eBay are testing forcing users to list using Good til Cancelled listings when using the mobile app. Gone are the options for short duration listings and the only option is an automatically renewing listing that will remain until the listing is sold.
This is a test so most users should still see the option to list with shorter duration listings and, even if you are included in the test, if you move to the desktop experience on you computer you’ll still get access to both long Good til Cancelled listings and short listing durations.
“In order to allow sellers to list faster on mobile, we are testing the removal of duration options. Our data shows that longer durations perform better, provide more buyer predictability, and index more easily in search engines. This test will ensure that you are listing in a way that gives you the best chance to sell. While not recommended, you can still end and relist items on a shorter timeframe if needed. Thanks!”
– eBay
Many professional sellers will list in the Good til Cancelled listings format on eBay exclusively so this won’t bother them. However the same professional sellers almost certainly use listing tools and not the mobile app to list. This means that the test will largely impact smaller sellers and consumer sellers who may be more used to using short duration listings.
There are of course some reasons to opt for short duration listings – for example if a buyer was to search for ‘Newly Listed’ or ‘Ending Soonest’ then continually launching short duration listings would get visibility more often. However most buyers will leave search in the default ‘Best Match’ sort order and so getting listing indexed in search is probably more important. However the same small sellers who list using the eBay mobile app probably have lower inventory levels and so longevity of listings and sales history would be less important.
It may be that eBay are running the test as an experiment to consider dropping all short duration listings in the future. Perhaps one day, automatically renewing 30 day listings will be the only format open to sellers.
Would you miss 3, 5, 7, and 10 day listings and be happy with 30 day automatically renewing Good til Cancelled listings, or do you still see value in short duration listings?
6 Responses
Makes sense on a fixed price listing but not an auction.
I ran a listing for an old phone of mine, via my private account. It didn’t meet the reserve, but was just a few quid off it…. so i made a second chance offer to the highest bidder who accepted…. Then later i saw that ebay had auto relisted the item that i had just sold! Good job i noticed.
Sorry but this auto relist is a bad idea…. if we want to relist it is hardly difficult.
Of course it will only impact small sellers that is what eBays objective is.
They are virtually in bed with big business and are setting all their promotions and metrics by the big companies standards and ability to pay for extreme selling practices such as 30 day returns, free returns, no short listings because they don’t do them and of course 50% refunds if the item is returned in a condition where it cannot be resold.
These large multi national billion pound companies make these marketing plans after checking their finances to see if they are a viable option.
Yet it seems eBay must be able to see our finances and make the calculation we can make these business crippling offers as well because i don’t remember thinking we could.
We ran A|B tests on listing our inventory on GTC vs 7-day listings. The difference in sales was huge. You’d be mad to list on GTC.
Thats why we are all switching to ON BUY and ebaygumm as they are not tellig us how to sell.
I have just left eBay because even though I had great feedback on items I had sold eBay held my money back once I received my money I contacted eBay and asked if they were going to do it again next time I sold an item and they said yes so I have cancelled my account because I think it’s unfair who do they think they are