Channing,
Seems to me that:
1) it would be a fair amount of extra work and if you forgot and missed the
deadline by one day you'd get charged anyway. If you forgot by one day on the
re-list side, your items would disappear and you'd have to go through all the
work of recreating them again. To get a significant savings with hundreds or
thousands of items, you'd probably have to break your inventory up into listing
only 1/3 each month to keep your cost at what it was before the rate
hike.
2) it would kind of negate the whole point of having your inventory in the
eBay store in the first place, wouldn't it? I mean, isn't the idea that your
inventory is always up there for people to browse through at any time,
regardless of what you're doing in the auction arena? If you only have 1/3 of
your inventory showing up in the store at any one time, then you run the risk of
confusing browsers and buyers. Like, if I browse through Channing's store and
reach the end, I figure I've pretty much seen your inventory. But under your
plan, I would only have seen maybe 1/3 of your inventory. I'd have to know to
check back in 30 days to see the next batch of stuff come up for its 30-day run.
Then check back in another 30, etc. How would I know to do that unless you
explained it to me in your store? And if you did explain it to me, wouldn't I
think it pretty weird or just forget to check back every 30 days or so? And even
if I did check back every 30 days for 3 months, it would take me 3 months to
view your entire inventory... perhaps I would have spent my money with some
other seller by then?
My solution:
For selling my old pulp magazines, I always took a pass on the whole eBay
store concept because I didn't like the idea of detracting/distracting from
my auctions (seems like eBay has finally realized that is what the stores do as
well). It always seemed to me that an item listed at a store at a set price and
then at some point put up for auction with the minimum starting bid at or
near the store price was no auction at all, but just another way of
publicizing a retail-priced store item. Over time I've seen a lot of
sellers, in movie posters and other fields, come to regard their auctions as
just that -- simply a way of getting people to look at their stores. It may be a
valid ploy, but we have all seen that in the long run it diminishes the auction
environment on eBay, taking away a lot of the sense of immediacy and urgency
from the auctions (people thinking instead of bidding "Oh, I can always go to
his store and buy this at the same price").
I always preferred to put my retail inventory on my own website, where I
had total control, could say and do what I wanted, and paid no fees except
my monthly hosting cost (a good hosting account can be had for $7.00 a
month these days, with full features like a shopping cart). $16 bucks a
month just to have a store on eBay? Plus, at the new store fee
of 5 cents per item, if you've got 140 items in your eBay store you're going to
pay that $7.00 a month in per-item costs plus a whopping 10% on anything
you sell..? For a person with hundreds or thousands of items, their own website
is much more economical -- carries more cachet with high-end buyers, and keeps
your auctions very separate from your retail listings. You can publicize you own
website in your eBay auctions by doing what Bruce does -- put the name of your
website over your images in semi-transparent type, so anyone who looks at your
picture in your auction can't help but notice the name of your website. You can
also mention your website on your "About Me" page on eBay and then put text in
your auction description saying something like: For information on other
posters, click on "About Me").
I didn't mind eBay having control of my auction items for 7 days, but never
felt comfortable putting my entire inventory in their loving hands... :)
PS... wow... I didn't realize this since I never use BUY IT NOW on eBay...
but they charge a fee to use buy it now...
| US$0.01 – US$9.99 | US$0.05 |
| US$10.00 – US$24.99 | US$0.10 |
| US$25.00 – US$49.99 | US$0.20 |
| US$50.00 or more | US$0.25 |
I had no idea. MPB has *never* charged to use the Buy It Now feature. Of
course, right now MPB is not charging to have a store either... and when Rich
does start charging, he has indicated to me that it won't cost anything like
what eBay stores do.
So, having an MPB store might be a viable option for those who do not want
to host their own website. You could direct eBay users to your MPB store
in the same way you would if you had your own website, as I mentioned
above.
Even with the auctions... an item that you wanted to start with a minimum
bid of $40.00 and a Buy It Now price of $60.00 (your actual retail
price) -- it costs you $1.45 to list it? ... plus $2.36 for the final
valuation if it sells? That's 6.35% of $60.00... not counting the roughly $2.20
to receive the PayPal payment... for a total to eBay of about $6.01 for the
whole deal... a full 10% of your retail BIN sale (and that's at today's auction
fees... everyone knows eBay is about to raise auction fees... and probably
PayPal fees as well).
I dunno... maybe Tony Blair can talk to Meg and get her to back off?
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
From: "channinglylethomson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2006 13:11
Subject: [MOPO] Question About EBAY Store and Tony Blair!
> list their store items for thirty days without doing the automatic
> renewal. It seems to me this might be a way to avoid some of the
> increased store fees. In other words, list the item for a thirty day
> period, then re-list them just before the data falls off EBAY some 60
> days after the termination of the listing. Just an idea, any thoughts?
> Problems with this idea?
>
> Second -- Tony Blair of the UK is visiting San Francisco tomorrow.
> Former Republican Secretary of State George Schultz lives a block from
> me and he will be hosting a lunch for the Brit with his wife, socialite
> Charlotte Maillard. I'm hoping to get a glimpse of the motorcade.
> Security should be high!
>
> Channing Thomson in San Francisco
>
> Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
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