Free Listings (Insertion Fees) on ebay 12/20/2001

[DAXMEN]

Kewl I just got an email from ebay about this. What sucks is that I will be leaving town right after Christmas so when the auctions end on the 27th (7 day auction) no one will be around to answer any emails. What a crappy time for ebay to do this right before Christmas when everyone is gone! I remember they wouldn't even tell when there free listing day's were you had to check everyday on their website for it.

Oh well nice post neways!

 

[DAXMEN]

Yes you can list your car and it's free unless u sell it then there is a final value fee of $25.00, but if you don't it's all free!

Here is the email info I got from ebay:

Our Season?s Best: Free Listing Day December 20!
At eBay, we want to help you end the year with a clean slate and a jingle in your pockets. That?s why we?re having a Free Listing Day, December 20, 2001.

So pull all the stops out. Leave no closet, drawer, nor inventory sheet unturned. List it all for FREE on December 20, courtesy of eBay.

When: Thursday, December 20, 2001 between 00:00:01 PST (12:00 AM plus one second on December 20, 2001) and 23:59:59 PST December 20, 2001 (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds)

What: Included are new listings on the US site (www.ebay.com), eBay Motors and eBay Stores.

Premier, eBay Live Auctions, Real Estate, International and Professional Services listings are excluded from Free Listing Day. Free Listing Day does not affect Auction for America listings.


Costs: Insertion Fees will be credited during Free Listing Day. All other fees ( home page featured, featured plus, highlight, bold, gift icon, gallery, gallery featured, 10 day listings, extended duration surcharge for eBay Stores, etc.) will still apply.



Create Listings that get noticed!
Try these features to add sparkle to your sales (fees still apply).


FEATURED PLUS! - Did you know that Featured Plus! items are 58% more likely to sell?
Be BOLD - Bold listings are 27% more likely to sell.
Go GALLERY - Gallery items are at least 8% more likely to sell.

Visit our information page for more details.

List twice, thrice - even four times as much as you ever have on December 20th!

Join in! Cash in! And clear out the old year on eBay's Free Listing Day!



eBay sent this e-mail to you because your Notification Preferences indicate that you want to receive information about Special Promotions, Offers and Events. You are subscribed as *****@wi.rr.com.

To change your communication preferences, click here. Or, simply reply to this e-mail with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Please note that it may take up to 14 days to process your request. Visit our Privacy Policy and User Agreement if you have any questions.

Copyright © 2001 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.
eBay and the eBay logo are trademarks of eBay Inc.

 

[virtuamike]

Cool, I got some things I need to throw up. I usually run 3 day auctions, start them around noon so that all the slackers at work buy up my stuff (most of the stuff I sell are tech toys). Works pretty good, I get a lot more for things like video cards and such by selling them in the afternoon.

 

[p0ntif]

got this in the mail! not sure if I will list or not yet!

 

[golfreak]

Its very simple people.

Usually when I put something on Ebay I list them as $9.99 so the insertion fee is only $.30
But since its FREE. Lets say you want to sell a Geforce3 and the minimum price you want to sell it is $200.
Then start that Geforce3 at $200. If it sell, then you'll get at least your minimal fee(but you'll have to pay the selling fee).
If no one bid on the your $200 starting price, then you don't lose anything.

To me, its a good deal. Time to list a bunch of stuff.

 

[DaveH]

what time this evening does this end?

Edit: sorry, says PST in the link

 

[DaveH]

Is anyone's listing going through?

I'm using xp, no system problems, just rebooted, and I can't press "continue" without the screen hanging. Odd, because I can login and do other things on the web site with no delay...would sure like to get this up with no further hassle.

 

[VforVendetta]

"The insertion fee will be charged and then immediately credited to your eBay account."

That's not free...

 

[Justincase]

>>>Is anyone's listing going through? I'm using xp.<<<

I listed 3 items - no problems...but then I am using a Macintosh.

Ebay is only refunding the insertion fee, not even the reserve fee, so this exercise may end up costing me $3.00 total. Really slow day on Ebay today.

 

[iwearnosox]

I'm the founder of this site. =)

Having said that, the last couple weeks leading into Christmas and the week and a half following are eBay's worst traffic days. It starts to pick up again post holiday. The dip is substantial, in the 20-30% range, historically.

Sundays are the busiest time, around 6:30-7 PST. We can tell these things by the image hosting load on our servers, and by the launches, etc, it's an interesting graph.

Sox

 

[iwearnosox]

And now that I'm out of the closet, would all you bastards that jumped on our free gold coin promo please return them to me, I could use them for the holiday.

 

[happymak]

<< And now that I'm out of the closet, would all you bastards that jumped on our free gold coin promo please return them to me, I could use them for the holiday. >>



LOL

I gave that those coins, *cough*, I mean coin to my girlfriend. Hey iwearnosox, i noticed a while back that ebay was no longer listed...now none of the "big" auctions are listed. What's up with that?

 

[DaveH]

iwearnosox, you have a great service there. Glad to make your acquaintance!

Permit me to vent a moment.

Ebay has cost me 2 hours of time I didn't have to spare with their idiotic submission protocol.

