Overstock informed its Overstock Auction merchants that effective today it will eliminate all subscription plans.

We recently informed you that subscription plans 5-10 will expire on December 31, 2006. However, further analysis has convinced us that the problems arising from O-Subscriptions (specifically, high starting prices, and thus, low sell-through rates) are endemic to all subscription plans, and are therefore detrimental both to your business and ours. As a result, we are ending our O-Subscriptions and have removed the sign-up page. Sellers currently subscribing to a plan will be allowed to utilize it through midnight, January 11. Any unused portions of your plan (including all January subscription fees) will be credited back to you.

Kudos to Overstock for continuously tweaking this marketplace to make it work, but the pace of changes is definitely frustrating sellers:

We give up trying to make O auctions work - as the largest seller in our category on eBay, we decided to give you one last try - but the results and your lack of focus makes it a waste of time for us.

In the same email Overstock also announced plans for a “classified ad platform, bid cancellation capability, and the revival of 1-day auctions” no later than March 2007.

Frankly I’m glad they’re going to have the 1 day auctions again, and, the capability to cancel a bid! We’ve all wanted that for a while now. Way far back in the recesses of my old brain, it seems I remember the term “baby-steps”. Overstock is now coming into the ‘toddler’ stage and there will more than likely be trips and stumbles there too. Let’s wait and see.

I bet Overstock Auction’s list of New Years Resolutions is full of additional changes to drive more buyers, sellers and products to this lingering channel (strange that the auction tab on Overstock.com now shows “Merchant Auctions” rather than “Auctions”). Hope it’s going to be a good 2007.

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