Upcoming eBay changes

[asiamiles]

Sounds good, doesn't it...

April 19—List Auction-style FREE with FREE Buy It Now—up to 50 items per month with new Standard Fees.
Under the new Standard fees, list Auction-style FREE, any start price—up to 50 items a month. Pay only if your item sells. Plus you can add a Buy It Now price to your 50 items FREE—set the price you want and grab buyers ready to act now.

But...

The Standard Final Value Fee rate for Auction-style listings will stay at 9% and be applied to the total amount of the sale—including shipping—with a maximum Final Value Fee of $100

just in case you thought eBay were being generous to sellers. :x

Actually, this will surely just encourage people to start at higher prices, because nothing lost if the item doesn't sell and if it does there's more costs that need covering. And I'm not quite sure how it will work...will eBay only charge sellers after an item has actually been paid for, because otherwise how will they know how much the shipping charge was?

 

[Jaguar46]

Sounds good, doesn't it...

April 19—List Auction-style FREE with FREE Buy It Now—up to 50 items per month with new Standard Fees.
Under the new Standard fees, list Auction-style FREE, any start price—up to 50 items a month. Pay only if your item sells. Plus you can add a Buy It Now price to your 50 items FREE—set the price you want and grab buyers ready to act now.

But...

The Standard Final Value Fee rate for Auction-style listings will stay at 9% and be applied to the total amount of the sale—including shipping—with a maximum Final Value Fee of $100

just in case you thought eBay were being generous to sellers. :x

Actually, this will surely just encourage people to start at higher prices, because nothing lost if the item doesn't sell and if it does there's more costs that need covering. And I'm not quite sure how it will work...will eBay only charge sellers after an item has actually been paid for, because otherwise how will they know how much the shipping charge was?

It would appear they are trying to bundle the cost of the item and shipping into one charge, to prevent those sellers from cheating, those that were making the shipping fees ridiculously high.

 

[John Lever]

For us in the UK worldwide shipping costs are very high so this will discourage sellers here.

 

[asiamiles]

Yes, it may be to partly stop people circumnavigating fees by charging high shipping prices, but obviously it penalises those who ship internationally and those who deal in heavier items...it's probably going to add a further $5 in fees on average to each jacket sale. Anyway, the bottom line is that eBay are making it look like they giving sellers a better deal when for most it will be worse.

 

[ausreenactor]

I think the eBay well is drying up completely. I have been binge selling off and on for over a decade. Watcher and view numbers are not even what they used to be, let alone realised prices IF items sell. At least it is free to list for a while. Not that the exchange rate helps. US$499 netted AU$460.05 the other day via Paypal? Turn to shit again Australia...FFS!!

Couchy

 

[RCSignals]

It would appear they are trying to bundle the cost of the item and shipping into one charge, to prevent those sellers from cheating, those that were making the shipping fees ridiculously high.

Seems like it. They should just get rid of the people who start at .99 with a $100 postage fee instead.
They should get rid of listing fees though, and just have FVF, but that should be based on selling price not including postage cost.

 

[ghq1]

Given the new rule it seems pretty clear that Ebay is unwilling or unable to police those who would list a $20 item for .99 and charge $19.01 for shipping . .

I'll just up my price and offer free shipping . . Not such a bad option since a buyer can't ding you with a low star rating in the shipping category if you ship for free . . .

I miss the old days when money orders ruled, one could figure out exactly who was shill bidding, and firearms were GTG . . .

 

[dmar836]

Ebay is free to do what they want but I agree this is a way to not address complaints of shipping fraud while adding double the revenue from many of the innocent sellers.
In our free market economy, these increases, along with Ebay's apparent ignorance of our frustration, is what opens the door to competitors.
JMO,
Dave

 

[RCSignals]

The problem is, eBay has typically crushed competitors, and sellers have typically stuck with eBay.
A number of years ago there was a start up competitor, Gold's auctions. It was very good, easy to use, and the people running it were very receptive to suggestions to make it better. But generally people stuck with eBay. Gold's is no more. Specialty sites such as for firearms and miitaria have faired better, but general sites stagnate or disappear.
eBay knows they can pretty much do whatever they want, and no boycott has ever effected them.

 

[m444uk]

Ebay is free to do what they want but I agree this is a way to not address complaints of shipping fraud while adding double the revenue from many of the innocent sellers.
In our free market economy, these increases, along with Ebay's apparent ignorance of our frustration, is what opens the door to competitors.
JMO,
Dave

In a free market economy any company with a dominant market share tends to lead to a monopoly situation if unregulated.
Regulation was one of the reasons, along with tax, Ebay moved their European HQ to Switzerland out of the reach of the EU. The way Ebay bought Paypal and then forced users to use is it certainly against competition rules.There is no open door to any lower cost competitor.

For some time now Ebay have tried to control postage costs. For example, the maximum postage on a man's jacket is £4-£6 on ebay.co.uk.for domestic sales. The seller can charge more but the shipping option to do so is well hidden on the listing page. Many sellers do indeed charge the minimum because of this.
Increasing shipping costs, is of course, a long standing way vendors use to reduce sellers fees so it's long been on Ebay's radar. I'm surprised it's taken them so long to act.

 

[unclegrumpy]

I have received several emails since the new changes were announced, stating the sellers were pulling the plug on eBay and moving over to bidstart.

http://www.bidstart.com/