Unlike recent listing promotions in the States this one is open to those who have an eBay Stores subscription as well as non-stores subscribers. Sellers who do’t have an eBay Store subscription are still eligible for 100 free Insertion Fees per month, up until January 7. If they list more than 100 free listings that’s when the 25c listings will kick in.

There are a few category restrictions, and the promotion really applies to auctions with a start price greater than $10 as that’s where the savings are to be made.

For transactions where eBay can see that there was no shipping charged, the DSR screen will appear as below, with buyers unable to leave any score for this element. In order to qualify,

• the item must have a free shipping option
• the buyer must have selected the free shipping option during checkout
• sellers must use a verifiable payment method (i.e. PayPal, MoneyBookers, PayMate, ProPay) and use eBay checkout

Sellers have been complaining for a long time now about being scored for shipping prices when they haven’t charged them: we’ve heard all sorts of bizarre stories, from the seller who introduced free P&P and saw his DSR score fall from 4.8 to 4.5, to the buyer who said “you didn’t charge me, so I couldn’t score you, so I gave you a 1″. So sellers already offering free P&P will doubtless be delighted to see this.

Others who do charge for shipping will be less enthusiastic: as Whirly commented on Ink, “Sellers are already jumping through a massive amount of hoops in a desperate attempt to gain TRS: this will force the desperate ones to move to a free P&P model.” He’s absolutely right that this highlights what a farce the DSRs have become; I’d have preferred to see the shipping DSR just disappear for free shipping, rather than be an automatic 5.

I should stress that this is eBay.com and eBay.ca only at the moment; according to @eBay_Andy on Twitter, it’s coming soon to the UK, Germany and Australia. Watch this space.

What do you think? Thumbs up, or thumbs down? Leave us a comment.

Thanks to the lovely Magnumopus for the heads up.

It’s worth remembering that the first 100 auctions starting at 99¢ or less are free anyway, so it’s a great time to list items for which you want to have a higher starting price. There is also a limit of 100 auctions for this promotion and as normal there are a few excluded categories so check the details before listing.

On March 16th, sellers listing auctions on eBay.com, eBay.ca and eBay Motors will save 50% on insertion fees regardless of start price. Sellers will need to have DSRs of 4.5 or higher to qualify. Other fees apply as normal. There are exclusions so please read the small print before you list.

Best Match on the Canadian site has for some time given a boost in search to domestic items, in the belief that buying from your own country is a better buying experience than a cross border transaction. This will be suspended if you’re in one of the test groups so that eBay can gauge how much the item location affects buyer behaviour.

For sure it’s often a simpler quicker buying experience to buy from a domestic seller but I’m constantly amazed when I buy from overseas just how quickly items are delivered – often faster than some UK sellers appear able to despatch.

We know that many TameBay readers are based overseas, but sell into the UK. Also many sellers based in the UK make a large proportion of their income through selling outside the UK. How important is cross border trade to your business? Would you prefer equal visibility for yourself and sellers from other EU countries, what about the Far East or sellers from the US where customs charges come into play?

Firstly, there’s a reminder from eBay UK that sellers in the Music, Books, Video games and DVD, Film & TV categories can get 20% off their FVFs when they offer free domestic P&P. This offer runs from 20th August to 30th September. This is of course in preparation for all sellers in media categories having to offer a free postage option by 19th October.

eBay.com, Motors and eBay Canada are offering up to 12 eBay-hosted photographs for just 25c from today until September 18th, saving sellers 50c-75c per listing. (I feel compelled to say at this point, if you regularly pay a dollar for picture pack, please please get your own image hosting or at least sign up for a free Photobucket account.)

eBay Motors Parts and Accessories are included in the sale, but there are a bunch of category exclusions, most notably media listings (including Books, Music, Movies & DVDs and Video Games). Fixed price listings are not included.

Some categories (vehicles, real estate, business) are excluded, as are BIN listings and 7 and 10 day auctions. This close to Christmas, sellers taking advantage of the promotion would be well advised to pay for the BIN upgrade and let nervous buyers get on with their shopping, rather than being forced to wait for the end of an auction, however short.

It’s no surprise to see eBay offer a discount, to boost listings, a week before what’s normally the busiest shopping weekend in the US of the holiday season. What’s not surprising is that again the listing promotion is aimed at auctions and not at fixed price listings.