eBay will add more exposure for Store inventory items, according to a post on eBay's Announcement Board on Thursday by Chris Tsakalakis, Senior Director of eBay Stores. When eBay announced in January that it would raise commissions (Final Value Fees) on Store items, among the ensuing complaints was one claiming eBay Stores did not generate enough traffic to the Stores to warrant the fee increase.

Searching eBay.com comes back only with results from the auction platform, not from Stores. Tsakalakis said currently when a buyer searches on eBay and finds fewer than 10 Auction-style or Fixed Priced listings available, they see up to 20 additional Store Inventory listings that match that search. "Beginning next week, we will start displaying 30 additional Store Inventory listings when there are 20 or fewer listings found in Auction-style or Fixed Price formats."

Posters on the eBay Stores discussion board noted that this will not have an impact in saturated categories on eBay, since the eBay.com searches would come back with well over 20 items for high-supply items.

eBay will also increase the Store Referral Credit on eligible sales from 50 percent to 75 percent beginning February 18. Store Referral Credits are discounts on Final Value Fees as a reward for driving buyers to eBay Stores. (http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/referral-credit-steps.html)

In the Spring, eBay will add its auction-management tool Selling Manager to Basic Store subscriptions at no additional charge (it's regularly priced at $4.99/month).

Tsakalakis reminded Store owners that beginning April 1, eBay will provide Store sellers with toll-free phone support and will credit them $15.95 in May to all sellers who operated an eBay Store for the month of April.

Tsakalakis invited readers to email him at chris_stores@ebay.com with their thoughts, and said there will be a Brown Bag Discussion on the Stores Discussion Board on February 16 from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm Pacific time.

http://www2.ebay.com:80/aw/marketing.shtml#2005-02-10105625