eBay! Raises! Fees! Sellers! Get! Boinked!

[Anita]

I am STUNNED reading the Stores Board where so many people are thrilled and thanking eBay. 

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=Anita link=topic=2243.msg7996#msg7996 date=1137699414]
I am STUNNED reading the Stores Board where so many people are thrilled and thanking eBay. 
[/quote]

Well, many people don't even keep books. Fees might be remaining (almost) the same, but...see Amy's quote below

The fees didn't change much, but sellers profit margins will continue to shrink as more and more sellers lower their opening bids to below $1.  So same effect as a fee hike--fewer dollars in sellers pockets.

The average selling prices for many items in our main categories on eBay are now up to 50% lower than the prices elsewhere on the web.  Much of that drop in eBay selling prices occured after eBay's J&M fee reduction last year...and this year's fee drop will only make matters worse.

[amy]

***Important Information eBay.co.uk Shop Sellers*** 

19 January, 2006 | 07:00AM GMT


Dear eBay Shop Sellers,

Members who sell using an eBay Shop are an important part of the eBay.co.uk Community. Since the feature was launched, eBay Shops have proved very popular with buyers and are a significant source of fixed price, new and in season merchandise on the site. The commitment, high standards and professionalism of Shop sellers has been key to the success of eBay Shops over the years and we want to let you know that we appreciate your efforts and your business as you build your sales.

Fee Adjustments
We are announcing today that from 22nd February 2006 we will be changing Insertion and Final Value Fees for Shop Inventory Format listings. The standard Insertion Fee will be lowered from 5p to 3p per listing. The Final Value Fee for the amount of the selling price up to £29.99 will be increased from 5.25% to 6.75%. For the amount of the selling prices between £30.00-599.99, the Final Value Fee will be increased from 3.25% to 3.75%. Final Value Fees for amounts over £600 will remain unchanged at 1.75%.

You can find out full details on this page.

Shops subscription fees and Feature fees for Shops items will remain unchanged. This change only affects Insertion and Final Value Fees for Shop Inventory Format items listed in an eBay Shop. Insertion Fees and Final Value Fees for all other listings are unaffected.

Increased Visibility for Shop Inventory Format Listings
We want the eBay Shops offering to be profitable for you as well as providing a dynamic, comprehensive, and scalable platform on which to sell. In addition to the existing benefits available to Shop owners, such as the opportunity to use the cheaper Shops format listings, free access to Sales Reports Plus and Traffic reports, email marketing options and tools for optimising your presence in search engines, we will be making changes to the eBay search facility to ensure your Shop items are found more easily by buyers.

We will be adding Shops items to the main eBay search. This means that at the end of any eBay search, all matching Shop inventory format listings will be displayed. For sellers, this means much more exposure for your Shop and Shop items – for buyers, every search will return many more qualified listings. Currently, if a search has relevant Shop items they are shown 22% of the time. After the change when there are relevant Shops items they will be returned and visible to potential buyers in search results 100% of the time. This change will be made in late February.

You can click here for more details on the change to add Shop Inventory items in Search.

Shops Functionality Improvements
Over the course of this year we will be making a number of other improvements to the Shops functionality. For instance, in March we’ll be giving you greater flexibility when it comes to creating an intuitive and comprehensive category structure to help your buyers navigate the items in your Shop. We’ll also be giving you more opportunities to customise the Custom Listings Header and draw attention to your Shop in all your listings and drive sales. We’ll keep you informed of other changes as they come.

Thank You
eBay knows that as a seller you have a choice of outlets through which to sell your products. We appreciate that you choose eBay and take our responsibility to you seriously.

Regards,
eBay International AG

=============================================================

***Important Information eBay.ie Shop Sellers***

19 January, 2006 | 07:00AM GMT


Dear eBay Shop Sellers,

Members who sell using an eBay Shop are an important part of the eBay.ie Community. Since the feature was launched, eBay Shops have proved very popular with buyers and are a significant source of fixed price, new and in season merchandise on the site. The commitment, high standards and professionalism of Shop sellers has been key to the success of eBay Shops over the years and we want to let you know that we appreciate your efforts and your business as you build your sales.

Fee Adjustments
We are announcing today that from 22nd February 2006 we will be changing Insertion and Final Value Fees for Shop Inventory Format listings. The standard Insertion Fee will be lowered from €0.10 to €0.05 per listing. The Final Value Fee for the amount of the selling price up to €49.99 will be increased from 5.25% to 6.75%. For the amount of the selling prices between €50.00 - €849.99, the Final Value Fee will be increased from 3.25% to 3.75%. Final Value Fees for amounts over €850 will remain unchanged at 1.75%.

You can find out full details on this page.

Shops subscription fees and Feature fees for Shops items will remain unchanged. This change only affects Insertion and Final Value Fees for Shop Inventory Format items listed in an eBay Shop. Insertion Fees and Final Value Fees for all other listings are unaffected.

Increased Visibility for Shop Inventory Format Listings
We want the eBay Shops offering to be profitable for you as well as providing a dynamic, comprehensive, and scalable platform on which to sell. In addition to the existing benefits available to Shop owners, such as the opportunity to use the cheaper Shops format listings, free access to Sales Reports Plus and Traffic reports, email marketing options and tools for optimising your presence in search engines, we will be making changes to the eBay search facility to ensure your Shop items are found more easily by buyers.

We will be adding Shops items to the main eBay search. This means that at the end of any eBay search, all matching Shop inventory format listings will be displayed. For sellers, this means much more exposure for your Shop and Shop items – for buyers, every search will return many more qualified listings. Currently, if a search has relevant Shop items they are shown 22% of the time. After the change when there are relevant Shops items they will be returned and visible to potential buyers in search results 100% of the time. This change will be made in late February.

