eBay is holding a 10-cent listing promotion in the books, movies, music and video games categories on April 20-21. For auctions and fixed-price listings within those categories, the insertion fees for listings using Pre-filled Item Information will be 10 cents. (Listings created prior to April 20, 2004 that are scheduled to start during the promotional period will be eligible to receive the special rate.)

In order to be eligible for the promotion, sellers must list their item in at least one of the following specific categories, and they must use Pre-Filled Item Information: VHS, DVD, CD, Cassettes, AudioBooks, Non-Fiction Books, Education (Text Books), Children's Books, Fiction Books and Video Games. Sellers will not see the discount immediately, however. eBay said sellers will see a credit to their account by mid-to late-June 2004. All other fees apply, see eBay Web site for promotion details.

The Media categories on eBay have been getting a lot of attention lately with the impending closure of its Half.com site (see transcript of a recent "Town Hall" online discussion with Mike Aufricht, Half.com Vice President and General Manager: http://pages.ebay.com/event/halftransitiontranscript ).

eBay has introduced "Item Specifics" and Pre-Filled Item Information (catalog) and has been rolling up the categories in Media. Buyers may no longer browse deep levels of subcategories, but must use pull-down menus to select attributes in Item Specifics. The transition has been painful for many sellers of CDs, DVDs and books, and most third-party auction-management services don't yet support eBay's Pre-Fill Item Information.

Some sellers speculate that next week's promotion is engineered to encourage the use of the Pre-Fill function and to "beef up" the Books category, where one seller claims listings have steadily declined since the beginning of the year. They are also waiting to receive credits from a similar promotion eBay held last month.

http://www.ebay.com/promo/10PreFilled