Could you please confirm that for upgrade limited to 50 postings, the only way to monitor that is to go to GS preferences and then click PRO to check postings used?
Also, when an item does not sell, and we simply wish to relist it, are we forced to do that via the eBay app, or can the identical item be relisted without it counting against us on the 50 limit. Thanks
Same, where are all the pictures? Ugh. What a mess.
Yes, its another one of their scams. The site has been dying for years; however, eBay management has never been known for innovation, but instead they are only concerned with meeting short term sales goals at any cost so they get their large bonuses before they leave the company. To meet those sales goals they’ve had to increasingly turn to scams. Much of their income these days is from scams.
All the early innovations on eBay such as photos in listings, scheduled listing, eBay’s own API, listing software were all invented by other people. eBay simply copied these ideas or bought the company that created them. eBay was even found guilty of stealing early online patent auctions. Long time eBay users knew when Meg Whitman took over HP it would be a disaster as she would not be able to take other people’s ideas there.
eBay did not originally develop their own API - it was licensed from a 3rd party. To pass on the cost of licensing that API they had the bright idea of charging developers for using it. One of the first, if not the first, Macintosh eBay applications was called A.I.D. It ran under Mac Classic around 2000. The publisher of that app was put out of business by eBay’s decision.
Even when eBay owned PayPal all of their international transactions were actually handled by ING, the large Dutch banking firm.
FVF on shipping; FVF on sales tax; hidden listing; hidden shipping options; promoted listings; abuse of the UPU program intended to help poor and host of other scams accounted for a large percentage of eBay income.
I had the same problem …
But since I am selling stamps you can imagine that the upgrading to the version 9 is a problem (I want to sell more than 50 stamps per month …and the pro version is to expensive with respect to my sells about 100 euros / month).
Is it possible to upgrade to version 9 ?
Yes, you can upgrade, but only 50 listings. My work-around is this: once they are on eBay, they will remain on seller hub, even unsold items, for 60 days. I can renew them, or “sell similar” from there, using eBay. GS only allows 50 postings to be uploaded without paying a monthly fee which only makes sense for high volume sellers. 100 would be a far more reasonable limit from a user point of view (mine,anyway) but developer needs to keep GS viable financially … so it’s a pity
In the U.S. eBay gives users 250 listings per month without insertion fees.
With the new pricing model for 9 that means paying $14.99 a month to get those 250 listings. Actually starting more than 250 listings makes little sense as paying insertion fees to eBay has been a waste of money for years due to the low sell through rate of items. Paying $14.99 for 250 listings is not worth the money. Inserting only 50 per month is not worth my time due to low sell through rate.
The low sell through rate is due to eBay losing customers. In two recent quarters they lost 13% of all buyers followed by another 9%. Many of the accounts that eBay claims to have are actually duplicate accounts not used for buying. Many people have one or more selling accounts, one or more buying accounts and one or more accounts for posting in eBay’s forums. There are also millions of accounts that have been abandoned but still are included as active as they might come back one day.
When eBay introduced FVF on shipping they started giving people a monthly allotment of listings each month without insertion fees. They claimed that would more than compensate for FVF on shipping (a lie). At the same time eBay did away with free promotional events of one or more days in which users could list items without insertion fees. I would routinely get such offers to list 50,000 items without insertion fees. GS is much less valuable without those promotions.
Listing 250 items does not mean you are a big seller. It means you might sell 5% of those listings, maybe 10% if its a good month. Even then you are selling your items are much lower prices than in the past as eBay has become the lowball marketplace these days. This is not the late 1990s and early 2000s, eBay’s long past heyday.
The Pro edition includes many unwanted features such as image hosting and computer syncing. In many respects GS has become bloatware as I have no use for many of the so called tools in GS such as the inventory, orders and reports tab; editing images, eBay messages.
For $14.99 a month I can host my own off eBay website.
Well have fun hosting your website; I’m not trying to convince you in favor of ebay or GS. I was just speaking to my experience and personal use. True what you say about low sell through rate for whatever the reasons are. I’ll just keep it at 50 items and let them keep relisting … and probably never be seen. Lucky for me it’s just a hobby.
Yes it is a pity
The fact is not that I don’t want to upgrade the fact is that for me the limitation 50 new announces per month.
Thus for me it means 50 stamps (I sell my double stamps from my collection) per month is not enough and the other subscription is too expensive with respect to the potential sells on ebay remember that I am selling my double stamps).
Ebay allows 150 new announces per month per ebay account and GS put lower restriction only 50 new announces per month.
Moreover you can easily understand that if you sell stamps at low prince let say 1 or 2 euros 50 announces means only 50 to 100 euros per month. But if you sell computers let say at 300 euros each then 50 announces means a potential sell per month of 15 000 euros ….there is a big difference depending on what you are selling.
Yes but the limit should put not on the number of items but on the sells. If you sell 50 items per month at 2 euros (stamps for example) then you got 100 euros per month but if you sell 50 items at 300 euros (computers for example) then you got 15 000 euros ….
So this is also happening to us. My question is when we first started listing on ebay it was not available to folks with MACs. Now it is. So what would be the point of upgrading to pro and paying $150 per year? We do well over 50 per month so that is not an option. Thanks for any insight?
With version 7 I listed 250 items per month - new or a mixture of new items and rotation of slow seller items.
Before eBay did away with its promotional events in which sellers were invited to list “X” number of items without any insertion fees during one or more days my business model was different. I would typically get several invitations each year that allowed me to list 50,000 items with no insertion fees. I am sure larger sellers were allowed to list even larger volumes.
I would list large amounts of items during these events and avoid paying any insertion fees or store fees. Buyers could take advantage of the fact that they could combine a lot larger selection of items for shipping so save money. I could quickly ship out a bunch of items in a short amount of time and get back to doing other things.
GS is far less valuable due without these events.
I experimented with my first store in the early 2000s on the old GeoCities hosting site for a large collection of items in one one hobby I had. It was just simple web pages with lists of items and pictures. Payment was by mail. As the site was connected to a webring of other related sites it soon appeared at the top of then dominate Yahoo search engine. I was able to sell my entire collection. Thing are a lot easier these days.
Anyone remember Yahoo Auctions?
I used A.I.D. on the Mac around 2001. It was created by a publisher using FileMaker if I recall correctly. I still have a copy of a couple versions archived on CD, but would have to get one of my old Mac G4s from storage to run it. That company was put out of business by eBay when eBay wanted to start charging publishers for using their API. Their API was created by another company that licensed it to eBay so eBay thought they would pass the cost onto developers. The price was likely determined by the number of calls the software made to eBay’s API. The publisher did not want to pass this cost onto their users as it would amount to subscription fee - it also showed the publisher that eBay was a untrustworthy partner.
I then used Turbolister on a Mac via VirtualPC. One of the worst programs ever made as its Windows and its from eBay, which is not known for innovation.
This topic was automatically closed 10 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.