't have any data or experience that would suggest or support that closing a store would end your listings, though. I have never seen any seller report that this had happened, in more than 20 years. (Which goes back before eBay even had stores.)

There's nothing wrong with being careful. But there's no indication that it was necessary.

[recped]

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@38e_avenue wrote:

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

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@triber wrote:

Thank you! If I close my store, do I then lose the listings and have to re-list them all?

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No, your listings  will continue uninterrupted.

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NOPE! At a store they are on very different rules and listing prices, so they will be all terminated. They will not "continue uninterrupted" at all. The items need to be ended BEFORE the store is closed, and then relisted. 

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I really don't think that is true, there are no "different rules", there are no different "listing prices". A listing is a listing nothing changes when you subscribe to a Store or unsubscribe to a Store.

All a Store does for you is to potentially reduce listing fees, reduced FVF in SOME Categories, provide you with a few additional features and a Storefront where you can set up custom categories.

[38e_avenue]

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

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@38e_avenue wrote:

In this glitchy Ebay system I am just trying to avoid any complicated procedures. I closed my stores many times in the past, and I always did after ending my listings first. "Just in case" - I try to keep the procedures as simple as possible - the number of glitches here keeps going up every year.  

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OK, so that means that you don't have any data or experience that would suggest or support that closing a store would end your listings, though. I have never seen any seller report that this had happened, in more than 20 years. (Which goes back before eBay even had stores.)

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Ok, I surrender then and admit, I was (probably) overcareful. Still, I will never ever try to close my store with all listings. I usually list more than 3.000 items and would not survive losing 3.000 descriptions and 50.000 photos 😀 Wishing you successful experiments with Ebay stores 😀

[38e_avenue]

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@recped wrote:

A listing is a listing nothing changes when you subscribe to a Store or unsubscribe to a Store.

It's not how it works. No store - you pay 35 cents over limit, a Premium store - you pay 10 cents over allowed limit - so it definitely changes.  

Here an example for Basic and Premium.