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Ina,
I always appreciate your product and read both newsletters top to bottom - and I have never seen any news about eBay running classified ads?
What bothers me is that these ads are in regular search - even though they are a fixed price, store-type, listing - when even stores can't get in regular search. Where do these ads come from? Are they paying full "auction" insertion prices?
EDITOR: eBay accepts classifieds in certain categories:
http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m02/i24/s02
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Ina,
Once you posted some information on an auction site. Perhaps you can tell me the name of it. All I can remenber is that it started with the letter "E", had no listing fees, selling fees were very low. It was a short name.
Enjoy your postings.
Bob
Editor: Epier? http://www.epier.com
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Hey Ina,
It is no surprise that eBay can be hypocritical at times. I ran across this item in their store and thought that it was funny that a "free CD" actually cost $4.99 for eBay shipping and handling. Doesn't eBay realize that the actual postage on this item is less than $1.25? Surely the packing materials and labor involved to ship a single CD can't be an additional $3.75, right?
BTW - be prepared to wait for a long time on items from eBay's own shop. They are notoriously low on inventory and long on wait times. If they had a feedback system for themselves, they would certainly be able to let customers know. Curious that they do not have a feedback system in their own shop...
Anyway, here is the item: http://digbig.com/4mfmp
Signed,
Paranoid & Anonymous
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Ina,
I think that most of the eBay world of Sellers have made their opinions clear. I'll share below some points that I had in discussion with other eBay Sellers:
eBay encourages sellers to have stores. In fact, we just had a contest for the best store (of several categories). eBay offers not only different pricing but they also offer other benefits such as Selling Manager Pro to those who open stores. This seems to run counter to their stated desire to rebalance" the site.
Bill Cobb's letter is full of facts we can't use. By that, I mean that he uses percentages but doesn't provide the figures and data from which he derived his "statistics." Percentages are meaningless unless there is supporting data. For example, it costs 50% more to "maintain" a store listing vs. an auction? For what? 30 days instead of 7 or 14 days? And what IS the cost? $0.03? $0.01? $0.20?
Bill Cobb states that 91% of gross revenues come from auctions. So, then what's the problem? They should be making plenty.
Bill Cobb states that 83% of the listings are now stores. There's a very good reason for that. Because eBay has evolved into more than just an auction site. It's an electronic marketplace. It has evolved because that's what the market has determined. He mentions "supply and demand" but he doesn't apply it to evolution of eBay.
Speaking of percentages - eBay is raising the Seller's listing fees 150% and the final value fees a whopping 500% (up to $25 in gross sale price). Now those are some pretty hefty percentages.
Most sellers with stores are savvy enough to know that they need a combination of auction and store listings to be effective. And if they don't know it yet - they'll learn it. We've adapted to the lack of search results for store listings. And I think most of us know based on supply and demand what items can be listed in auction effectively - and of course since it's the most bang for the buck - we tend to do that with items we feel will sell in auction.
But . . . the above statement comes with a caveat - it depends on the type of merchandise. And when you're selling things like media (which he mentions, in fact) then the way you list your items might be different. Depending on the merchandise offered, so what if an item doesn't sell for 3 months or 6 months? Somebody out there will be looking for that item and you will end up moving more merchandise because you have that one odd item someone is searching for.
What if Borders, Barnes & Noble and even Amazon.com only offered the current best sellers off the New York Times Best Sellers list? Where would you find those older books? People want choices, they want variety and they want to buy it when they want it - all of which many eBay stores offer today.
You know - when I have multiples of an item, I typically only list 2. And when one sells I increase the inventory in the same listing. I could sell 4 of the same item in one month but the same listing rolls over. I wonder if eBay has taken that into consideration? I can't be the only one who manages their listings in that manner.
