Bulk selling on Half.com and lowered expectations
Two months ago eBay introduced a new policy that made me very, very happy. The new policy meant that books listed on Half.com would be displayed on eBay Express, and there was no additional fees for this added exposure.Since then I've found out some good news and bad news about this.
First, the bad news: The Half listings don't show up in regular eBay searches, as I had (foolishly) assumed. The buyer has to start at eBay Express. How many eBay shoppers search on Express? I'm guessing it's way, way, way less than 1 percent. And even if someone did search for a book on Express, they probably wouldn't find it -- Express is the balkiest, most confusing shopping site I've ever seen. Go ahead, try and find something on Express.
So that's the bad news -- we're not going to get a ton of eBay exposure and sales simply by listing on Half.
Now, the good news: Half.com sellers are able to do bulk inventory uploads again. Half had quit approving new sellers for bulk uploading a year or two ago. But recently Half.com began accepting uploads from users of eBay File Exchange.
The requirements: You need to be actively selling on Half.com for at least 90 days and you must have an average of 50 or more active listings per month for the last two months.
I haven't gotten around to signing up for File Exchange yet, so I'm interested to know if anyone has tried it and seen any results yet. I'm assuming this tool would allow you to take an Amazon open listings report and easily prepare an upload file for Half.com.
Here's the quick-start guide for Half users.
Labels: eBay Express, Half.com
posted by Steve Weber at 5/15/2007
4 Comments:
from the half.com discussion board
"Hi,
I wanted to provide an update on the issue of Half.com items not showing up on eBay Express. We think we have identified the issue and are working on a fix.
eBay Express requires listings to have a picture or gallery in order to be qualified. The reported Half.com inventory that are not showing up in eBay Express are missing a stock picture in the catalog, and as such, being disqualified from eBay Express.
We are going to change the requirements to exempt media inventory listed through the catalog from requiring a picture. Our next steps are to implement this change and run a batch job to reassess all Half.com listings. We will also work with our catalog partners to fill in the missing pictures. Your existing Half inventory on eBay Express should not be affected during this process.
I'll post when I have more concrete date for the completion of the batch job.
thanks,
Chung "
Anonymous, that's a separate issue. My problem is this: People don't see these Half.com listings when they search on eBay.com. They only show up when you search from Express.ebay.com.
Also, the default search result for e-bay express is for 'new' items. All other conditions do not show up in a search at e-bay express unless you click a (not very prominent) button to show all conditions. For e-bay express to work, this needs to be changed.
I am using bulk upload for the last 5 months. It is pretty decent once you get used to it. It is pretty easy to make a feed out of Amazon Open Listing report.
One thing is it does not support automatic purge and replace. So, I have to go and purge my listings manually, and then upload the feed.
As far as eligibility requirements, I did not qualify for one of them (don't remember which one - I think number of items sold through half), so I sent e-mail to seller support, and they set me up anyway.
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