It’s been just about a month since Fixed Price debuted with its new 30 day listing time and new lower fee. After a month of using this new listing format, I wanted to weight in. I think that, in the end, this whole thing was just a listing fee sale gimmick but I thought it might be fun to present all the thoughts I have been thinking in hearing in character below.

What I’m thinking. . .

  • . . . as a buyer: Not a thing. The buying experience didn’t change one bit except that maybe there are more FP items in listings than before. It’s hard to tell, search is such a mess. Maybe I should just buy this over at Amazon after all. . .
  • . . . as a seller: What a waste of time it was to switch my store inventory items over to FP30! I didn’t sell anymore than I did when I was driving that traffic to my store. I suppose I can’t really complain, though, because my listings fees went way down on items I would have listed as core Fixed Price anyway. I’m now only paying 10 or 35 cents for Fixed Price items every 30 days instead of $1.20 every week so I guess that is good. Now if only I could shake my paranoia that buyers aren’t buying because they see that there are still 30 days left on the listing. . .
  • . . . as an investor: I’m sorry, I’ve been too busy freaking out about the economy to be really paying attention but did eBay just lower the cost of fixed price listings for what amounts to no reason? Sellers didn’t sell more, buyers didn’t buy more but eBay made less money because they lowered the fee amount and quadrupled the length of the listing. I’m sure the sellers are happy to be paying less money, less frequently but wasn’t this the worst possible idea for eBay’s bottom line. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people dropped their stores entirely to use FP30 so now we are making cents per month off those people instead of $15 a month and up. *sigh* I’ll be at the bar. . .

How did the first month of FP30 go for you? Sound off below.