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Quote:***Important News for eBay.co.uk Sellers -- Fee changes, effective March 1st 2007*** 

We review our fees on an annual basis, to ensure we maintain a healthy and balanced marketplace. The changes we are making this year are designed to promote a greater volume of trade.

Please find below highlights of the fee changes, all of which will come into force on eBay.co.uk on March 1, 2007. Full details are on the information page here.

1) Category-specific selling fees for Technology products
We are excited to announce a reduction in Final Value Fees for items with a final selling price of £30 or higher. This Final Value Fee reduction will apply to the following categories: Mobile and Home Phones (excluding the Mobile Phones with Contracts sub-category), Computing, Consumer Electronics and Photography. The change applies to listings in the Buy It Now and Auction-style formats and does not apply to listings in the Shop Inventory Format.

We are making these changes to promote a wider availability of technology products on the site, many of which sell for more than £30.

Find out more, including details of new Final Value Fees and new tiers for these.

2) Category-specific selling fees for Books, Music, DVDs, Film & TV, Video Games ("Media") products
We are excited to announce a reduction in the financial risk sellers take in listing Media items on the site – i.e., Insertion Fees. We are also simplifying the Final Value Fees charged on such items. We hope that this change will make it more attractive for sellers to list a wider range of Media items.

We are lowering Insertion Fees (see the information page for more details) and simplifying Final Value Fees in the following categories:

    * Books, Comics & Magazines (excluding the Accessories sub-category),
    * DVDs, Film and TV (excluding the Accessories/Storage, Film Memorabilia and TV Memorabilia sub-categories)
    * The Games sub-category of Video Games (change does not apply to allthe other sub-categories of Video Games)
    * Music (excluding the Music Memorabilia and Accessories/ Storage sub-categories)

Multiple item listings in these categories will now also have a slightly different pricing structure.

Find out more, including all pricing details, and examples of how this may impact you..

3) Category-specific selling fees for eBay Motors
We are adjusting pricing in the Vehicles categories (see our information page for full category list).

We believe that these changes reflect the growth in the Motors marketplace in recent years, and the value sellers get from access to the customer base and features that we offer. The pricing adjustments affect the Insertion Fees and Final Value Fees for the Auction-style and Buy It Now formats in the specified categories. They also affect selected Optional Feature Fees for all formats, and the 28-day Insertion Fees for Classified Ads on eBay Motors.

Please note that eBay Motors Pro prices remain unchanged. Find out more about eBay Motors Pro prices.

4) Reserve Fee Refunds
We will no longer refund Reserve Fees if an item sells. The cost and rules for using reserves will remain unchanged – the Reserve Fee is 2% of the reserve price (must be above £50), up to a maximum fee of £100.
Find out more

Thanks for your interest, and if you do have questions regarding any of the changes above, we would advise you to follow the links provided and read the full details on the web site.

Regards,
eBay International AG

Quote:Bottom line

Positive: I've felt for 2yrs+ that eBay has to switch to more pay-for-performance by shifting $ from listing fees to FVF or they will continue to lose sellers at an increasing pace.  I'm optimistic that this is a controlled test (UK+cat specific) to see what the impact is and hopefully roll out to the rest of the world.

Negative: US media sellers are ALL OVER this and now see that their UK friends will have an economic advantage AND if you list in the UK and flag that your items ship to the US, your items show up in ebay.com - thus the UK sellers now have a pretty big advantage over the US sellers.  We're seeing requests already for sellers to open UK accounts and prepare to move their inventory in preparation for the change so they can a) have the same economics and b) survive the potential flood in media items this most likely will generate...

Quote:After some sleuthing, here's what we think is going on:

    * eBay recently lowered the price for media category listing fees.
    * The eBay.de fees are here
    * On this page, you will see the normal eBay fee structure (.25 euro on up)
    * In the little box to the right with the title: "Ausnahmen bei der Angebotsgebühr"
          o This translates to: "Listing fee exceptions..."
    * Which goes on to detail:
          o Fixed price listings in Books: .01 Euro
          o Fixed price listings in the Music category (CD, Vinyl, etc.) .01 Euro
    * Now the corresponding FVFs have been jacked up to 12%, but this is a listing discussion.
    * Following eBay's IR instructions on listing counts, I found:
          o ebay.de musik-> 1,450,618 (WOW this is a LOT of listings)
          o ebay.com music-> 390,412
          o ebay.de Bücher-> 2,626,855 (WOW, if you thought CDs was high this is nutty)
          o ebay.com books-> 509,129