And that statement that "eBay has been overwhelmed with identical, often poorly-priced items that have diluted the magic of the eBay experience" . . . what's up with that? I can go search for items in auction and find 20 of the same thing at varying prices. But my decision on where to buy will vary on many factors. Feedback (I prefer Nordstrom's to Macy's) is probably the most important to me. When does the auction end? How much is shipping? Should I wait until it goes on sale? All of these normal shopping decisions and experiences apply to the electronic marketplace - eBay or otherwise. So why doesn't eBay get it?
Now - as far as the actual fees go - most of what we sell is lower cost and we tend towards volume as opposed to a few higher dollar items. If an item sells for $40 then you would do well to list in auctions. But what about what the lower dollar, high volume items.
If I list a $10 item in my store today, assuming it sells within 30 days, my total cost in fees will be $0.83. If I list it in auction and it sells either the first or second time - my total cost in fees will be $1.23. With a $10 item that $0.40 is critical. And what if I list that item in auction twice and it doesn't sell? eBay gets $1.40, effectively wiping out any profit I might make when it does sell. Now, that's a great profit for eBay when multiplied by thousands. If I paid $6 for that item originally, I make a decent profit particularly when volume is considered. Until eBay raises the fees, that is.
How about the store fees? What benefit do you get for the $15.95 or the $59.99? Or even the $499.99 per month (although I don't know anyone who has that level of store)? Aren't we already paying increased fees? For the privilege of having the store. And say you have the $16 or $60 store. Doesn't that equate to more than 18 or 64 auction listings per month? What do we get besides our listings not popping up in searches? Okay - a great summary page option and perhaps Selling Manager.
So, exactly how is this not about the money? It IS about the money. Because the people with the high volume of listings tend to be the people with the lower dollar items and the items wherein giving buyers broad choices is important. As I said before, eBay has evolved into an electronic marketplace. And these fee increases WILL drive people away from eBay eventually. I know other sellers who have or are in process of opening websites of their own and this was based on eBay's high fee structure - even before the increases.
I would be willing to bet that there are a whole lot of folks out there who are celebrating eBay's move with champagne. Those would be the alternative auction and storefront sites. Probably those persons who build web pages for a living. And perhaps the folks who earn bucks per click for those with web stores that need visibility.
And while I could go on for much longer, the above pretty much sums up most of my thoughts. My strategy? Well, for the moment I'm too invested in the eBay store and inventory to make much of a move. But I will be looking into it. And as I currently sell popular collectible items - I've been looking for something else more lucrative in terms of inventory. And as luck would have it, I'm in the process of testing out some other higher-end merchandise. I will certainly "test list" it on eBay but I have no intention of getting in deeper. I'll be looking for alternative ways of marketing and selling my new merchandise.
Before I sign off - I can't help but wonder something. If indeed eBay is so committed to increasing their "core" business (as they see it), then why go about penalizing the Store Sellers? Why did they not offer reduced fees for their core listings? Or some sort of benefits such as discounts on final value fees based on monthly grosses instead of individual sales? Something that would encourage Store Sellers to look at their strategies within eBay instead of trying to figure out where they can go!
Thanks for "listening."
Alix
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Hi Ina...
I've had an eBay store for a couple years mostly for the convenience of having a place to store a few items I regularly offer - a Quick Start Guide for Blackthorne Pro, online training for that software, a CD for Education Specialists & other eBay trainers to use as a student giveaway, ad template & logo design and one "real" product which I sell for a client. The monthly store fee of $15.95 has been worth it to me for these few products plus the occasional consignment item which didn't sell on auction.
When the increased fees were announced a few days ago, I "ran the numbers". I've only sold a couple hundred store items since Jan. 1, 2006. Selling the same items under the new fees makes for an increase of 24% in costs! My partner and I decided continuing to have an eBay store for now, particularly for my own offerings, is necessary.
Listing client items, however, will be problematic: as a Trading Assistant who includes the eBay & PayPal fees in our commissions, we will have to either charge our clients considerably more on store sales or refuse to list such items except on short-duration auctions and fixed price listings.
