FYI - E-bay fees change for sellers starting 4/19

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03-15-2011, 04:39 PM
Undream

FYI - E-bay fees change for sellers starting 4/19

E-bay is changing fees, yet again, with their crosshairs aimed at sellers. To encourage free shipping from sellers, they are going to start charging their final value fees on both the end cost of the item AND the shipping charge that the buyer pays. So, Sellers have to pay a ~9% fee on something they have no control over - the price of shipping an item.

This is E-bays way of preventing auctions that are listed for $0.99 and have a 20.00 shipping charge, in order to avoid paying e-bay fees on the sale of an item, unfortunately, it screws all the other sellers in the process.

say a seller wants to sell a large item, that costs $50.00 to ship. The seller has to pay an extra $4.50 "just because"

Really too bad. Latest in a streak of fee increases for sellers :(

Oh, but, theres a way you can avoid this change-- by subscribing to an E-bay store for the low price of $15.95/mo.

Lolz....
03-15-2011, 04:50 PM
Troggie

Yeah I saw that and it just about kills it for me to sell anything on ebay.. I am sure I still will to clear out junk. Time to try and find a decent alternative.
03-15-2011, 09:06 PM
beau5278

Quote:

Originally Posted by Troggie

Yeah I saw that and it just about kills it for me to sell anything on ebay.. I am sure I still will to clear out junk. Time to try and find a decent alternative.

Check out Webstore,www.webstore.com ,if enough people that are tired of ebay go there it should give ebay some competition.
03-15-2011, 10:07 PM
gugi

It seems like an easy way for ebay to deal with the sellers that avoid the selling fees by shifting the cost towards shipping.
The extra 2%-9% on the shipping doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. Most shipping costs are $2-$10 so we're talking an extra $1 so I don't see how it matters that much. Of course, the big sellers also have the ability to negotiate better shipping rates.
And even big heavy things that cost $50 to ship will now cost $51-$55 to ship, hardly the difference that will make a buyer balk at it.
Paypal already charges 3%-4% on the shipping, but those extra 15-30 cents are most certainly worth the convenience of accepting paypal payments instead of having to deal with bank transfers or checks in the mail.

Now if the seller charges $10 handling fees when the shipping is $2 it does seem to irritate the buyers, so hopefully this will help.

I never understood the complaints about ebay fees. After all ebay did find you a buyer and if that service isn't worth as much to you as ebay is charging, use one of the other auction places, or just set up your own website and do your own advertising.
03-15-2011, 10:42 PM
thebigspendur

They are just looking for more revenue streams for themselves. They figure by nickel and dimming people a buck or two it won't upset them but add it all up and it's big bucks for them.
03-15-2011, 10:54 PM
Kees

Rip-off bay.
03-15-2011, 11:07 PM
ghostonthehorizon

I just spoke with a rep from Ebay about the new fees and if they were going to do anything positive for the sellers. They said I could go to a link to weigh in on the policy. They "understand" the frustration as a seller but I must be reminded that everything must be done to keep the buyer satisfied or their won't be a market for us the seller to sell things.
03-16-2011, 12:05 AM
Troggie

I understand why they did it.. what I would like to see them do though is if they are putting a fee on the total purchase including shipping instead of keeping the fee at 9% maybe drop it to 7.5% since you are now gathering more income from those trying to cheat the system ( they wouldn't make a change like this if it wasn't a big problem ). The way they have migrated their business model it is basically all for the buyers benefit and to fix issues they have brought on by not having the proper policies in place originally.

Will I continue to use them to sell.. sure I probably will but I will need to re-evaluate the prices I start them at to make up the fees I will be charged.
03-16-2011, 12:59 AM
gugi

Of course, ebay does it for the money. Buyers go to ebay for the money, sellers go to ebay for the money, those who buy ebay stock do it for the money, and the ebay executives do it for the money.

Ebay is not in the business to sell stuff or to help sellers. They are in the business to deliver buyers and as long as they can do that the sellers will flock to ebay because it almost always is cheaper than finding those buyers yourself. Hence ebay's policies are a bit biased towards the buyers.

The advantage that ebay has is that they make the rules and they can tweak them as much as they want to maximize their profit. Loosing some sellers isn't necessarily going to have negative effect, as with lower demand the prices go up and with that the ebay's fees go up as well. I'm sure they're creating every one of their policies after a lot of research (all these 'promotions' are just that), and are very carefully monitoring the effect, so they will always react before their profits start taking any significant ding.

When I see sellers actually leaving ebay to sell on one of the other hundreds auction sites craigslist, or set up their storefront then I'll believe ebay's fees are too high.
03-16-2011, 02:47 AM
JimmyHAD

I do free shipping on a lot of stuff. Helps sales and many times simplifies the process. I just got a notification that on April, 19 a seller can list up to 50 auction style listings per month free, with a free buy it now. A guy I knew who was quite an entrepreneur would define the added fees as 'the cost of doing business'. Beats paying rent, lights, licensing fees for a brick and mortar. :deal:
03-16-2011, 06:43 AM
Kees

it is a real shame you don't have a thing like Marktplaats in the US. Marktplaats is free for buyers and sellers for the small stuff. It generates revenues from the ads and sales of cars and homes. Ebay bought it off the founder a couple of years ago but hasn't changed the free listing policies.
03-16-2011, 07:29 PM
Snake

I have to say that on this one I agree with Gugi. eBay is a business and is run for profit. Whether they changed the policy and assessed fees is profit driven or problem driven is not relevant.

That said, if it keeps some sellers from charging 20 bucks to ship you a razor, then it's a good thing in my eyes. And yes, that happened to me - got a bit enthusiastic about the blade and neglected a basic sanity check.
03-17-2011, 01:50 PM
ats200

Hey it's kind of fair if you think about it... everyone has been exploiting ebay to not pay fees and now they're responding. It will obviously be a bit more for people who have been reasonable though.

Ebay needs a decent competitor to start up soon so buyers and sellers have a choice to switch when things like this happen.
03-17-2011, 04:58 PM
ghostonthehorizon

To me it seems almost a damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's great for the people that rip you off in shipping fees ($28.30 for a lighter), but at the same time it seems like they're punishing the ones that do shipping fairly.
03-17-2011, 06:27 PM
pz93c

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I just got a notification that on April, 19 a seller can list up to 50 auction style listings per month free, with a free buy it now.

Thanks for this info. It'll come in handy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghostonthehorizon

To me it seems almost a damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's great for the people that rip you off in shipping fees ($28.30 for a lighter), but at the same time it seems like they're punishing the ones that do shipping fairly.

Agreed.