At least several eBay Store owners who pay a premium for "Featured" Stores are considering downgrading to Basic Stores after eBay announced it was discontinuing its Keyword advertising program. eBay had given Featured Store owners a credit of $90/quarter to be used toward the program so their ads would appear on relevant eBay search-results pages.

One Store owner wrote to AuctionBytes to say there was confusion about whether eBay Keywords would be replaced by a new program, but that, "Bottom line, if this program isn't replaced with another one, many Featured stores will downgrade to Basic on October 1." Another wrote to say that the primary reason she had chosen a Featured store was the benefit of getting eBay Keywords credits. Storeowners are discussing the issue on an eBay forum (http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000205900).

eBay spokesperson Catherine England said the company is currently investigating alternatives, stating that current program did not meet eBay's community's needs and had been used by very few sellers since it had launched in 2003.

eBay's storefront offering is available in three levels: Basic Stores ($15.95/month), Featured Stores ($49.95/month) and Anchor Stores ($499.95/month). Featured and Anchor Stores give sellers more benefits over Basic Stores, including advanced tools and credit toward the eBay Keywords program. Featured Stores also receive a more sophisticated analytics tool; the ability to send a greater amount of email newsletters to customers (1,000 compared to 400 for Basic Storeowners and 4,000 for Anchor Store owners); and rotating promotional placement on eBay Stores gateway. A complete comparison of features by type of Store can be viewed on the eBay website (http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/subscriptions.html).

eBay announced last week it was discontinuing the Keyword program, which was administered by third-party vendor AdMarketplace (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m08/i24/s01). England said the Storeowner credit was a program specific to AdMarketplace. "As of September 30th, AdMarketplace will no longer have ad inventory on eBay. eBay sellers can continue to advertise with AdMarketplace (for placements off of eBay) if they choose do so by contacting AdMarketplace directly."

She also said, "We do understand that there is some interest within the selling Community for a better Keyword text ads solution, and we are currently investigating alternatives." She pointed to more information in a FAQ about the keyword program changes that may be helpful to sellers: http://pages.ebay.com/keywordsfaqs.