Free Listing Day

Yesterday (14 Mar) was a free listing day, the first such since 7 Feb.

That 5 week interval was the longest (as I recall) since the current arrangement began last spring. 50 free listings, plus an occasional free listing day.

I suspect I'm not alone in actively managing my free listings. The technique I use is to not relist something which went unsold until a free listing day. I sell basically random stuff, auctions beginning at low. I seldom have something which is "worth" $100 and I'm not taking less than that for it. I do have a minimum transaction, usually $10, a bit higher for larger, harder to ship items. The random nature combined with the minimum transaction yields a fleet of items which have sparse demand at the minimum transaction. These get combined with "low excitement" items waiting for a free listing day.

I realize that for ebay there is a tradeoff between predictability of free listing days vs paid listing fees. However, I'd suggest to ebay that they understand the business models created by various actions, so as to better be able to manage FVF profits. FVF profits are good for ebay and good for sellers. For me, two free listing days per month yield maximum FVF.