A moderate increase in fees, such as the last fees increase in stores' fvf, is an expected business expense, but a substantial increase that affects small to large sellers has not taken into consideration the upset we full-time sellers are to experience. I'm an avid eBay-er: a PowerSeller, Trading Assistant, Education Specialist, 3-time Live attendee, Blackthorne expert & supporter. I suspect eBay didn't even discuss this increase with Voices or other members who could analyze their own numbers and report to management on how this would affect their businesses.
I prefer the auction format, eBay's core, but see the store as a supportive complement to my business model. We will be looking closely at the numbers over the next few months to determine if a continued store presence is viable for us.
Thanks,
Sally
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Hi,
I like your article on the fee hike.
I was upset about the fee hike. I never played the store game with my inventory until recently. But this year I decided to buy all my holiday items to sell in the fall early this summer with the plan of putting in the store and not launching them in core listing until October or November. I didn't want to hit shortages in the holiday season. I would just sit them in the store and slowly recapture some of my capital but hold back onto the holiday SEASON. I knew that the store prices were going up but they typically don't increase until February so I thought I was ok. So now I am stuck with tons of inventory that I am not sure if I will list in the store. I have to run the numbers.
But for me the sponsored ads are more problematic. You can charge me more for the privilege of selling on eBay and I will just cut my costs more and more BUT if you drive traffic off of eBay then we are dead! Game over. That is where the fight has to be.
What are other sellers saying. It concerns me that things are going south especially comments that Meg has said regarding the magic of eBay gone. If they give up and just position themselves to be bought out or merge with yahoo or msn, then we will pay the price in the interim with no service or improvements.
I hope this is not the case.
Still loving reading the auctionbyte news every night!
Keep up the stories,
Ron
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Dear Ina,
Thank you so much for covering these important issues for Ebay sellers.
I've been buying and selling on Ebay for about 7 years now. With each fee increase, we've shrugged it off because we've either gotten something in return (better services) or it was truly a small jump in the cost of doing business. We grew. Ebay grew.
The latest tinkerings have us worried. Ebay is acting less and less like a venue.
Our sell through rate on auctions has been dismal. But our strategy has been to try to auction an item once or twice. If it didn't sell, it went into our store inventory. When Ebay had listing sales, we'd pull items out and try and auction them (or when we needed to run more auctions than we had queued up for the week.) We sell antiques.
All it takes for us is the right person finding our items at the right time. Now there's the rub. We've put up with stores not being included in the core search as a trade off for lower fees. WE have driven traffic to our stores at every turn. WE spend the extra time & cash to market ourselves at every turn.
You write: What jumped out at me was the mention of "outbid notices." With auctions, eBay has a way to continually market to buyers via email, without it being called Spam. eBay Stores has no such mechanism in place to remind people to revisit the site. Could this be one of the keys to getting eyeballs to eBay?
Ina, auctions are dead. We rarely get more than one bid, so outbid notices really don't do a lot to drive that traffic. Plus, if we do get bids, it's only in the last minutes of the auction.
Stores WORK because people can purchase immediately. Ebay sellers wouldn't continue to use this format if it wasn't working for them. Forcing sellers back to core auctions is akin to getting people to drink & buy New Coke. We all know how THAT turned out.
A good way to reinforce those "warm fuzzy feelings" people get from buying on the site would be this: have a screen pop up once a buyer has left positive feedback on a purchase to show the buyer that the seller has more items for sale. What a hook that would be.
Our "small" - items that were slow movers but popular with collectors are the first items we have/will eliminate from our store. We had people who came back often to search through our new inventory. Those small dollar items rarely made us much money. If anything, they helped pay our monthly store fee. But they made sense because it drove traffic back to us. Now, with Ebay's new fee structure, they will cost us money to sell.
If inventory control overwhelming the core site was truly the issue, then tier the subscription fees to limit the amount of items a seller can have. We'd be thrilled with $15.95 a month, 2 cents a listing, 10 % FVF and 500 items .... that would work for most small sellers AND benefit ebay from having too many of the same items listed by the same seller. Which, they just increased the number of like items you can auction at once. What's up with that?
