posted on September 26, 2001 04:08:34 PM new
Hot off the announcement board:
***Extension of Free Subscription Period for eBay Stores***
We are happy to announce that we will be extending the free subscription period for eBay Stores through the end of 2001. eBay Store subscriptions will not be charged until January 1st, 2002.
Here are a few of the features and promotions for Stores that will be coming in the next three months:
**promotion of Stores that are selling Auction for America items;
**ability to search for Stores by Store Name;
**ability to browse Stores by sub-categories;
**extended duration listings for Store Fixed Price Items;
**promotion of Stores during the holidays.
We want to encourage Store sellers to continue to learn and experiment with their Stores, as well as to participate in Auction for America. We hope you will use this extended free trial period to do both.
We will begin charging the $.05 Listing fees for Store Fixed Price items on October 1st, 2001 as orginally scheduled.
Thank you for your continued support of eBay and eBay Stores.
Regards,
eBay
******************************************
Anyone having better luck with their Ebay stores these days?
posted on September 26, 2001 04:19:19 PM new
Fine by me.
I've discovered that even if you don't list fixed-price store items, a side-benefit of having a store is your ability to provide links to all of your items in a given category within your auction pages. I believe this feature has allowed me to pick up a lot of additional bids.
The store concept itself, I think goes in the right direction, but it is currently too crude a tool to be cost-effective as far as my time goes.
Without some sort of shopping cart functionality, I don't think it will work. I was planning to close my store down this Saturday. But now I'll keep it running through this year.
Even if you never plan to list a single fixed price item, you should check out the "extras" it can add to your listings.
posted on September 26, 2001 05:02:15 PM new
Actually, if you spend time researching ebay stores, you will find that it HURTS your auction sales. For, when one views sellers other items, the store items always come first. Thus, one cannot easily find what is ending today for that seller.
I have seen sellers with hundreds of ebay store items and auction items. I gave up trying to find which auction items are ending today. Don't have time to waste paging thru listings after listings.
posted on September 26, 2001 05:13:08 PM new
I have actually had good luck lately with my Ebay stores.
Now, I don't list anything as fixed-price store items, but all of my regular auction listings show up in my ebay store. I have a link in my auctions to the different ebay store categories so my customers can browse easily and combine auctions.
And I've noticed the auctions show up in my store as highest-priced items first down to lowest priced items.
My store has actually worked wonderfully for me with the way I have it set up. I was going to continue my ebay store even after they started charging, and I'm glad to hear they are extending the store fees.
[ edited by ExecutiveGirl on Sep 26, 2001 05:17 PM ]
posted on September 26, 2001 05:13:54 PM new
commentary
Actually your statement about store items showing up frist is not totally true.
it depends on the amount of time left on the store items how they show up on the list.
as well its very easy to tell the difference between auction item and store items.
Auction the last column will either have a buyers user name and feed back number or it will say no bids yet.
a store item will simply state avalable in the last column and will say sold if its been sold as all store items are buy it now you cant bid on a store item.
In fact if you really think about it haveing an Ebay store Right now is like haveing free listing day 24/7 till at least oct 1 and after that its only .05 cents per listing.
What have suprised me is that there are any auctions list at all when listing in the store is freeeeeeee........
and I don't feel the store has cut my sales any at all in fact if any thing my auction sales have triple in the last three months..
posted on September 26, 2001 05:35:32 PM new
dman3
Please doublecheck your facts. Store items always appear before auction items. Does not matter how much time left till store item expires.
One can easily tell store items from auction items. They always have the word "Available" for bidder.
Problem is scrolling thru hundreds of items to find the auction items. Whenever I see sellers with large number of items in store, I hit the back key.
By the way, that 5 cents per listing is no bargain. There have been problems where ebay charged the full listing fees for store items and enter them as auctions with 30 day expirations. ebay will not give credit unless a seller cancel each item manually and submit a detail list for credit.
But, the most glaring problem is the lack of success stories with store items. If you list a hundred items and sell one, what's the point? You end up paying $5 in listing fee.
posted on September 26, 2001 05:46:44 PM new
Well I have store items and auction items up right now
and Im telling you Store items ending in 17 days are on top of my auctions and store items ending in 29 days are under my auction items
I have been working with ebay store as long as anyone here ...
if you stagger your store listing they will not all be on top...
sucess don't come over night with anything , and I can tell you this if and when sellers start to really look at the cost of listing in the store over auctions the store Item will start to out number auction by 3 or more.
count the sellers looking to cut the cost now because profit margins are tight and you will find the ebay store with it fixed BIN price at a nickle per listing makes sense..
Some one who spend $1000 listing auctions can spend just over $40 listing the same amount in a store and the store offers most the same feature as auctions only your price and profit are locked in.
for buyers it means no waiting, I'm not saying auction will die out but people useing ebay to make a liveing are going to be takeing a longer look at the fixed price.. http://www.Dman-N-Company.com
Email [email protected]
posted on September 26, 2001 05:51:54 PM new
Right now is not the best time to list store-only auctions, IMO. Many bidders aren't even seeing our regular auction listings due to the AFA auctions, how would they ever find our store-only auctions?
I feel the only way buyers are going to visit our stores right now, is to list both auction AND store listings, so when we have an interested buyer on one of our auctions, they can click the store icon and visit what else we have. That is how I'm getting all my multiple buyers.
posted on September 26, 2001 05:59:15 PM new
Yeah it is a two way street , but when you look at it from the side of cost saveings the store is the better value and I think since the 11th with the economy ailing all the more many many sellers that wish to continue will be looking for saveings.
seems to me they will be running a few auction so the store Items can get better seen rather then many auction and a few in the store hopeing they might get seen.
posted on September 26, 2001 07:44:56 PM new
dman3
Problem is not all sellers are smart enough to stagger their store listings. They load them with some bulk lister and start them all at once. Once they expire, they relist them all at the same time.
With true collectibles, I think stores will never work. A seller would not want to start too far below retail in a store and possibly miss someone wanting to pay more. However, buyers will probably more willing to chance winning something in auction format than to pay near full retail in a store. Thus, auctions seems to be more of a venue where sellers can hope to profit more and buyers can hope for a bargain.
I personally do not think buyers will be willing to spend the time to search both auctions and store on a continual basis. That is, if they ever get the store searches working properly.
posted on September 27, 2001 05:46:38 AM new
This is certainly exciting news!! Wow, eBay will promote stores selling A4A items! How many A4A items do you have to have in your store? Is one enough?
Or is eBay desperate to get more items listed for A4A?
BTW, where's the Store Search function??? Don't tell me they can't implement it yet. They had the A4A search function set up in no time!
posted on September 27, 2001 09:37:37 AM new
Really, I haven't seen any good use for the stores at all. Just seems to pull up auctions that users have on there. Anyone turning it into sales that matter? Otherwise the idea is moot.
posted on September 27, 2001 09:55:44 AM new
I think it depends on how you try to work it. I have it set up so my store categories can be clicked on right from my auction descriptions. I have received several emails telling me how easy it is for buyers to find items, and it has resulted in many of my buyers purchasing multiple items at once, not to mention all the repeat customers.
