The US perspective on GTC & Promoting Listings

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/What-has-happened-to-eBay-Is-eBay-shuting-down/td-p/30126430

Sorry, that was the title that came with the discussion but does include some very interesting opinions/observations throughout. Happy reading!!!

-Lotz

[mrdutch1001]

Over the pasty many weeks, I have been following several threads on dotCOM regarding GTC.

I am one of those who rarely used GTC on eBay in the many years as a seller here, as I found shorter durations for fixed priced listings worked best for my listings.

With the loss of the ability to post listings with the shorter duration timeframes, I  have been using more auction format despite the fact auction format is not really suitable for many categories. Using GTC for many of my listings over the past several weeks has been a futile effort = 1 sale thus far in August.  I am now ending my listings after 14-15 days as it has proven pointless to let the listings go beyond that. I have moved about 90% of my listings to other venues where they sit in their "GTC" format ...But FOR FREE. Since most other selling venues have no where near the traffic, it is a struggle to get sales on any site beyond eBay, Amazon or Etsy. Since I gave up on Etsy years ago and have no interest in Amazon, my time in the online selling world may indeed be nearing the end. 

Promoted Listings has never worked for me...experimented with them for nearly a year on another venue...not 1 sale as a result of it ...and Promoted Listings on eBay is just as useless.

For those sellers who are successful with GTC on eBay that is good, and we are all pleased that it works for them ...but for those of us who have items that do not do well with GTC, this removal of choice leaves us hanging....and "hoping" for that elusive sale that never seems to come anymore...

[clemowbooks]

@mrdutch1001 

I don't understand why you don't have a Store.

You seem to have 529 listings.

With a Basic Store you could have 250 of those on dotCA and 250 on dotCOM for $24.95 a month.

You might also be paying a lower FVF.

And if you included "free" shipping in your asking price, you would pay the same lower FVF on your shipping cost.

Without a Store you pay $167.65 monthly if all your listings are on dotCA.

I agree on the Promoted Listings.

I can't see any more sales from using them, but I certainly see a lot more Views on promoted items, from four to ten times as many Views as on similar items without the Promotion.

But then views are views, and not sales.

Like you I monitor my GTC listings, but mostly for being up too long.

I'm also experimenting with Watchers.  With the increased Views, I'm seeing more Watchers.

But watchers, watch.

So I have been closing Watched items towards the end of the 30 day cycle and relisting them a few days later , at which point I believe the watcher gets a notice that they have been relisted.

We'll see.

[mrdutch1001]

An eBay store??? NO thank you! Haven't had a store on eBay for over 10 years as it was not economically feasible. The only reason I have 500+ listings right now is because I received a 500 free listing promo.

"Free Shipping" ???   NOTHING is free and to include shipping in the price of the item DOES NOT work for my items. Been there, done that. Tried that so called free shipping bandwagon years ago and my sales came to a complete halt. Changed back to separate shipping and sales resumed.

"Watchers" mean nothing...I have found very few sales result from watchers. Most of my sales come from low views, no watchers listings. I have re-listed and re-listed many a "watched" item over and over with no sale....so now I generally raise the price and that item sells at the higher price.....

As mentioned most of my items are listed on another venue, but I take advantage of the free listing promos on eBay even though I generally see only 1 or 2 sales from it...

My eBay sales have dropped over 80% from 2016 so I really have no desire to push eBay listings unless they are FREE. I'd much rather promote my listings elsewhere...

[kawartha-ephemera · Accepted solution]

Same story here ... the categories I sell in just do not fare well using GTC, for some reason sell through is just awfull. I feel I have given GTC a fair trial on .com letting several different groups run for 3 months and more with very poor results. From last March to today .com sales have been extremely poor, the site is broken as far as I'm concerned. GTCs have fared no better on .ca so far either, thankfully buyers both Canadian and American continue to buy auctions, some place bids but more are using the BIN added to auctions than used to be the case prior to the GTC mandate. 

[canshal]

Definitely agree with you.

Managing listings is difficult enough, without the concerns of worrying the automatic re-listings will put you over the limit and 

incurring re-listing charges.

Paying the Stores listing charges was an acceptable deal, but the choice of which items you want to re-list became a lot more tedious.