I'm sorry this is so long, but it's been a long 8 days since the announcement. You've monitored the ebay boards. Many sellers are distressed over this. Many of us are just ramping up inventory and prepping for holiday sales. The biggest part of this is not knowing when the other shoe is going to drop. We saw Bill Cobb for all of 30 minutes on one thread and it's been quiet from the higher-ups ever since.
Thanks again for you commitment to report on our community. Keep up the good work.
Sincerely,
Tracy
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Ina,
I think if there was some way those who have the stores could do something to hurt ebays pocket they would take notice IF all the stores on ebay would close down for one or two days ebay would wake up with the loss of income. If only the sellers would stick together they might have leverage. If all the sellers could stick together and not list anything for 1 or 2 days Ebay sure would wake up to the fact we as sellers want to be heard. and stop making all the stupid changes and raising the price. They're not paying the stock holders anything so where is all the money going. Just think of all the revenue that they would lose if every one would not list for 2 days. I think that the sellers could afford to not list for one or two days.
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Re: "Lawyer Says eBay Won't Talk in Discrimination Lawsuit Case"
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m08/i01/s03
Hi, Ina,
I was surprised to see articles on this topic on AuctionBytes. Is this really news that is of interest to ebay buyers and sellers? Large companies (and often small ones as well) attract this kind of suit. Until a case goes to court, the company is precluded from defending itself, while the plaintiff is free to make whatever allegations he or she wishes. For that reason alone, it seems unfair to me to give the plaintiff a lot of "press".
IMHO coverage at the time of trial is appropriate, but advance coverage of one side is not.
Carol
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Dear Ina,
do you believe, (as one Australilan seller in you last bites said) Ebay Auctions have lost their allure, its a now generation Ebay is trying to go back 10 years and they won't make it " or some quote similar. I truly believe that so many people have stopped bidding on auctions (myself included ) for these reasons, when they allowed snipe bidding, which is unfair as it matches people versus a machine programme, that its very near impossible to beat, and its true peoples lives are busy and they want something now, they do not want to wait. I have become disenchanted with my selling because instead of the excitement each day seeing a bid, now people don't bid until the very last minute believing if they show their hand at an item someone else will get it-which is nonsense. My sales are down, admitedly I am not selling anything that expensive, and it could be because of the summer, What are your thoughts on Ebays allure is just not there any more-
Regards,
Shirley
PS:
my clerk said it in the best way," Good Lord you just came back from Ebay Live all excited about opening a store, then the minute you do you get a letter from Cobb saying, sorry to let you down, but we decided to up prices, what a let down, what bad timing on Ebays' part-we were so Ebay excuberant and told everyone what a great time and what a great job Ebay did, ITs Bad Bad timing. Its sort of like "Hey we have to now pay for your good time.
Regards,
Shirley
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Ina,
I will vote with my pocket book in such a way that eBay gets less and I get more through some tweaking,... I'm not worried about absorbing the fees, but I do want to get in a place where what they do matters not at all to me.
I was able to do it last time and I'll turn yet another corner, but eBay will be a much smaller part of my game plan for the future. It's just too hard to have to rethink everything every six months.
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Hi,
just read the article about the fee hike items - nice coverage. Thought I would let you know (if you haven't already been told) that ebay has been pulling them left and right for keyword spamming, claiming that "fee hike" is keyword spamming. Even pulled a few items that said Fee Hike on them, and thus were completely legit in using the words.
Thread about it on stores forum
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000324847
Steve
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Ina,
Do you know of anyone who's tried to create a "union" of ebay sellers? This latest fee hike fiasco makes me think such an organization would be viable. The old collective bargaining argument: thousands of sellers individually complaining about fee hikes isn't gonna do much to change ebay policy, but thousands of sellers "striking" might. Some smart person (you?) should look into it.
