Reports are surfacing that eBay Store listings may get replaced in search results by eBay Express listings. Randy Smythe wrote on his blog that he believes eBay may be testing the display of eBay Express listings instead of eBay Store listings at the bottom of core search results and has a screenshot showing an example.

ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo posted on his blog that eBay either has some unusual bugginess or is doing some A/B testing on store discoverability (http://digbig.com/4stah). He said sellers have been noticing reduced visibility of Stores in several places.

eBay introduced eBay Express, a fixed-price marketplace, in June 2006 in the U.S. It launched in Germany in August and in the UK in October. eBay Express draws from fixed-price listings on eBay.com and eBay Stores, and allows shoppers buy from multiple sellers with one transaction with the use of a shopping cart.

Some sellers are upset that eBay left out eBay Stores on the new header that displays at the top of every page, which does include links to "eBay Categories," eBay Motors, and eBay Express directly under the search box (http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000358593). Storeowners are still sensitive about reduced exposure for Store listings after eBay's efforts last summer to shift listings from Store to core listings in an effort to "rebalance" the marketplace.

Update 4/30/07: In response to speculation about eBay Express replacing the Store listings at the bottom of search results, an eBay moderator posted a message on the forums. "We are committed to increasing the value of eBay Stores and the Store Inventory listing format, not decreasing it."

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000485642