eBay Store Owners Get Screwed by Bill Cobb! Stores Fee Hike Announced!

[BellisimaJ.]

Piper Jaffray: "We believe that this is the right strategy but we are concerned that this may further upset sellers and decrease listings without a notable increase in conversions." Cut EPS estimates for 2006 and 2007 and lowered price target to $30 from $31.

Well at least Piper Jaffray has it right. The rest of them haven't a clue.

[xppman]

Stifel Nicolaus: the analyst believes the negative sentiment prior to Q2 was due to concerns about the shift to SIF, but raising fees could create higher commission and faster turnover. He thinks growth might actually accelerate later in the year.

Goldman Sachs: Agrees with above: "The fee change could make this quarter mark the bottom in decline of revenue per listing." Left earnings estimate unchanged and $54 target price.

The rest have a clue if the sheep get in line, believe the    mantra
and pony up more fees.

[BellisimaJ.]

Xppman said:

The rest have a clue if the sheep get in line, believe the  smileykoolaid  mantra
and pony up more fees.

Well, I am hoping that the sheep put on the wolve's clothing. Am I too terribly naive? :o

[xppman]

I don't know Bell.
It takes real effort and perseverance to build
an online presents that nets one a livable income
if your a small mom and pop operation.

I started to work on that process immediately when I started
selling online almost seven years ago.

Many of these "sheep" do NOT have what it takes and are
going to always try to rely on someone else to do it for them.

This is the main catalyst that made ebay explode.

Being able to play to those who are neither capable or too
lazy to do it for themselves. IMO

In the beginning I do believe Pierre had a vision but that vision was
quickly consumed and lost as the money kept rolling in hand over fist.

The realization set in that this is a cash cow to take
advantage of as long as they can.

This whole ebay phenomena has more to being in the right
place at the right time than anything else, if you ask me.

I do see it as lost forever now and on it's final decent into
history in the near futre. JMO

It could have been easily Tulipbay for all we know. 

[bargainbloodhound]

It could have been easily Tulipbay for all we know.

No, we knew the Bay wasn't the way so went the TulipBase way back then.  ;D

http://community.tuliptools.com/index.ph...491.0.html

[xppman]

That's cause you guys ROCK and ebay just plain sux.   

[Kristijntje]

Motley Fool on eBay's rate hike:

Yes, eBay is keeping its core listings in check. It is the fixed, longer-lasting store products that eBay is gunning after in its latest rate hike. The company's idea of "resetting" is to make it more expensive than it has been to put up items under the store format and convince active sellers to opt for the more conventional auction platform. Wouldn't the more logical solution have been to lower core listing fees instead?

Hear me out. I'm not some disgruntled citizen of the eBay community. If eBay is able to get away with ratcheting up its fees to the stratosphere, I would be all for it. The problem is that after years of perpetual hikes, patrons are getting fed up with the nickel and dime approach to taking thicker slices of their auction proceeds. The proof was in the report itself...

full article: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13985437/

[iron_chick]

Why didn't they simply lower core fees instead?  They're greedy LSOSBs. 

[landofsmiles]

[quote author=iron_chick link=topic=4456.msg18440#msg18440 date=1153659126]
Why didn't they simply lower core fees instead?   They're greedy LSOSBs.  
[/quote]

I thought that was the glaring flaw in their logic.

[mandy]

One of the things that confused me was eBay management's seemingly sudden epiphany about eBay Stores. The change in messaging from eBay from January/February to last week was striking.

Bill Cobb said eBay did indeed understand the role of auctions and Stores, but things reached a "tipping point" in mid-February where the amount of inventory began to overwhelm the site, the core inventory. He said while large sellers continue to get a large percentage of their of sales from auction format, some sellers were starting to use only the Store inventory format.

full article: http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y206/m07/abu0171/s01