RSSEBay slashes some fees as incentives for sellers
By Michael Hatamoto | Published January 30, 2008, 11:45 AM
Online auction powerhouse eBay announced this morning steep fee cuts and several other strategies, as incentives to its customers to help it stay on top.
Speaking at a keynote address at the eCommerce Forum yesterday, outgoing eBay North American division president Bill Cobb highlighted several key changes: First, the site will reduce its own upfront insertion fees by 25% to 50% when sellers list items, while increasing fees when items are successfully sold. Items sold under $25 on EBay will see a commission rise from 5.25% to 8.25%, a move that could have a dramatic impact on used media sold on the site.
Respected sellers who meet and exceed eBay's minimum standards will be able to earn added benefits, such as higher placement in listing results after a search. Vendors who manipulate customers by charging too much for shipping or don't describe products accurately will now have incentives to clean up their act. And all sellers who have high buyer dissatisfaction rates will be required to offer potential customers a "safe payment option" to lessen the likelihood of fraud.
Also, sellers will no longer have to pay to upload images to the Gallery feature available to sellers. Users of the Feature Plus, Gallery Plus, and Picture Pack will continue to pay fees, although they have been reduced a small amount.
The new changes become effective on Feb. 20.
Analysts and eBay users have been expecting some kind of announcement, and the proposed changes were not too surprising. Some users initially support the fee changes, while other eBay sellers are not as optimistic.
Amazon allows users to sell items through its Marketplace without charging a listing fee, instead charging a commission for each item sold. Sellers who offer items for $45 or less will likely head to the Amazon Marketplace because the new price changes will cost them more on eBay.
interesting info
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|@Morena. Spammer.
non-interesting spam
http://www.spymac.com/details/?2336507
Garbage wesbsite
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|I think eBay is really missing a key thing in business which is the word HONESTY and INTEGRITY.
Obviously it started with eBay, then you have the rouge Sellers (fake items, faulty things, retaliatory -ve feedbacks, fraustrations in buyers getting refund, and the list goes on and on).
While eBay is over-ambitious in its earnings forecast thereby tempted to take adverse steps on sellers, most buyers have had quite a mouth/hand full of unpleasant experiences that they just stopped buying anything from eBay.
It's like the economy, with dwindling consumer confidence both eBay and its Career Sellers will always be in serious situations.
Honesty and Integrity must be promoted and ensured without which there will always be tales of woes and unpleasantries even if eBay decides to make all listings free for a whole century.
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|I sell on ebay been doing it for almost 3 years.. its IMPOSSIBLE to weed out such people.
Anyone with a visa gift card can start a sellers account on ebay. Send $25.00 and you have a visa # to become a seller. So the fraud goes down, goes back up the next day. They just open PO boxes so the addresses dont match.
You have people that REALLY do sell fake things, and then you have other sellers that make fake buyer accounts accusing their competition of selling fake or faulty things... Its a cut throat business on ebay. Things come down to the penny to get sales. I pay $3,000.00 a month in ebay fee's - its not as simple as you might think. Be a full time seller before making any argument one way or another.
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|Who gives a s***m I have sold exactly three items on FleaBay on the last 7 or 8 years.
The sellers get screwed, not only by the listing fees, but then agin with the PayPal (owned by eBay) fees.
Besides, anyone who has to make thier sole living on eBay is just asking for trouble and has no long term plan.
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|Ebay is the way to go in my area!
There are too many people around here that use
Freecycle to get rid of their things.
I have had items posted on craigslist for months for a free listing that I have had no luck in selling. Renewed the listings several times with no luck.
I posted the same items on ebay and they went in hours with buy-it-nows for the price I wanted it to sell for.
If I don't freecycle it, it goes on ebay for me. I look forward to the fee changes.
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|This makes no good business sense to me but I don't have a degree in such things.
They are purposefully driving away a large segment of users? You'd have to be dumb to sell anything less than $45 on Ebay now, as stated. Head over to Amazon.
Is this Ebay's method of population control maybe?
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|ebay was great but the fee increases are starting to get a tad higher that i honsetly would like. If eBay wants to continue to become competitive with all the clone auction sites, craigslist comes to mind, and the marketplace options available to amazon.com users maybe they should seriously consider doing away with the listing fees already.
Initially it may dampen their profit but the free listing would entice users to list more since the 'penalty' of unsold items would go away and sales would increase as a result.
I'm still waiting for some sort of real price integration with paypal. As it stands now users of ebay + paypal still pay the same fees as users of just paypal. I still find that unfair to the ebay + paypal users. Reduced paypal cost when combined with eBay would draw more customers to both services.
These are just some things they need to consider if they want to continue to stay on top
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|I am really curious that people can actually make a living from selling on eBay? Every years, the fees increase. eBay and PayPal fees account over 10% of total transaction.
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|I could easily be an eBay business seller and make a ton of money as I have a wholsale elecronics account. Most of what they carry is crap in my opinion but people want a turd wrapped in a pretty case these days.
Optoma projectors, etc.... junk. A few name brands like Toshiba, Panasonic, Pioneer but not the high end product from those lines.
All I would have to do is have them ship it directly to the customer / bidder and keep the profits. I'm just too damn lazy for all that keeping track of paperwork and dealing with idiot customers.
My freind owns an online furniture store that does the exact same thing, he makes $100,000+ a year but has to bust his ass.
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|I love the spin on this. Decreasing the insertion fee, which is already really low and not very impactful to the seller, but then raising the final sale fee by 3%, which is where Ebay makes its money already. It's time I look at other auction sites to sell my stuff.
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|Bullsh*t. Insertion Fees are crazy.. for the average person selling 1 thing, its nothing. For the big sellers (the majority of ebay's business) each auction at minimum is costing us $5.00-$30.00. Do that 10-100 times a month.. with a products that used to sell, and now dont.... your int he whole 300-3,000.00 bucks..
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