EBay cutting listing fees, boosting commissions

[Vintage Betty]

Read the article carefully here. It's not quite what the headline promises it to be.

Vintage Betty

 

[nobodyspecial]

It sounds like sellers who sell higher dollar items will come out ahead, but the increase in the final value fee may hit small dollar value sellers harder. I find Ebay fees to be cumbersome in that one thing is a dime, one is a quarter, and on and on. 90% of what I've sold has a listing fee of somewhere between $1-$2. They could just as easily charge me a flat $1.50 and call it a day. I sense there is a lot of profit in the extra services for a dime here and there.

Has anyone sold anything via Amazon?

 

[Twitch]

So it's just a shell game of switching fees?:eusa_doh:

 

[RedHotRidinHood]

Oh, babies, I am going to be dead in the water once this all starts. Therefore, this auction (which is CLOSED, by the way, so I think I can post it) will have to speak for me. Make sure you read all the questions the seller got. Sums it all up perfectly.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280196667075&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

 

[Foofoogal]

Many people went to ecrater in the last 24 hours but I believe Amazon is the best if I can figure out how to sell there.
http://www.powersellersunite.com/auctionsitewatch.php

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

So basically the little guys are screwed? Anything selling for less than $25 will be a thing of the past. Ebay is self-destructing...
I predict a sharp increase in "Buy it Now" listings for $25.01.

 

[nobodyspecial]

Oh, babies, I am going to be dead in the water once this all starts. Therefore, this auction (which is CLOSED, by the way, so I think I can post it) will have to speak for me. Make sure you read all the questions the seller got. Sums it all up perfectly.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280196667075&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

That is a very funny listing.

I had not heard of the other auction sites, worth taking a look at. Ebay, at 13,000,000 is so far ahead of the pack it's hard to fight against. The other sites need more exposure to get the word out. What's really needed from a buyer's perspecitve is a search engine that will search all the auction sites at once.

 

[KittyT]

When do the new fees go into effect?

 

[ohairas]

That is halarious!
All these ebay changes really suck. I would think they are hanging themselves.
I may as well go back to the antique shops around here and not pay shipping, probably could get better deals than on the bay now.
Nikki

Oh, babies, I am going to be dead in the water once this all starts. Therefore, this auction (which is CLOSED, by the way, so I think I can post it) will have to speak for me. Make sure you read all the questions the seller got. Sums it all up perfectly.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280196667075&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

 

[RedHotRidinHood]

When do the new fees go into effect?

Here is the announcement for it. February 20th. Yippie skip!

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200801.shtml#2008-01-29054823

 

[RedHotRidinHood]

So basically the little guys are screwed? Anything selling for less than $25 will be a thing of the past. Ebay is self-destructing...
I predict a sharp increase in "Buy it Now" listings for $25.01.

Oh yeah, there is no way I can be as viable as I was before. This is me, with NINE $%&$%$%# YEARS as a seller under my belt. Thank you eBay, for screwing me.

 

[KittyT]

Greeeat. How like a big company to screw the small guy.

 

[Miss Brill]

I don't see too many non-power sellers left on eBay. The vintage listings are littered with new stuff made in China & no matter how many times I report the garbage, eBay will not move it, and I'm not going to wade through a hundred new things...so I go to the thrift stores more often,

 

[nobodyspecial]

For a very part time seller like myself, I wonder if I'll really notice the difference in fees and feedback? On the fees, ebay mentioned they want to reduce the up front risk of selling something. My up front fees are almost always under $2, generally about $1.40. That's not a lot of up front risk, especially if I'm selling something gathering dust in my basement or something found in a thrift store for $5. An opening bid of $9.99 and I break even on thrift store cost, ebay fees and paypal fees.

 

[KittyT]

For a very part time seller like myself, I wonder if I'll really notice the difference in fees and feedback? On the fees, ebay mentioned they want to reduce the up front risk of selling something. My up front fees are almost always under $2, generally about $1.40. That's not a lot of up front risk, especially if I'm selling something gathering dust in my basement or something found in a thrift store for $5. An opening bid of $9.99 and I break even on thrift store cost, ebay fees and paypal fees.

