As AuctionBytes reported on Monday, eBay UK has eliminated its Stores inventory format - called Shops in the UK - while maintaining the Shops concept. We checked in with eBay UK spokesperson Richard Kanareck to gauge his reaction to last week's transition. We also inquired whether a similar plan was in the works for the US site.
eBay UK automatically converted Shops listings, set up as "Good Til Cancelled" (GTC), to a new fixed-price BIN format last week. The transition was smooth, according to Kanareck, with a few tweaks in Turbo Lister that lagged by an hour or two.
As part of the changes rolled out on September 24th, eBay UK introduced a new 30-day Buy It Now (BIN) fixed-price format in which sellers could list multiple quantities of identical items. Kanareck said eBay UK encourages sellers to change to multiple quantity listings when they have identical items, which can help raise exposure in search through the Recent Sales factor in Best Match search, and to list for the longer 30-day duration.
While Kanareck said the majority of sellers saw their overall fees stay the same or reduced on Sept 25th, a glance at the eBay Shops discussion boards show a number of sellers who refer to the Shops fee change as an increase. In addition, a number of participants appeared to be frustrated with eBay's Best Match search algorithm.
Kanareck said, "The general trend is to reduce up front risk and align our success better with our sellers - in this case that means rebalancing so that insertion fees are down, balanced out by increased final value fees. We also made Gallery free." He confirmed that optional feature fees increase accordingly for those opting for a 30-day Fixed Price listing versus shorter-duration listings (the previously longest non-shop duration was 10 days). "Sellers can still opt for 3, 5, 7 or 10 days if they wish," he said.
Citing concerns he was hearing from sellers, Kanareck said he wanted to clarify that Shop owners still have their Shop page and their Shop "brand." It is not eBay UK's wish to do away with this, he said.
A visit to the eBay UK home page confirms that the Shops tab remains, linking to the eBay Shop's main portal page. And links to sellers' individual Shops continue to appear in their core listings.
As for whether eBay.com plans to make similar changes to Stores in North America, spokesperson Usher Lieberman said, "We don't have any plans in the US to follow suit at this time."
Why are eBay.com sellers anxious to find out if the Store Inventory format will be eliminated? As one reader wrote, "Basically some sellers, especially of low value items, ie postcards/sportscards, need to decide whether to ramp up listings for the holiday or move most/all their items elsewhere, since if the change DOES go into effect, they can't cost effectively sell on eBay anymore."
US Store owners currently pay $15.95/month for a Basic Store and pay 3 cents for a 30-day listing (although the listings do not show up in core search results under most conditions). This can be compared to the new eBay UK Shops fees, where sellers must pay a large monthly subscription fee to be eligible for the lowest listing fees (but those listings do appear in core search results).
Finally, Kanareck said he would get back to AuctionBytes about claims from some UK expatriates living in Asia who said overseas Shop subscribers would get no Shop-level based insertion-fee discounts. "Even Brits, with British seller accounts, but living overseas with overseas shop subscriptions, cannot get them," wrote a seller named Ed on the AuctionBytes Blog. (The topic is frequently explored on the Buildaskill blog).
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