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eBay must really be hurting badly. They are now announcing that they are going to offer free listings (no insertion fees) starting in June of 2009. As I mentioned in another post, June seems to be bringing quite a few changes for eBay. I see that they finally appear to be doing something to save the sinking ship.

How the Free Insertion Listing Fee Deal Works Staring June 16, 2009

The free listing deal only works with eBay’s “Auction Style” format. This is a bummer because “Auction Format” is my least favorite. You have to haggle buyers to send the money on time, and it is guaranteed to take at least 3 days to end in most cases. In fact, I don’t even use it at all.

Anyway, when you list your first 5 items each month, there will be no listing (insertion) fees. This helps a little to save money off the “up-front” costs to sell on Fee-Bay.

The Final Value Fee for these 5 listings with $0.00 Insertion Fees will be 8.75% of the sales price or $20, whichever is lower. So you still get pegged with the final value fees in the end (assuming your item actually sells).

Does This Even Help eBay Sellers at All?

Really it helps most eBay sellers very little, if at all. I only like to use the “Buy it Now” format for selling on eBay. I used to do auction format on occasion, but to be honest I haven’t ran an auction in years! It is too much of a hassle, and really aggravating. You risk getting no bids/low bids, and you have to deal with the buyer paying, etc.

The only people this will help are the “occasional” eBay people who sell a few items (unwanted gifts, etc) on eBay every month or two. I don’t see it making any kind of dent in a big seller’s fees at all. But I suppose it is a good way to attract those occasional sellers that might want to sell on eBay, but will be turned off by the up-front fees.

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Ebay just announced their new PPC advertising program called AdCommerce. Apparently, eBay sellers can opt to sign up for this program to run pay per click advertising links within the search results page on eBay. So far, it seems you can only use it to promote your own eBay listings or your own eBay store.

It seems like it works similarly to Google Adwords, but it does have some differences. It seems that sellers can add text, and even a small gallery picture. This will be displayed on the search results page, and if a potential buyer happens to click an ad, you get charged money for the advertisement. So pretty much the same as Adwords, but for eBay listings only.

Should eBay Sellers Use AdCommerce? Will It Increase eBay Sales? Would I Use it?

First, it is just common sense that the more traffic you get to your listing, the more products you will sell (at fixed price), or the higher the bids will get (in auction format). So, of course the more traffic you get, the more sales you get, PERIOD. But the real question is will it be profitable for sellers to use it? The answer to that, is IT DEPENDS!

If a seller could play around with it and tweak it to the point where it could be a cheaper form of promotion than going for a different promotional tool (such as featured plus), then it may be worthwhile for some products with high margins. However, it seems that simply paying for the feature or other advertising or promotion would be a heck of a lot easier than having to constantly tweak an advertising campaign! That way you would ensure consistent results towards the top of the search results.

Would I personally use it…NO! And here is why…The reason I sell items on eBay is for the built-in traffic they already offer! Stuff sells well (sometimes) because eBay has so many affiliates driving traffic to the site. EBay forgets that sellers go there not because sellers can have people bid, but because they have the built-in traffic. If I am going to have to pay for my own traffic, then I think I will just send it to my own website…DUH! When I pay eBay fees I look at like I am just paying for traffic. But if I am going to have to start paying for ppc advertising on top of the normal listing and final value fees, then I would just build my own site and send all the traffic there. Then I won’t have to worry about ‘Feedback,’ the high final value fees, all of the other annoyances that go along with selling items on eBay in the first place. Not to mention that they will shut your account down at the drop of a hat if you do something wrong. 

Another complaint I have, is that if I am going to pay for PPC traffic, then I am going to use Google because they get way more traffic than eBay! Plus, I can use Google Adwords for all of my other websites or PPC campaigns, whereas with eBay you can only use it for your store/listings only.

In Conclusion: Is eBay’s AdCommerce PPC Advertising Worth It?

If you are a hard core eBayer you may want to try this to see if it can increase your sales. I definitely would only use it on products with a huge markup (at least $40 after all fees in my opinion). Then you could tweak and track your results to see if it is better than just featuring it.

I would not likely use it at all, but then again, I may test it out here in a few weeks and post my own results with the program. It just seems silly that you can only advertise your listings (and not a website, etc.). And I already pay EXPENSIVE fees to sell on there which majorly cuts into my margins, so I don’t see why I would want to give eBay a raise?? And like I said before, if you want ppc, why not just use Google Adwords? Much more reliable, and you can send traffic to eBay, your own website, or anywhere!

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Posted under Making Money, eBay