Some good, but a lot of what are they thinking?
Good: for small time sellers. The now traditional 50 free listings per month can be BINs as well as Auctions. That's good, because BINs are the right way to sell some items.
WWTT: After using the 50 monthly listings, subsequent listings cost 30c. No more 10c listings of 99c auctions. Why? Presumably to drive anyone selling over 50 items per month into a store. But...
WWTT: Basic store gives 150 free listings of any time, 100 more than no store. If one is intending to list 150 items, the extra 100 cost $20 rather than $30. Given the commitment, it just doesn't seem compelling.
The Wild Card: free listings. The past 5 days have been free listing days. For the first time, free either BIN or Auction. I don't think Ebay can give them up, they really do benefit the bottom line. Offer free listings, and sales surge.
Bet on most small sellers sticking with no store, and holding on for a free listing day.
Other fee changes:
1. No more quasi-BIN auctions, with the BIN price just over auction start price. Now, the BIN has to be 30% higher. I think Ebay solved this problem (and it was a problem) with both a belt and suspenders. The free BINs would have gone a long ways.
2. FVF goes up from 9% to 10% without a store. Just to make the store 9% better in comparison. Bah.
====================================================
| New Everyday Rate Plans | Subscription Fee (Subscriptions auto‑renew) | Free Listings§ | Additional Listings§ (After your monthly free listings, charges per listing) |
Final Value Fees§ (Maximum fee $250, with percentages based on the total amount of the sale) Top Rated Plus listings get a 20% discount | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | Per month, with yearly subscription | No insertion fees (Auction-style or fixed price) |
Auction | Fixed price‡ | ||||||||||||||
| Standard Fees^ (no eBay Stores subscription) | N/A | N/A | Up to 50 FREE listings per month | 30¢ | 30¢ | 10% | ||||||||||||
| eBay Stores^ | ||||||||||||||||||
| Basic Store | $19.95 | $15.95 | Up to 150 FREE listings per month | 25¢ | 20¢ |
|
||||||||||||
| Premium Store | $59.95 | $49.95 | Up to 500 FREE listings per month | 15¢ | 10¢ | |||||||||||||
| Anchor Store | $199.95 | $179.95 | Up to 2500 FREE listings per month | 10¢ | 5¢ | |||||||||||||
| ‡ If you list in Books, DVDs & Movies, Music & Video Games additional listing fee is only 5¢ for fixed price. ^ The standard fees are effective April 16, 2013 and eBay Stores fees are effective May 1, 2013. Fees are subject to change. eBay Stores subscriptions automatically renew until cancelled. § Pay no insertion fees for allotted free listings per calendar month. Optional fees, including advanced listing upgrades and supplemental service fees, and final value fees still apply. Motors Vehicles, Real Estate, Heavy Equipment, Concession Trailers & Carts, Imaging & Aesthetics Equipment and Commercial Printing Presses are excluded. Terms are subject to change. | ||||||||||||||||||
The WORST decision by Ebay in a long time - and they are good at making bad decisions.
ReplyDelete50 "Free" listings per month means that every Joe Blow is going to list without restraint and thereby over-clutter an already cluttered Ebay. This is what killed the competition. As a buyer I want to be able to find what I'm looking for without having to weed through long lists of similar items, crappy items, forever re-listed items. There needs to be a small obstacle, if it were only 20 or 30 cents.
But that is not all. Hidden in the small print is the announcement that Buy It Now is going to cost you 10% when sold. At the moment that is 5%. They DOUBLED it! Add the 3% Paypal gets and you have to calculate 13% in fees. Add the shipping (the fees of which have just been raised substantially by USPS and Canada Post) and you might as will give up.
Say you have an 80 dollar item to sell. The buyer pays 90.00 because of shipping. Ebay and Paypal take off 11.70 (they include shipping in their calculation). In the end you get 68.30 and 21.70 go to fees (Ebay, Paypal and USPS). If you have been trying to make some money on the side buying and selling on Ebay this has now become substantially less interesting.
I'm gradually switching to Kijiji and other local used item sales solutions.
Greed will destroy everything if you let it.
Some facts.
ReplyDelete1. Ebay has given all sellers 50 free listings for about a year now, but the listings could not be used for BINs.
2. For most items, the current final value fee on a BIN is 11%. That means the FVF will be going down to 10%, not up.
I find some of the changes to be profoundly misguided, but not motivated by greed.
ReplyDeleteRather, I imagine someone who has a hard time imagining how small sellers experience Ebay.
Ebay faces a profound tradeoff. A whole lot of sellers will refuse to pay any listing fee, but they will pay the FVF. They're not going to stores, no way, no how. Ebay makes lots of FVF off of these sellers.
But Ebay wants to make stores attractive to the next class of seller. They make life on the bottom harder so they can reduce the pain via stores. However, the difficulties on the bottom usually result in fewer sales than conversion to stores.