An AuctionBytes survey found eBay sellers are unhappy with the changes eBay is making to feedback, fees, search visibility (Best Match) and "seller standards." AuctionBytes surveyed over 1,600 readers and found that 90% of respondents felt that, overall, the changes to feedback are bad. 69% said under the new structure, their monthly eBay fees would go up.

The minority of respondents who said their monthly fees would go down (13%) and felt feedback changes were good (5%) skewed toward higher-volume listers with higher annual GMV compared to the average of all respondents.

AuctionBytes asked survey takers whether they planned to make changes to their business due to eBay's fee and policy changes. 56% said they would list more on other sites; 44% said the would list fewer items on eBay; 27% said they would sell more through offline channels; 23% said they would stop selling on eBay; 10% said they would not make any changes; and 7% said they would list more items on eBay.

The greater a seller's annual GMV (the value of all items sellers sold on online auction sites), the less likely they were to say they would stop selling on eBay. Conversely, the lower the GMV, the more likely they said they would stop selling on eBay. AuctionBytes believes at least two factors may play a role the decision by larger businesses to remain on eBay: they have less flexibility due to greater overhead (including employees), and a mindset that the cost of listing on eBay is an advertising expense to acquire customers they can then market to directly.

While fewer respondents with high-GMV (over $1 million) said they would not stop selling on eBay, 53% said they would list fewer items on eBay, and 60% said they would sell more through offline channels and list more on other sites.

In the week following eBay's announcements, we noted much confusion among sellers as to how the new fee structure would impact their businesses. eBay lowered listing fees and raised commission fees, making it cheaper to list items, but more expensive when items sell. Thus, a seller's Sell Through Rate (STR) played a key role in whether the new fee structure would actually increase or decrease their monthly fees, and the survey bore this out.

STRs also factored into the decision of whether to continue selling on eBay. Of the sellers with STR greater than 66%, 28% said they would stop selling on eBay. Of the sellers with a STR less than 34%, 19% said they would stop selling on eBay.

It's important to keep in mind that eBay will roll out changes over the next 3 months. eBay will not roll out its biggest and most controversial change to feedback until May - and according to the survey, changes to feedback will have the most impact on sellers' businesses. Based on anecdotal evidence gathered by reading letters, forums and blog comments, some sellers are planning to boycott the site the week of February 18, others are leaving the site permanently once they sell off their inventory, and yet others are seeing how the changes impact them in the coming months. This will make it difficult to accurately measure seller reaction in the short term.

1,640 people responded to the survey between February 3-7, 2008. Respondents were asked to provide their primary selling ID and email address and the value of the items they had sold over the previous 12 months. Because eBay made different changes to different international websites, the survey addressed only changes to the eBay.com website.

More details about the survey results can be seen in the following articles published in AuctionBytes Newsflash, and reaction to the survey results can be viewed in the AuctionBytes Blog (http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2008/2/1202699243.html).

eBay Changes to Feedback and Fees Are Top Concerns According to AuctionBytes Survey
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m02/i11/s01

Survey: Sellers to Change Listing Behavior as Result of eBay Changes
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m02/i12/s01

The Minority Report: Sellers Who Favor eBay Changes
http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m02/i13/s02

AuctionBytes-Update included an overview of the changes in the last issue:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y208/m02/abu0208/s02.