eBay listing promotion - 3/15/06 - 10c Fixed Price.

eBay is having a listing promo tomorrow, March 15th 2006.  All fixed-price listings will have a .10c insertion fee.  Details here.  The last one was 2/28 so these two are pretty close to each other.  The speculation around listing promotions tends to be:

1. Listings are down so eBay runs these promos to juice listings.
2. There is a lack of supply on the site - indicated by bids/item and other metrics eBay watches.  The promos seek to bring more supply to site.
3. eBay is having a great Q, so wants to pass some savings to sellers.
4. Listing promotions are random and not related to any of the above.

Any other theories?

Comments

[Scott Magoon]

They may be doing some internal analytics on their seller base in preparation for Express. They may be prodding the base to see how much inventory flexibility there is held outside of current listings (including Stores). They may also want to see how responsive the seller base can be on short notice in case they are misjudging demand for Express (on both the buyer and seller sides) and want to shape behavior by manipulating fees.

Of course this assumes that eBay is not a giant Skinner Box and we're not all pigeons.

[Chuck]

I am not sure why I would want to list fixed price, even with the discounted listing fee. The store listing fee is still 7 cents cheaper, and from what I can tell most of our store listings are showing up in the regular search.

Store sales have been phenominal since February, while our auction sales have tanked! I think eBay is trying to get sellers to launch to the auction site because due to store items showing up in the search results, listings have dropped.

[Scot Wingo]

Hey Joe,

1. yes, definitely could be it.
2. Probably doesn't make sense because they are launching in April, and the listings today would last at the longest 10days (ending march 25th).

S

[JOE]

I think they do it in order to get more people used to using the Fixed Price listings vs auctions. Thats why so often they are only on fixed price. If they just wanted more supply, why not auctions too?
Among reasons why they want to encourage fixed price:
1. Different Product mix, newer or more in season goods than are usually listed in auctions.
2. More listings for the upcoming Ebay Express, as they are only fixed price.
Make any sense?