Question
I don't think this is a good promo for their part.
no more than ten items I am listing is stuff I wouldn't have lsited
all the rest is stuff I would have eventually listed over the next month or two, at full price....so there is real listing fees they are out.
The stores will remain opened and fully stocked, last year I sold 40% of my store inventory on FLD, I closed them and launched them all to auction.....This is final value fees they aren't getting, most of that stuff can sit there forever.
I am starting on the top end $$$ and working my way down to the ten dollar stuff.........so I will save some on this promo but in reality, it is not a win-win situation. ...and I will not kill myself for it.
I will be curious as to how it all plays out in doctoring up their numbers.
What do you think.
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They will probably tell us that it is what the users wanted. Yes, I've seen many, many posts from people who hate FLD, won't list, won't even try to buy, etc, etc. But, the majority that I see post want FLD. I don't even think it is the free day in itself but the 'gift' from eBay. No other offer in the year could be construed as eBay 'gifting' us with anything. This is considered the 'thank you gift' for the year.
Personally, I think eBay is having financial difficulties. Go ahead and laugh, I know on paper they are worth billions but we all have seen how eBay can make things say what they want them to say. If you look at the yearly trend on Medved you'll see that this year was relatively flat, previous years were obviously creeping higher all year. Not to mention all the mega bucks they've spent this year aquiring other businesses.
Then there's all those promos that are list now, get credited two months down the road.
Seriously, I think they are in financial trouble and are struggling to hide it.
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Seriously, I think they are in financial trouble and are struggling to hide it.
bingo
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The medved charts are interesting. Pre fld 2003 the count dropped to about 7.3 million. Post fld the numbers jumped to a record 16.5 million. That count hasn't been topped in the past 12 mos.
Today the counts are inching down towards 8 million. Without some sort of promotion I think that the counts would have dropped lower than the lowest count last year (7.3 million), something that hasn't happened in eBay history. (for the curve to drop and not continually climb).
What I'm curious about is if the 10 cent promo is enough to top the 16.5 million record.
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I would have prefered a FREE listing day.
With that said, some sellers will prefer this. It will keep off some of the real garbage.
I don't think there will be as great of an influx of listings for ebay to brag about either.
.10 cents just doesnt grab peoples attention as FREE.
no more than ten items I am listing is stuff I wouldn't have lsited
Not to be the devils advocate, but why should ebay run a special
I will agree however. Most of the items I would have listed will either still be listed for .10, or go into the store. Some will maybe not be listed, and made into lots as I have listed them previously and am not going to pay to list again. This would have been the last harrah for those items, and than this was going to happen anyways. Maybe some would have termed those items as garbage??
On high dollar items, I think this is a great promo. List a $250.00 item for .10. great without the worry of the fld.
On the garbage that probably will not sell for $9.99 or less, just throwing another dime at Meg.
What do you think.
Gabs, a whole team of shrinks have never been able to figure out what I think
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Well I guess saving .25 cents per listing is better than nothing.
What are they thinking?
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if they were doing an experiment to see if the dime a time listing keeps the "garbage" off ebay why would thye not run one of those earlier in the year first.
As far as devils advocate, that is what I meant, they will get the majority of the listing fees whether they give us a perk at Christmas or not, it will just be spread over a different time period. the FREE part had a totally different meaning, it was a motivator to get things back into gear.
now, I am just scoping out my inventory to see what I can list cheaper now than later, so they are just shifting their income from January to December from me
kinda like paying the visa card with the american express card.
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Well I guess saving .25 cents per listing is better than nothing.
I am concerned alot of people are going to have the same opinion and just forge ahead. ...there is pros and cons to both. ...but if this is successful and they make 10 cents on 16 million listings we will never have another FLD again, not that I think we will anyway.
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I don't care for fld, because we just don't get a good sell through rate, its always lame.
sorry to say, i'm happy with the 10 cent deal, we'll do better.
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Listings peaked in early Dec. at about 15,8000,000 and are down to nearly 8 million.
I'll rethink the lower end stuff as poor sell through will inflate their cost per sale to near usual fees or below. Sell through has fallen to near 30%
Actually I like 10 cents (or more) Days as it keeps junk off the site and does not overwhelm the system. But that's at other times of the year and not in lieu of a FLD which will further annoy a large segment of the customer base.
eBay will get an extra 500 thousand, assuming 5 million listings, but they will lose the upgrades and FVF on what is not listed. That and they will earn a lot of resentment.
I can't measure the cost of resentment but clearly more and more sellers are doing things like low prices with inflated shipping to avoid FVF's and off site sales.
Trying to get over on eBay is almost a national past time which flavors the site and puts sellers that play fair at a disadvantage.
How do you think people feel tonight who took 15 or 20 hours out of their holiday time to build listings for FLD that now find their work wasted.
It would be interesting to know just what attitude eBay is trying to foster among it's customers.
I've given them all the disappointment I'm willing to share over their behavior but they do continue to surprise me with how they continue to show so little regard for paying customers.
On a positive note it will help the stock so we will again hear nothing but praise from the media.
Each day I gain insights on how the peasants felt when their world was owned by a monarch.
So much for holiday spirit, maybe next year I'll charge people a small amount for their presents.