FP30 is born!

Well today eBay officially launched the Multi-quantity 30-day duration fixed price listing (FP30 for short). 

I'm proud to announce that we are already not only supporting FP30 TODAY at ChannelAdvisor in both our MarketplaceAdvisor Standard and Premium offerings, but we've done some enhancements to take advantage of how the relist works so that our customers will be advantaged with their recent sales.

This was tricky because eBay hasn't had this in the API until it went live on the site at midnight PT, so we had to have a team working on this in real time to support it, test, it, etc.  In fact, this new format won't be in the eBay sandbox for weeks.  Clearly the business changes are coming faster than the rest of the company can keep up right now.

In fact, our sales team heard from one poor Turbolister seller that TL won't even support FP30 for at best a week or two.  Ouch, talk about a disadvantage.  Think of all that sales velocity this seller's competitors will be able to build up.  I don't know if Blackthorne or any of the other myriad eBay listing tools will support FP30 yet, but it's not a long shot given how it was rolled out that they will be days if not weeks behind.

Off to a slow start
Given all the hoopla in the press and supposedly nashing of teeth around this new format, it's off to a slow start.  We have about 150 customers that have listed an FP30.  Here's one of the first ones if you want to see what it looks like 'live' on eBay.

Part of what's going on with the seller base is, for lack of a better word, eBay fatigue.  Sellers feel their businesses have changes so much (DSRs, BestMatch, etc..)  for so little/no/decline in sales that eBay is increasingly becoming a lower priority for them and thus they will tend to be reactive vs. proactive as they would have been as recently as 6 months ago.  To be honest, most of our larger sellers are spending their time getting their websites and other channels ready for the holidays and eBay just isn't a priority.  Of course this doesn't bode well for eBay, but it's the reality of what is going on in the grassroots of ecommerce.

So unless eBay puts a promo on the FP30, I don't see this mass switch to FP30 over the store format or anything until maybe Q1 after the holiday dust settles.

I'll keep a close eye on the trends and report anything of interest.

For those ChannelAdvisor customers that are also blog readers, we have details on our FP30 support on the Strategy and Support Center (SSC) here.

SeekingAlpha disclosure: I am long google and ebay.

Comments

[Arie Shpanya]

Hi,

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/buyitnow08/searchplacement.html

the FP 30 is not available in Australia yet,
any word when it will be?

[Fruity]

Scot, sellers right now are being proactive. For the longest time they have been under ebays thumb; putting up with their crummy changes, asking about why raising this and why taking this away... for years sellers have been reactive. Not now Mister! Every seller I know, except for 2, are putting the earplugs on, tuning out, and taking the drivers seat on their own business. It is very exciting to see this happening because even the smallest accomplishments you are getting support from your peers. You feel your self-esteem is looking up again and that you have control back!

Many sellers, especially the tier that are established full time sellers, know when ebay gives us another important message it means they are going to post another confusing deceptive message, that they want more money or they want you to give you busy work so you will spend all you time questioning them and not leave. Sellers are sharp, ebay takes alot of them for lemmings. Now its the sellers taking back their business. Sellers are saying NO! You will not take our businesses down with you!

There isn't anything ebay will announce, that we don't already know. wonk wonk wonk. Ebay wants to rid the site of a certain segment of sellers. If ebay is going to actually pay off, sellers can always come back. So what's the point of listening to ebay now? What value add are they giving our businesses? THey're not! Everybody knows that when ebay wants to optimize the site, they do. And it makes NO DIFFERENCE what format you use. When they want their money or need to get their numbers up for the quarter, they FETCH your products and optimize the site. This breakup is going to be EASY, because they haven't performed in 2 years, they haven't delivered, there's no trust or confidence in the system. There's no integrity to the company. the only thing they do good in is TALK ABOUT WHAT THEY'RE GOING TO DO. The outlook for ebay this holiday season is flaccid! Ebay went from George Clooney to that Gerard pee ewww guy. LOL. All you Wall Street analysts can suck it, I hope your bosses fire you for not paying attention to what has been happening for 2 years! Maybe in 6 months when you're unloading your company branded souvenirs on Ebay you'll get it then.

[Misterbay]

Another big fee increase. Ebay keeps squeezing their biggest and best sellers. When does it stop?

[Jim]

Checked out the "first one" on the link you gave. I am surprised they are still accepting the Money Order in that listing since in will not end until after the cut off of MO acceptance.

I for one use TL so I can not get mine up until it is fixed unless I want to do it the old way on the website.

Also eBay promises a bulk editor but they are sure keeping that a tight lip. Maybe they have more bugs to fix than they can handle right now. ... and with the layoffs how are they ever going to catch up?

[David M.]

Well, Scott, you have been cheerleading for this for sooooooooooooo long. We shall see what the outcome is. Sounds like many sellers have lost interest in eBay anyway. Will FP listings end up just like Ebay Express? Time will tell.

If a company is going to roll out a new format, it would be nice to have systems in place to support it. How can a multi-billion dollar company be so sloppy.

[Neal Davidson]

What a mess (at least for our best selling item)!

Do an eBay search for Lowepro Slingshot 200. Our BIN is showing up in position 7 (right now) and our auction is 6. The top 4 are in China, moderate DSR's, low sales, and some have very high shipping. Something is wrong. Most important, our sales have gone from our best selling item to nothing!

If you do the same for eBay Canada, the Canadian sellers are on top, with low DSR's and higher prices.

We have a call in to our TSAM. He has been unavailable.

[Scott Pooler]

Scot,

Just an aside, you may want to mention to your CA client they are giving conflicting information on the listing you highlighted in this article. The header info clearly shows free shipping but the body of the description shows a shipping price of $12.99. Usually not a great way to invite buyer confidence. Nice looking product, good clear terms, but when an item is listed as Free Shipping in one place and then quotes shipping and insurance costs in another I usually hit the back button.

Thanks for the update on FP30 - Your team did a great job getting it live on CA so fast! Kudos all around!

Scott

[Ajay Agrawal]

Hi Scot, Turbo Lister and Blackthore were updated today (09/16) to support FP30

-Ajay

[Patricia013]

I think most sellers are sitting back waiting. I think they know they are going to all smother each other and how in the world do you attract a buyer's attention? Sellers have been thru so much this year...its a wonder any of them are left to list at all!

[Gui]

Hey Scot -

Both Turbo Lister and Blackthorne support the new duration (as of this morning).

Gui

[Steve S]

"I don't know if Blackthorne or any of the other myriad eBay listing tools will support FP30 yet, but it's not a long shot given how it was rolled out that they will be days if not weeks behind."

Earlier today Blackthorne rolled out FP30 along with 'relisting' of FP30 Solds. Personally, I'm in no hurry to submit 30 day FP listings.

[TekGems]

eBay FileExchange was able to launch all our listings using FP30 today with zero issue.