eBay just announced their new fee structure yesterday and while there is some good news (darn little of it), the bottom line is that eBay just doesn't get it.
But first the good news...
The best thing about eBay's new fee structure - which takes effect on March 30, 2010 - is that there are NO insertion fees for auction style listings if you list your item at less than $1.00 and this is good for up to 100 auctions a month. OK, I can deal with that as I put up around 80 auctions a month give or take and start them all at 99 cents.
Also, eBay has lowered the insertion fees for all tiers $1.00 and over - this is a good thing but with the free insertion listings, there is a good chance that eBay will get gummed up with a ton of $0.99 junk listings.
Now the bad news.... (Yeah, wasn't very much good news was there?)
eBay has set a flat 9% final value fee for all auction style listings instead of the current tiered approach. Sounds simple and it is....but it means a huge fee increase for sellers.
Under the current system, eBay charges sellers 8.75% for the first $25.00 of an item that is sold. If the item sells between $25.01 to $1000.00, you get charged 8.75% of the first $25.00 and 3.50% of the remaining closing balance. Let's do an example...
Say you have an auction item that sells for $100.00
Current System
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Your Final Value Fee (FVF) will be $25.00 x 8.75% + $75.00 x 3.50% = $2.19 + $2.63 = $4.82
New System
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Your FVF will be $100.00 x 9.0% = $9.00
Isn't that GREAT! Your FVF almost doubles under the new system for a $100.00 item. Gotta LOVE that....NOT!
The eBay forum is already up in arms about it all and it is only the day after the announcement. A must read is the "eBay: Death By A Thousand Cuts Redux" which provides links to several of eBay's competitors as well as a link to the classic, original "Thousand Cuts" article. Look for another drove of sellers to leave eBay come April 1st.
Will Walkin' Willie continue to sell on eBay? Sure, but our main focus is to get customers to my other two websites: www.wwillie.com for trades, graphic novels and CGC books and to www.walkinwilliescomix.com for discount books (and we mean LARGE discounts). In other words, we will USE eBay - we will not let eBay USE us....
We'll take a look at the changes for eBay stores next....(not good there either unless you sell a TON of stuff...and I mean a TON).
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The regular no/low listing fees will bring in a lot of new sellers. If search gets over crowded and selling prices collapse a lot of these newbes will walk away without shipping.
ReplyDeleteIf the sale price holds up, the 9% will kick them in the stomach and they will not list again.
To me its looking like ebay has the GM disease were $35,000 cars are considered reasonable
Couldn't agree more - newbies coming in, veteran sellers leaving - does not make for a good eBay.
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