Featured first double dips on fees

November 5, 2008

It appears that there is a glitch on items using the Featured First enhancement where users are getting billed again for the feature if they make revisions to their listing.

The glitch has appeared on 30 day listings for which a 7 day Featured First enhancement was applied. When a revision is made (even a simple revision like adding more inventory to the listing) users have been charged a second time, but for a full 30 day Featured First fee.

eBay advised users to run long duration listings and to adjust the quantity as stock sells and is replenished but double dipping on fees, changing the Featured First option from a 7 day to a 30 day and re-charging, shouldn’t be happening.

If you have been using the Featured First enhancement and have subsequently adjusted the quantity available on a listing, check your invoice and make sure you haven’t been over charged.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Glitches, News | 7 Comments 

Featured Plus listing enhancement changes

October 23, 2008

A few days ago sellers started noticing that listings with Featured Plus were only appearing in the featured section of search results and were no longer duplicated lower down the page in their natural search results position.

It’s now been confirmed that the Featured Plus listings will be only displayed at the top of the page they naturally fall on in the search results. The eBay Featured Plus help page has been updated to reflect this change.

The change was considered an improvement to the buyer experience as it means that a featured listing is not seen twice in the same search results pages, but still benefits from a higher position.

Featured Plus is still a worthwhile enhancement, even with what’s now slightly less benefit than previously. It has a huge advantage as soon as your listing hits page 1 of search results as it gives a guaranteed position in the featured section - Featured First listings have to compete for a spot in rotation as well as costing significantly more.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | Comments Off 

What is Featured First and Featured Plus

October 18, 2008

The difference between Featured First and Featured Plus has many sellers confused as to which they should use and which has the best benefits.

Featured Plus


Featured Plus is the older listing enhancement, it adds extra visibility to a listing by duplicating it at the top of the search results page.

Your listing will only be in featured section of the page it naturally falls on in search, so if your listing is on page 39 of search results Featured Plus will duplicate your listing at the top of page 39.

Featured Plus is great if your fixed price listing in Best Match is on the first page of search results, auctions will naturally appear on the first page as they get close to the finish time. It’s not so great if you’re still appearing on page 39 and that’s where Featured First comes in.

Featured First

Featured First will lift your listing to the top of page 1 of search results, but in a rotation with any other listings that have the enhancement. There are two slots reserved at the top of the first page of search results and any matching listings with the Featured Plus listing enhancement will appear in rotation in this slot. Your listing will still appear on the search results page it naturally falls on.

There has been confusion as in the past Featured Plus often boosted listings to the first page of search results. This was actually a programming error which has been corrected and Featured Plus items now will only appear at the top of the page they naturally fall on.

Gallery Featured

Gallery Featured was an old listing enhancement which has been retired. Gallery Featured worked in a similar way to Featured Plus, but would boost a listing to the top of search results when viewed as a gallery rather than the default list view. Gallery Featured is no longer available and has been replaced with Featured First.

In summary Featured Plus boosts your listing to the top of the page of search results that it naturally appears on. Featured First may display your listing in the featured section at the top of page 1 of search results, but only in rotation with other listings which have Featured Plus applied.

The best situation is for your listing to naturally appear on page 1 of search results and then to apply the Featured Plus listing enhancement - that guarantees your product will be one of the first a buyer sees when they search for your item.

Glitch or design?

While writing this post it’s been discovered that Featured Plus listings will only appear once in search results if they naturally fall on page 1 of search results.

This behavior isn’t what’s expected - the listing should still appear in the search results slot it naturally falls on as well as in the featured section of the page. Featured Plus listings on page 2 or higher of search results are displayed as expected in both the featured section as well as their normal position, lower down the search results page.

This may be because eBay want the first page of search results to show as many different listings as possible and are suppressing duplicates, or it may be yet another search glitch. We’ll update you as soon as we have more information.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Featured, Selling Tips | 3 Comments 

eBay.com announce more changes

October 16, 2008

eBay.com have announced another set of changes which they say will help sellers be successful this holiday season.

Likely to be most controversial with sellers is a new Amazon-style product page for goods which use pre-filled item information. These feature the “best value box”, one single Best Matched seller highlighted at the top of the item page, labelled “buy from trusted seller…”. Somehow, I don’t think this is going to be terribly popular with sellers.

Beyond the best value box, media items are grouped by condition, from “brand new” to “acceptable”. Bizarrely, buyers appear to have to click on the seller’s comments on the item condition in order to access the view item page to purchase. This is a major change in what we expect from buyers, who are used to clicking item titles and gallery pictures. If we must make eBay more like Amazon, then lets have a “buy it now” button right there on the search results page.

Free subtitle for pre-filled info items

Media items (books, music, movies, DVDs and video games) listed with pre-filled item information receive free subtitles from now until the end of the year. “Help your listings stand out” says Dinesh: if everyone’s using subtitle, of course, your listing won’t stand out because of it, so think about how you can use this space imaginatively.

Featured First might get you featured

Featured First is a new listing upgrade, which offers you the chance to have your listings appear at the top of the search results page. A limited number of FF listings are randomly rotated into the featured area: there is no guarantee that yours will appear. At $24.95 for up to 10 days, and $74.95 for up to 30 days, FF isn’t cheap, but it can be a good way to kick-start sales on a new listing to boost them under Best Match: choosing 10 days’ FF on a 30 day listing is a more cost-effective way to do this.

Best Match for SIF

Stores Inventory Format listings will still be shown at the end of search results pages which have not returned many results: the threshold for this has been increased from 30 core listings to “about 50″. SIF listings will now be sorted according to Best Match, “using the same factors that apply for Fixed Price listings. These include recent sales, competitive pricing - including shipping - and seller track record.”

No more relist credits for BINs

From October 22nd, there will be no more relist credits for BIN items which have not sold. Previously, sellers who relisted an unsold item would receive a credit for their insertion fees if it sold on the second time of listing. Auction items will still be eligible for relist credits, and so will unpaid items.

These announcements are for eBay.com only at the moment, though I think we’ll see the end of relist credits and that Amazon-style product page rolled out on more sites in the very near future.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.com | 18 Comments 

eBay Italy offers 75% off Featured First

October 3, 2008

From 6th to 10th October, eBay Italy are offering 75% off the price of 7-day Subito In Vetrina (a.k.a. Featured First). The offer is open to sellers with all four 12-month DSR scores at 4.3 or more. All other fees apply as normal.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under CLD | 22 Comments