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Ina,
We are not an ebay store, but figure that increases to pricing structure only benefits e-bay, it's stock holders and high level management. It doesn't benefit the sellers.
Just how much is enough?
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I just read your article about eBay's ban on Google Checkout. Thank you for informing the world about it. This type of practice is illegal. It is clearly poised to protect PayPal's market share and prohibit competition. I have filed a complaint with the FTC. You can read more about it, here:
http://www.donsausa.com/2006/07/ebay-monopoly-complaint-filed-in.html
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Dear Ina -
We had no electricity or phone lines Jul 19th & 20th, due to significant storms in our area (we live near St. Louis, MO). When I finally was able to get back online on Friday, July 21st, I came back to the store fee announcement, as well as the news that I was, in effect, messing up the eBay "core experience."
Of course, the store owners are very upset over this. The figures compiled and used by eBay have a very interesting time frame (please see below). In addition, we are really failing to see how eBay could fail at spending some money promoting the stores, if they really are 83% of their listing base, as they say. I cannot see any legitimate business ignoring 83% of their customers in favor of catering to the needs of the 17% remaining. That is just plain bad business!
For many of us for whom our eBay stores represent our real job, not just a hobby, this is almost like getting fired. However, we cannot collect unemployment! The general consensus seems to be that this is one of two main plans (if not both). Plan A being that this is eBay's way of trying to make eBay Express successful, by making it almost the only way for store listings to be found.
Plan B is much more disturbing - that this is a way to drive down the price of eBay stock, thereby allowing the company to do a massive buy-back at much lower prices. Then, once that has been completed, "changing their minds" on the stores, and reverting things back to how they are now (which does work, despite the lack of eBay support and promotion).
I am including a version below of some things I posted on the eBay Store boards. Please note the time frame for the severe search problems that sellers were having, and the time frame for their reports used to justify the fee increases to the store owners! Please bear with me and read through to the end!
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"A typical eBay Stores seller who uses Store Inventory format - making no adjustments to his or her selling strategy following these changes - will experience an overall fee increase of less than six percent, based on our analysis of all June selling activity. "
Heads up here sellers - June was when most store sellers complained of sales tanking or completely dying. By sheer coincidence, I am sure, it is also the time frame when store sellers complained of not being able to find their listings in any of the search engines, and often not even able to find their own stores. When questioned, eBay support suggested that I try clearing the cache and try searching again....
I know that personally, I thought it had to do with opting in or out of eBay Express. Of course, support told me that it could not possibly affect the search results. Who knew that they were right, and that it was a carefully crafted ommission of the store owners' listings?
I opted back in at the very end of June, and saw an immediate rise in sales back to normal levels. I thought it was the process of opting back IN that had caused the change. However, other sellers were experiencing a similar return to pre-June selling levels by opting OUT of E/E. Hmmmmmm......
The mystery was pretty much solved when the July 19th announcement came out about the fees, and that June figures were used as a basis to justify their store listing cost increases. This is way more than just a coincidence.
6%? I do believe someone's calculator needs new batteries. Let's do the math together, at my current store listing quantity of 630 items.
Before 08/22/06:
Store Rent: $15.95
Listing 630 store items with gallery: $18.90
Total: $34.85 for the basic listing (not including any FVF's, auction or FP, etc etc. - just bare bones cost to have them listed)
After 08/22/06:
Store Rent: $15.95
Listing 630 store items with gallery: $37.80
Total: $53.75 for the basic listing (not including any FVF's, auction or FP, etc etc. - just bare bones cost to have them listed)
So, that means there would be an increase of $18.90 just to have the items visible, NOT counting the 2% increase in the FVF, and assuming that the gallery pics will remain at a penny each.
Do tell, how/where is that a 6% increase?
The thing is, some of those very stores are the ones that are making eBay a less-trusted place to begin with.
