As part of the numerous changes taking place in September and October, eBay launched their new 30-day fixed price listing format earlier today. This new feature has received a considerable amount of press among eBay related blogs, forums, and discussion groups the last few weeks. Some good and some not so good.

While many people have little, or nothing, nice to say about 30FP, I think before making blanket statements about it, each of us owe it to ourselves, as sellers, to do some brainstorming about how we might be able to use it to improve our businesses and make them more profitable.

I can immediately see two possible ways it may help me sell more product for more money. Today I began testing both to a limited degree and will continue to do so for the next 30 to 60 days.

The first way the 30-day fixed price listing format is likely to help me is when dealing with expensive items that don’t have a huge amount of collector interest. In the last week I’ve purchased two books that fit this category.

For various reasons, neither would be likely to reach their full potential in the normal auction format. I could have placed them in my eBay store but, due to eBay’s unwillingness to promote store items in search, they would have received very little exposure.

With the new 30-day fixed price listing format I’m able to list them for 30 days at a price I feel they may sell for and, at the same time, have them receive just as much exposure as they would have in the auction format. And, since they qualify as media items, all this costs only fifteen cents per book.

Will they sell in 30 days? I don’t know. If they don’t I can decide what I adjustments I want to make at that time and it’s only cost me a total for thirty cents. Any readers who would like to follow their progress can do so at Shikar For Sher Khan and The Semi-Centennial Jubilee Of The Bohemian National Cemetery Association.

The second use of 30-day fixed price listings I’ll be testing is as a way of drawing more traffic to by eBay store. In cases where I have multiple examples of either the same item or similar related items already in my eBay store, I’m going to move a small number of them to 30-day fixed price listings and add a paragraph in the description stating that I have several similar related items for sale in my store. I’m hoping the 30FP listings will generate an increase of store traffic resulting in increased sales.

I’ve already done this with a small group of Reader’s Digest magazines from the early 1940s and will be doing more over then next one to two weeks.

Photograph by Rhys Jones Photography.

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