eBay is running a promotion to help small retail businesses impacted by the coronavirus pandemic by offering them a free 3-month Basic Store subscription. Current sellers are excluded from the program.
eBay’s “Up & Running” campaign is targeted at retailers who don’t have a presence on the site.
The offer is available to new sellers who register as a business account between April 1 – June 30, 2020, and newly registered business accounts must pass eBay validation. “This offer is not available to existing sellers with business or consumer accounts created prior to April 1st, 2020.”
“As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, brick-and-mortar retailers are closing their physical doors, and economic data shows that half have only enough cash to survive for 27 days without new money coming in,” eBay explained in its announcement. “In light of this situation, people everywhere are searching for ways to support the businesses in their community and beyond.”
In addition to waiving the first 3 months of a Store subscription for new business sellers and allowing them to sell up to 500 items for free (no final value fees), eBay will also give them guidance and resources, “including a suite of exclusive marketing and merchandising tools, customization features to build a brand, discounted shipping supplies and more.”
eBay said it created a retail revival task force in the wake of COVID-19 “to help the 70% of small businesses who do not have any online presence.”
“Through Up & Running, eBay will provide educational webinars, individual support, and access to experienced sellers willing to mentor those who are new to eCommerce. In the coming weeks, the company will also highlight small business sellers on eBay.com, and provide new ways for shoppers to support their favorite local businesses while staying at home.”
For existing Store subscribers, eBay has offered a deferral request program and provided them with an additional 50,000 free listings in March and April, along with offering all sellers expanded protection.
eBay set up a landing page where it describes the Up and Running campaign – be sure to read the Terms and Conditions carefully for details and restrictions. Note that the terms include the following information: “Your store subscription will automatically renew after the Promotional Subscription Period at the level and term selected during sign up, unless cancelled before the end of the Promotional Subscription Period” along with a link to more details about cancelling a subscription. (Be sure to understand the early termination fee.)
You can find the press release announcing the new program on the eBay Inc corporate blog.
And GREEDBAY STILL DOESN’T HAVE CUSTOMER SERVICE PHONES. While Amazon and other businesses have their customers in mind with phone service. Greedbay offering all these free stores. What do they think that someone is going to open one of these stores and spend hours listing…. I think not as I think these people already know what kind of sleazy site ebay is. By the way will these stores come with free Mangled Payments as a gift. HA HA Greedbay you are so funny.
New Store Owner: “Will my listings appear 24/7”
ebay: “It depends…”
“Try ebay for FREE! And when this is over, he hope you’ll stay!”
Costs them nothing except some bandwidth, which means more items won’t be shown, and it’s likely that unpaid promotions will be put in place to increase the newbies’ chances of selling at u-know-who’s cost.
This is not altruism. Altruism implies sacrifice.
Yes, New sellers means that have to have Managed Payments.