You know the ones - the ones who drop ship without telling customers, have massive amounts of negative feedbacks for poor service or shoddy products, or worse yet, take in the money and do nothing at all. Yet eBay does nothing to stop that. I guess, because you are getting paid from their FVF's, you are okay with it. All the talk of cleaning up the bad guys is just talk until you DO it.
eBay is also not looking at this from the BUYER viewpoint at all.
Auctions (or, your "CORE" experience!) are no longer unique, no longer a novelty on the internet. They are widespread, often overdone, and undertrusted. Your comments on getting back to basics is truly a poor excuse for wanting to raise the store fees.
Buyers want to save time and money by finding things that they need online. If they can find something unique for the price they don't mind paying, then they want to buy it. Not next week, not in ten days - usually right then.
And make no mistake - the BUYERS are not eBay's customers. The SELLERS are eBay's customers. The sellers pay the bills here. Buyers are using the sellers to get an item, but other than using eBay to find the item, have no involvement with the process. SELLERS pay eBay fees for stores, listings, auctions, final values, any special features, etc etc etc.
In addition, their excuse of not being able to afford bandwidth does not wash either. Items only use bandwidth when they are viewed. If the store items are not being viewed, and buyers are not interested, then pray tell how that is using their bandwidth?
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In conclusion, the sellers are not really willing to weather this increase. It is very substantial to say the least. We all complained at the rent hike before, but $6.00/month can be absorbed in various ways. It also was not as bad, as the stores were given some positive changes, such as a customizable home page to do away with that cookie-cutter appearance, and the expansion of the number of categories we could list.
However, this is too significant of a jump to have no beneficial promotion given to the store owners. Personally, we sell some buttons that are only 5 cents each. Do tell how to benefit from that if I pay ten cents every month just to list it in our store? Can't be done! Then add that 10% FVF, and I am paying eBay to find a customer to give out our products for free. We are not a high-profit company, nor do we overcharge our shipping. We have no moral way to cover our costs on this one.
The sellers are truly leaving this time. It isn't going to be like the temporary protests of the rent increase. We are finding other venues, opening our own websites (that truly, we've all thought about, but liked eBay stores enough to put it on the back burner until this), and internally cross promoting for each other. (Nothing like a common enemy to unite the forces!)
This will be interesting to see how this all comes out in the wash, if indeed it does.
eBay has the potential to be the biggest online mall in the world! Why on earth they would discard that in favor of "returning to the core", and shuffling stores off into oblivion, is just not comprehensible, unless you look at it strictly in terms of stock value.
Thank you for your continued coverage of all of the online auction/e-commerce news. Yours is the one newsletter that gets carefully read every time it comes into the email box!
Beth
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Ina
I see in the readers letters that many people are not happy about the newest round of ebay's monthly fee raising programs.
However, all of these people, and all of the storefront people are going to continue to sell there. Not a single one of the letters mentioned leaving ebay, and that is exactly the reason why ebay will continue to raise fees and continue to have a monopoly on payments online. As long as all the people do is complain, but continue to list, that's all ebay cares about. Why should they care what their sellers think as long as they continue to list items and continue to drive profit for the important people in ebay. The only way ebay will stop raising fees is when sellers wise up and STOP SELLING ON EBAY, which is the same thing I have said month after month. There are tons of other auction sites, and despite ebay's best attempts to make sure that their users stay ignorant of them, they are out there. Many of them are FREE to list, and only a small FVF.
Bidville, ebid, BluJay, there are a ton more places out there, but as long as sellers buy into anything and everything that ebay tells them like lemmings, then I foresee ebay continuing to raise their fees, because I would do the exact same thing. If you're dumb enough to continue to pay them, even though they do nothing for you, then I would raise fees to the stratosphere. There's no reason not to. You don't even need to worry about the goodwill of your customers, because they will continue to come back again and again ("Please sir, may I have another?").
If ebay sellers voted with their feet, ebay might think twice about raising all their fees, but, of course, it's just a fantasy, because ebay sellers say, "Please sir, may I have another?" or, in this case, "Oh, ebay raised their fees, I'm so mad I could list another dozen items on ebay!".