First I couldn't get in without it freezing. So I changed the settings in their FAQ, and rebooted fresh.

Then, Despite their link to "what happens if back erases your form," back erases my form, EVERY TIME. Since their are 10,000 settings that need to be right for it to take your auction without giving you an error message, this means I have to start from scratch EVERY TIME.

So, figuring I can't be alone in having this problem, I go download some "Mr. Lister" software that other users say is the only way they've found to circumvent this problem. Of course, even though ebay lets me download and install this interesting software, I go through all the trouble of using it only to submit the auction and discover that I'm not elligible to use it because I don't have a 10 feedback.

I paid those chuckleheads $5 to have them verify me, and my 200+ positives on yahoo auctions aren't good enough for them. But I can't get a 10 feedback IF I CAN'T MANAGE TO LIST THE D*MN AUCTIONS.

I would welcome suggestions from more seasoned ebayers. I will have to hit the sack soon, and will be sad if I missed ebay's free day only because despite considerable surfing and tweaking experience, I can't seem to sucessfully list an auction in a timely manner.

 

[happymak]

Try using Netscape.

 

[badluck]

Yes, use Netscape

 

[iwearnosox]

<< I gave that those coins, *cough*, I mean coin to my girlfriend. Hey iwearnosox, i noticed a while back that ebay was no longer listed...now none of the "big" auctions are listed. What's up with that? >>



I assume you mean with the search service. eBay historically has been very unhappy with sites that aggregate their data into a universal search. It got so nasty that we put a $500,000 ad in the wall street journal asking them what they were afraid of. Ah, those were the days. We continued to search them via proxy, but unfortunately we wound up driving most buyers towards ebay listings, a process there was no revenue in. At the end of the day it made no economic sense to lose money and drive them liquidity, so we signed their api agreement, dropped our crawling, kissed and made up. You can read more about it here.

Dave, I feel for you, but have little to suggest. Try another client side application or a service provider such as auctionwatch, andale, or the like. I don't experience the same problem you have.

I'd at least do a control-a then control-c on your description field to put it on your clipboard, that's the biggest pain in the butt to redo!

 

[Justincase]

>>>So, figuring I can't be alone in having this problem, I go download some "Mr. Lister" software that other users say is the only way they've found to circumvent this problem.<<<

There is at least one other way, but obviously not applicable to PC users: use a Mac. 99 times out of 100, I don't experience the 'back erasure' problem. Other than that, you can try a computer with a different OS, a computer in another location, or another browser as others have suggested.


>>>I can't get a 10 feedback IF I CAN'T MANAGE TO LIST THE D*MN AUCTIONS. I would welcome suggestions from more seasoned ebayers.<<<

If all else fails, you can quickly attain a 10 feedback by buying a series of cheap items, paying for them quickly, then leaving feedback for the sellers and asking them to do the same. It may not be the ideal way, but it works.

 

[DealLurker]

>The insertion fee will be charged and then immediately credited to your eBay account."
>That's not free...


What's not free? I ask you to hand me $1 and then I turn around and hand it back to you? Did it cost you anything? NO! Therefore, it's FREE.


They do that for 2 reasons.
1) It provides tracking in their system of an "insertion". You can go back and see how many 30 cent insertions you did, 55 cent ones, etc...

2) It allows them to "inflate" their end-of-quarter results. They will *CONVIENTLY* include ALL listing fees charged in the quarter in their financial reports. But they will "hide" the CREDITS into a "one time chage for blah blah blah". It helps inflate their balance sheet to prop up the numbers at the end of the quarter.

It has *NOTHING* to do with "giving back to the community" and "thanking our sellers". It's (the free listing days) done as an accounting scheme, that unfortunately is legal yet. That's why you will ALWAYS find them at the end of a quarter, like the time they did this around the 20th of june... JUST enough time to have 10 day auctions close on the 30th of june, the end of the quarter, just like now, to reap the final value fees too.

I've heard though that the SEC is tightening rule on one time charges/etc.. to prevent companies (any) from having constant one time charges and force them to be truthful on all their income AND expenses to stop fooling the people who buy their stock.

 

[tydas]

Bad time to list, why else would ebay be doing this promotion!?!? If your volumes are low on a certain day you have a frigin sale...some people are so clueless

 

[Pothead]

I use to have the problem, when you go back everything dissapears. I think it has to do with how long you are logged in. After a certain amt. of time, you get "logged out" and when you hit back, everything is gone so it blows.

i've been ebaying for 3yrs. I suggest writing out all the stuff in a text file and just copy and paste. Simple as that.

 

[JohnnyPC]

<< Try using Netscape. >>



Or Opera! I just installed this browser and not only is it smokin fast, but It has a bunch of useful features that IE overlooks...try it out...

Opera Website...Free download

 

[DaveH]

Thanks for the replies, all, I appreicate them!

I did end up getting it to work by changing the IE Setting to "never update" (even though ebay's instructions say update only on IE startup should be enough.) Hope this helps other XP users experiencing problems.

I need to remember to refresh manually now when I go to other sites, but that has its advantages too.