I posed this question to ebay Canada staff awhile back and he said ebay was simply scaling back on the number of everyone-gets-this promos going forward.
Listing promos are offered to the benefit of ebay, not the sellers in question. Like when ebay needs to stimulate sales or activity in a certain category, items in that category get a promo. And the people who might sell that in the past get invited. No one else. Plus, ebay likes growth, they have to lure new sellers so that area of casual never-before sellers gets more attention than existing ones.
In my opinion, sellers love promos but buyers find little to no value in seeing all those extra listings or the soft-sellers. Why? Clutter in search. If the item was a hot seller, the seller would make sure it was listed, insertion fee for free or not.
I don't wait for promos. I list what I have because one sale of a $21 item justifies 200 items not sitting in unsold.
That being said, I do get offended when promos have been run for six times and I've not been eligible for a single one. Luckily, I broke my losing streak in December. I was finally invited to one. There's been at least another since but again I wasn't eligible.