Ebay sellers, wake up.
Greg
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Ina,
great issue..it looks like Ebay only wants high end merchandise..I think Amazon is worth getting into and direct selling
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Greetings Ina,
I was getting ready to email you on this issue as I had not read anything on it in your newsletters. Your insight to the increase is a good one. The fact that Bill Cobb called you personally is a great testament to the validity of your newsletters. I do feel your response was a little to mild. Your basic response did contain several good points for sellers to consider. The gloves should be taken off and the new eBay fee increase should be called out for what it is.
Mr. Cobb stated that the average seller would only see a 6% fee increase. I am sure he is a very smart man, but his math teacher failed him long ago. If a store fee of 2 cents is raised to 5 cents, my figures indicate that is 150%. This is only the tip of the iceberg as that figure is for the low end items. It is normal for eBay to host a large function and not say anything about a fee increase or anything that would cause a stir with the sellers.
eBay can do whatever they want and again they show that the bottom line is not the welfare of the average seller, but the wealth strategy of eBay. They want to make more money and the restrictions on the Store promotion and the fee increases is an attempt to lower the Store inventories and increase the costly auction listings.
eBay was not satisfied with their Hugh profit and the increases not so long ago on the buy it now and reserve fees truly made them more money but they are features that I personally do not use all that often due to the expensive cost of those options.
One would think that if a seller would use a buy it now, which is normally a higher price than the base listing price, this would generate higher end fees for eBay and accelerate the sale on many items, thus bringing in a faster turn around for eBay.
The increase in Store fees will truly limit the amount of listings of the lower end items. My thoughts are that eBay wants to clean out the data base and lower the amount of items that are offered.
Perhaps Mr. Cobb should spend some of the big bucks he makes to hire a math tutor. I do hope part of eBays chariy contirbutions are to the Literacy Foundation. I am sure that they have many on staff to fend off questions about the fee increases.
Anytime I have seen eBay state they want to even out the marketplace field, the individual seller is forced to contribute more to eBay and this increase will tend to limit the listings of many low end sellers. No do not get me wrong, because eBay needs to make money and should make money. Their latest profit figures show they are making money and lots of it.
Bottom line is there will be lots of outrage, lots of discussion and lots of frustration among sellers, but in the end, eBay will go on and the fees will keep coming. There will be more fees and charges to the point that perhaps we will be paying eBay the larger percentage of the selling price to sell on their auctions. This is not to mention the other aspects of placing an auction on the eBay site. Watch for the other auction services to increase also.
I for one am not happy with the choice of eBay to place SPAM (Oops, targeted ads), on the listings. I pay eBay for a listing service, not to include ads and junk mail on the listing. I am sure you remember the time when eBay placed pop up ads on the listings and what a pain they were. They heard about that from me. But who am I?
Thank you again for being a sounding board for the smaller seller and your wisdom and thoughts are always appreciated and considered on a daily basis.
Regards,
Glen
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Hi Ina:
Ebay IS censoring messages sent through "my messages" - I have experienced it and read of others having their emails censored. Ebay reads the emails members send and then don't send on ones they feel are inappropriate. When they censor an email you get this text/warning:
I think this is deplorable, and probably illegal. What is Yahoo & MSN started sending only email they approved of?
Ina, please shine a lot of light on this deplorable practice!!
regards,
Martin
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Ina?
You said and I quote, What jumped out at me was the mention of "outbid notices." With auctions, eBay has a way to continually market to buyers via email, without it being called Spam. eBay Stores has no such mechanism in place to remind people to revisit the site. Could this be one of the keys to getting eyeballs to eBay?
