The August 15/16 "move from store to core" promotion did very clearly demonstrate two things for most store sellers in most categories:
1) more sales are possible if using auction style with BIN or fixed price listing, both with gallery, on the core site as compared to hard to find inventory store listings (but we all already knew that).
2) while substantially more sales are achieved, the relatively low "sell thru" rate and high insertion/BIN/gallery fees do not justify listing most inventory items on the core site for only seven days and repeat the process (and expenses) for seven more days and one more time.
Considering the "sell thru" rate for auction listings starting above $1.00 fluctuates between 35% to 40% in 2006 (the ratio has been decreasing every year), a seller needs to pay three insertion/BIN/gallery fees for every sale on average.
Since most sellers are smart enough not to do it, eBay loses many opportunities to generate FVF while sellers loses the sale (on eBay).
I understand eBay wants an item to sell faster - for the good of the seller! This is too simplistic and does not reflect the marketplace today. eBay does not bring enough new buyers every day for all 12,500,000 items listed on the site (growing to 16,000,000 or more by November).
What I suggest is for eBay to offer two small things, at very little cost:
1 - longer core site listing duration (10 or 15 days) for sellers who wish to offer longer duration
at no extra cost 2 - offer one (or more)
free relisting of all insertion/BIN/gallery fees on the core site for unsold items, instead of charging and crediting insertion fees only if sold on first relist.
A few years ago, listings were available for 10 days on eBay at no extra cost. Then eBay started charging 10 cents, justifying the fee by claiming higher "storage/hosting" costs. The fee has now been increased to 40 cents in an attempt to discourage the use of the longer duration. Once again, eBay really, really, I mean really, wants an item to sell quickly. The problem is - there are not enough buyers to achieve that goal.
While there is an extra cost to carry a listing for ten days compared to seven, that cost is minuscule. eBay's cost of a core site listing (regardless of duration) is mostly in uploading, indexing and confirming, not storing for a few extra days. Hosting is so cheap today that $0.40 has no justification.
What we need is a change in mindset on the part of eBay. Forget about trying to have every seller sell every item within 7 days -
it no longer works!. Instead, concentrate your efforts and energy in making sure most listed items eventually sell - whether it takes a day, a week or a month. Eventually eBay will get its FVF.
Let sellers decide what is their best timing strategy. Do not make the decision for them.
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Must use Buy It Now and PayPal.
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But that much of the gross going to currency exchange puts us at a subtantial disadvantage to USA users.
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