You can click here for more details on the change to add Shop Inventory items in Search.

Shops Functionality Improvements
Over the course of this year we will be making a number of other improvements to the Shops functionality. For instance, in March we’ll be giving you greater flexibility when it comes to creating an intuitive and comprehensive category structure to help your buyers navigate the items in your Shop. We’ll also be giving you more opportunities to customise the Custom Listings Header and draw attention to your Shop in all your listings and drive sales. We’ll keep you informed of other changes as they come.

Thank You eBay knows that as a seller you have a choice of outlets through which to sell your products. We appreciate that you choose eBay and take our responsibility to you seriously.

Regards,
eBay International AG

[sneakymagenta]

auctionguild

Hidden ebaY Fee Increase

The Unannounced ebaY Fee Increase
2 Mar 2006

On 18 January 2006, Bill Cobb, president of ebaY North America, announced a price increase for ebaY US. Of course, in the normal ebaY way, it was announced as fee adjustments, made to appear as if it was a minor increase, and that some fee decreases would mitigate the fact that ebaY has increased their fees every year, despite year over year record breaking profitability. As always, the business community looks at this and says that ebaY is justified in charging whatever the market will bear, but it once again puts the lie to ebaY's propaganda about being community based.

The fee increase went into effect on 22 Feb 06. The way the new fees were structured, ebaY reduced the fee on items listed at 99 cents or less from 25 cents to 20 cents, and increased the final value fee on the most common ending price level, an additional one quarter percent (.25%). They made some features free, including picture show and sales reports plus, and reduced fees for the second and third tiers of picture manager (all pretty worthless features, much less expensive and more reliably found from third party service providers). And though they did not increase the store fees, TAG does expect an increase in store fees, probably in the May/June time frame.

What ebaY failed to mention, was that there was a fee increase they did not tell their sellers about. TAG wonders if this fee increase, which probably borders on the illegal, was even too sleazy for ebaY to mention in public, or if ebaY felt they could slip it in without anyone noticing. Once word got out and they were questioned about it, they would have probably used their old, "it has always been that way, we just didn't enforce it" line, a complete lie that seller's have the invoices to prove. Fortunately an erudite TAG subscriber did notice, and let us know about it.

The increase ebaY forget to mention, comes into play when a seller revises a listing to decrease the price of the item in that listing. In the past if the seller decreased the price of a listing, so that it took the listing into a lower fee category, ebaY would refund the difference. Just as, if the seller increased the price of a listing, ebaY would add the extra fee to the seller's bill. Now what ebaY is doing, is not refunding the difference in fees, in the case of a decreased price, but is still adding the increased fee when an item is revised to increase the price. This also probably applies to the reserve fee, when the change to the fee is based on a lowered reserve price. ebaY explicitly mentions, " Reduce the start price of your item. (You will not receive credit for the difference in your insertion fees.)" but does not address other fees, such as listing duration fees, or other items you might revise. See the revise your listing info at -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/edit_listing.html

For example, if you look at the fee schedule at -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

If you start a listing at $59.99, the insertion fee would be $2.40. You then later revise it to $49.99. ebaY will not refund the $1.20 difference, they will keep it. But if you start an item at $49.99, you will be charged $1.20, and then later revise that to $59.99, ebaY will charge you the extra $1.20 to bring the listing fee up to $2.40.

The only place you can see this fee change is on the revise your listing page. But since that page is included in the user agreement by default (as are all ebaY's little back door hidden information), ebaY will claim you agreed to this change by using their site. TAG argues that this is an illegal rule, keeping fees they are not entitled to, but until someone successfully sues them over this issue, or media attention shames them into a change, it will be the ebaY law.

[amy]

[quote author=sneakymagenta link=topic=2243.msg10305#msg10305 date=1141412974]
auctionguild

Hidden ebaY Fee Increase


What ebaY failed to mention, was that there was a fee increase they did not tell their sellers about. TAG wonders if this fee increase, which probably borders on the illegal, was even too sleazy for ebaY to mention in public, or if ebaY felt they could slip it in without anyone noticing. Once word got out and they were questioned about it, they would have probably used their old, "it has always been that way, we just didn't enforce it" line, a complete lie that seller's have the invoices to prove. Fortunately an erudite TAG subscriber did notice, and let us know about it.

The increase ebaY forget to mention, comes into play when a seller revises a listing to decrease the price of the item in that listing. In the past if the seller decreased the price of a listing, so that it took the listing into a lower fee category, ebaY would refund the difference. Just as, if the seller increased the price of a listing, ebaY would add the extra fee to the seller's bill. Now what ebaY is doing, is not refunding the difference in fees, in the case of a decreased price, but is still adding the increased fee when an item is revised to increase the price.

[/quote]

And to think that all this time I thought the extra gallery fees caused by the elimination of 90-120 day durations were the only hidden fee increases this year!   

[Anita]

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000237238&tstart=0&mod=1141617281223

[bargainbloodhound]

Hidden fee increase, big fr_k'n deal!  I only list store inventory! 


eBay deserves an A for sneakiness for the way they snuck in 2 fee increases this year without most sellers noticing

[xppman]

Building Disgust and Mistrust in the eBay Community.

[diger7]

[quote author=Anita link=topic=2243.msg10401#msg10401 date=1141617860]
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000237238&tstart=0&mod=1141617281223
[/quote]

I can't believe some people are defending ebay on this one.  :

[Anita]

[quote author=diger7 link=topic=2243.msg10446#msg10446 date=1141670221]
[quote author=Anita link=topic=2243.msg10401#msg10401 date=1141617860]
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000237238&tstart=0&mod=1141617281223
[/quote]

I can't believe some people are defending ebay on this one.  :
[/quote]

The Kool-Aid drinkers are out in full force!