Duh, doesn't ebay realize that since they put in the watch feature, no one bids early anymore (except the newbies) therefore there are not any "outbid notices" going out....How can you get an outbid notice if you have the item on watch and wait till the last minute to snipe....The put this item on watch feature, in my opinion was the worst thing that ebay ever did to the core listings. Maybe you could tell bill cobb that for me, they don't listen to us lowely little power sellers....LOL
Kasi
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Ina,
As you know Ebay has done a deed on the lil store owners, who made ebay what they are, at ebays begging and pleading I might add..( dangling a carrot in the nose of sellers to open stores). As you are also aware, ebay had been pulling ads of some of these sellers (legitimate ads), because they mentioned what feebay is doing with their price increase.
The sellers are organizing now and asking the buyers and other sellers NOT to do business on the 21st of August. This is the last day before the increases take effect.
Known as Black Monday, we are asking store owners to set the store to vacation that day, if you are closing do it then if you can afford to wait, and all buyers DO NOT patronize greedbay that day.
Ebay is imploding on itself.....
Elaina
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Hello,
I am pleased to report that I have distanced myself a great deal from the original outrage, partly fed by a few days of more folks expressing really constructive views and partly because the Ebay stock has continued to go down.
I told my broker a year and a half ago that he should short Ebay, but he said that there was not enough margin because that was the trend already. Slow but steady declines in the stock value - large and escalating whiplash effects in the Ebay pricing and policies.
Ebay will not die, but I don't believe the momentum of the early billions have a shot of being recaptured.
I just really want to hear that the tell all insider story is coming to the newstands soon.
And that the folks who Cobb denigrated with his "don't want any of our sellers to be on welfare" remark have, not only vindication, but transition with their expertise, products and value systems into a medium that continues to work for them.
Childish idealism, hokey or whatever - I really would like to see the goodguys win.
Conspiracy theories abound. Cobb is trying to take over Whitman's job and he's the real bad guy? Dunno, but it seems to me that Whitman still has the reins and was the original Harvard MBA "Fear Uncertainty and Doubt" manipulator - and still is. But inquiring minds really do want to know who is really responsible for "masterminding" such successive bizarre collision courses.
If some one million people are making their living on Ebay, it is possible that that is a collective "mastermind" no Ebay exec "mastermind" can outwit. Maybe you can run a contest to guess how many jelly beans there really are in the jar and what the next Ebay spin is.
Ebay also might be especially mindful not to mess with the Aussies or assume too much about US history when in China and Korea. Remember what happened when they tried to mess with the folks in Spain? Cultural systems have very distinct differences.
Geesh, if Stone, the director, gets a bee in his bonnet, we could get all the fictional conspiracy theories before we get the real news!
Sharon
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Ina:
As you know i belong to a large group of ebay top sellers. A lot of sellers are going to leave ebay over the fee hike. This hike has definitely hit the media sellers. As far as i am concerned the fee hike is causing me to do the exact opposite of what ebay wanted. They want more auction listings but i have figured to save costs to cut out most of my auctions to do just stores. I do over 60% of my business in ebay stores. The auction sell through rate is not that good for my product.
I am hoping others who decide to stay also will boycott the auctions because of the cost to do auctions is really higher, taking into consideration the costs of listing and the percentage of sell-through for the auction style items. I do much better in my store on ebay than i do on auction. I do even less using fixed price style listing.
I am trying to sell some on amazon but i am not sure that is going to work for me. The search on amazon is rather antique-style so i am not sure i will have the exposure i need, and i have no idea how to get the exposure if it is even available. Time will tell.
I have to wonder if ebay did this to try to overthrow the PESA group on ebay. They have had a very strong voice these past few years, and i know ebay seems to be threatened by that.
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Hi,
I saw your article about the store fees increase. I'm one of the smaller sellers who will be closing. If stores were still in search and people coud find my things, the fee increase wouldn't be such a slap in the face. But with the repeated technical failures of ebay, people can't find my items so therefore can't buy them.
I listed a "core listing" that is yet to be pulled. You might get a chuckle out of it.
Maureen
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Ina
i check your newsletters all the time but i don't think you are giving enough coverage to the new fees and the massive closure of shops in the uk due to the lack of visibility - please run some articles on this
thanks
steve
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