Surprise
I was surprised after a presentation I gave at the Product Sellers Seminar with a question from an eBay seller who did not know anything about the new fixed price 30 day format on eBay. The persons question was not a surprise, the fact that anyone who has an eBay account and did not get a notice or a phone call about the FP30 program was my quandary.
Here I thought everyone knew...
OK - for those of you who did not know about this change ( I know, another change at eBay - groan in unison), here is eBay's explanation of the program.
Fixed Price - 30 Days
Starting September 16, we are lowering the listing fee for all items sold via the fixed price format to only 35 cents, and a special rate of only 5 cents through the end of the year for Buy It Now™ fixed price listings in the Media categories (Books, Video Games, Music and DVDs/Movies) using pre-filled item information. (See our new Fixed Price fee structure here.)
Accordingly, we are shifting the majority of our costs for most categories to the back end (final value fees), which you only pay if you're successful in selling an item. In extremely competitive e-commerce categories such as Consumer Electronics, Cameras and Computers, we're decreasing final value fees. This means we're giving you an even bigger incentive to list these types of items on eBay.
In addition to the pricing change, we're extending the listing duration of all Buy It Now™ fixed price listings to 30 days, up from seven with an option for automatic renewal. For sellers whose items that may take longer to sell, this change will be a huge cost reduction and time saver. Taken together, these two big changes – 35 cents for up to 30 days - represent a 70 percent reduction in listing fees on fixed price items
My original take on Fixed price 30 days is that its a good thing but as with all things eBay - it depends...
Our friend and co-blogger Randy Smythe wrote an article entitled