As I am writing this, eBay has just called me to recommend changing my selling strategies from the eBay Stores format to the traditional auction or Buy It Now (BIN) format. This is not shocking as the biggest fee increases over the past couple of years has been to the eBay Stores listings. The explanation given by eBay execs when the latest round of fee increases were instituted was that the cost of maintaining the eBay Stores site was much higher due to the length of time items were placed in stores, along with the low conversion rate.

The conversion rate is the percentage of items sold vs. the total number of items listed for sale. For example, if you were to list 100 items for sale and you were to sell 50 of them, your conversion rate would be 50%.

I have used the eBay Stores in the past with less than acceptable results. That is why I advocate internet marketers to set up their own websites for selling product. More of this in future articles.

What this article is meant to bring to the forefront is that for the first time that I am aware of, in over 9 years selling on eBay, eBay is suggesting to sellers that they not use an eBay feature! This leads me to beleive that some time in the future, eBay may be thinking of doing away with the eBay Stores!

With more and more serious marketers using their own websites to sell from using advanced marketing techniques, driving customers to their own sites after the customer has made a purchase on eBay for upsells, and repeat business, the numbers must be disappointing to eBay Stores product managers. That would account for the the type of call I received today.