Which eBay shop is best for you?

August 30, 2008

I’ve always believed that an eBay shop was worth more than the ability to use SIF listings, so the announcement that SIFs are to be retired in September is not going to convince me to close my shop.

In view of the fee changes and possible discounts which level eBay shop should you subscribe to? eBay have a microsite which goes into the changes in depth including a cute (and useful) shop fee illustrator.

What this site doesn’t cover is the added benefits of shops over and above pure fee discounts, however as a start point it’s worth looking at when BINs justify a shop on their own merits. The following table shows the level eBay shop you should choose based on the number of fixed price listings you have on the site.


Shop/Cost No Shop Basic Shop Featured Shop Anchor Shop
Shop Cost £0.00 £14.99 £49.99 £349.99
BIN Insertion Fee 40p 20p 5p 1p
Number of BIN listings 0-74 75-226 227-7499 7500+

An anchor shop had no real advantage over a featured shop in the past, so it’s good to see real anchor shop benefits introduced. Anchor shops are still not suitable for most sellers, only those with over 7500 product lines (not listings!) will be able to justify the cost.

Feature Basic Shop Featured Shop Anchor Shop
Cross Promotions
Shop Categories
Listing Frame
Markdown Manager
Holiday Settings
Minimal Page Header -
Telephone Support -
Sales Reports Plus £3.00
SMP £4.99
Scheduling* 6p/listing
Email Marketing 1000 free 2500 free 5000 free
Custom Shop Pages 5 10 15
Traffic Reports Basic Extended Extended
Shop Promotion Basic Priority Priority

* Free scheduling requires SMP subscription

If you already use SMP and/or wish to make use of scheduling then the benefits of a featured shop really start to stack up. Sellers with a basic shop but subscribed to SMP should upgrade to a featured shop if they have more than 160 BIN listings live on the site at any one time.

Anchor and Featured Shop subscriptions will come with telephone support, a great bonus for non-PowerSellers who would otherwise be reliant on email support.

Which ever level eBay shop you consider remember that your listing strategy is likely to change.

eBay are encouraging sellers to list just one fixed price listing for each product line. In the past you may have listed the same item on a daily or even hourly basis. When choosing your shop subscription from 24th September you should factor in a reduction in your total number of fixed price listings.

It’s worth considering auctions, even if you don’t currently have them in your listing mix. Fixed price listings will no longer be sorted with “Ending Soonest”, but auctions will. The one way to ensure visibility of your items on the first page of search results is to run auction listings.

The mix of auctions and fixed price listings on the first page of search results will vary by category. In collectible categories I’d expect to see more auctions and in commodity categories it’s likely a higher percentage of fixed price listings will be displayed. It will be worth experimenting to see if auctions attract more buyers both to bid and to drive traffic to your fixed price listings.

We are aware that the changes to shops are making it unprofitable for sellers of low cost, low sell through rate, unique items to list their inventory on eBay. Currently there is no easy solution and it’s hoped eBay will address this situation prior to the changes going live on 24th September or hundreds of thousands of products will disappear from the site.

For sellers of higher priced items the reduction in listing fees and change of listing strategy should make it economically viable to list more product lines in greater quantities.

Finally there are still some notable holes in the fee structure to take advantage of:

  • Technology and Media products have lower final value fees
  • Multiple quantity fixed price listings will now have lower insertion fees than Dutch Auctions
  • Listing enhancements will cost up to 3 times as much for 30 day listings - consider shorter fixed price listings if you have limited stock.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Featured, Selling Tips, Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | 36 Comments