Yeah, but here, the upfront risk is if something doesn't sell. How often have you listed something that didn't sell? For sometime sellers, the problem comes with the value fees, which really cut into any money any of us could make on Ebay.

 

[Miss Brill]

I found a Missoni tunic at Goodwill, and debated getting it for eBay (it was too small for me), and then put it back mumbling why should I be a personal shopper for people who aren't shopping?

 

[nobodyspecial]

Yeah, but here, the upfront risk is if something doesn't sell. How often have you listed something that didn't sell? For sometime sellers, the problem comes with the value fees, which really cut into any money any of us could make on Ebay.

I've had very few items that have not sold, perhaps a handful out of 500 or so sold to date. If something doesn't sell the first time around I just relist it for an opening bid of $0.99 and hope to get rid of it at any price. Half the time I do this I wind up making more money. Last month I had a Pendleton wool jacket that did not get a bid with an opening price of $9.99. I relisted the jacket for $0.99 and it sold for $54 plus shipping to Japan. The auction process never ceases to amaze me.

I tend to view my ebay auctions as a series of $10 bets. That is, most items I sell will cost me around $10 in terms of thrift store cost plus ebay and paypal fees; these are my up front costs. My average selling price works out to $35 which gives me $25 profit. I have no idea if these are better or worse than normal numbers for sellers. As with any average the devil is in the details. On some of these items I lose money and on some I make a great deal more, these are just averages. Over the course of a series of 10 auctions or more these averages tend to balance out in my favor. That is, a series of 10, $10 bets will generally make me enough money to make it worth the time involved.

The hard part for me is finding inventory to sell that is worth the time it takes to sell. For example, to sell a tent I need to take the time to set it up, photograph the tent, take it down, make certain it's dry and find a box in which to ship the tent. That's a fair bit of time invested if the tent doesn't fetch a decent price.

Right now I have too much inventory in my basement. I hope to have next to nothing a year from now. When I first got started I grossly over estimated the amount of energy I'd have on nights and weekends to sell. As I go forward, I've been pickier as to what I pick up and hope will sell. I'm trying to find items that have more upside potential and would like to get my average selling price higher.

For me, ebay is the ultimate 80/20 business cliche - 80% of my profits come from 20% of the items sold.

 

[nobodyspecial]

I should add to my last post, the hard part is figuring out which items will fall into the 80% category. On more than one occasion, I've been pleasantly surprised at how well something has done and on other occasions I've been very disappointed at how poorly things have done.

 

[Daisy Buchanan]

Just another Daisy rant)

OK! This sucks!!!
I hate too the way that they announced it, as if it was gonna be something good for all of us sellers!!
Yes, my vintage auctions will be affected, and I have noticed recently in the past few weeks that there hasn't been much for sale in the vintage categories that I typically look at, and they are littered with repros that don't even pertain to what I'm looking for. It used to be that people went to ebay to find things for less, that was one of the points for my shopping there. You know, that $400 pair of Frye boots you just have to have, you can find on ebay for $100. Clothes, both modern and vintage, were always less. I think it is so sick that those who sell anything under $25 have to deal with such a huge mark up. What good does that do. Oh, I know, it prevents ebay sellers from wanting to sell this lesser priced goods, hence allowing ebay the large company to make more money because the seller will now have to up their prices in order to make a decent prophet margin.

OK my second point of contention is this, and I know this is a forum where we talk about vintage, but I'm a vintage gal and this is really gonna affect me. PEZ!! I collect PEZ. Ebay was founded on the PEZ dispenser. The gent who founded it created ebay so his wife could have access to dispensers she couldn't get in her own area, since they vary from market to market and country to country. Now, all of us Pez heads will have to go elsewhere to stock up on the newly released dispensers that we can't by in our own little corner of the country. There are very few dispenser that sell for more than 10 bucks let alone $25 Of course there are those vintage dispensers (see I'm talking vintage!!) that sell for higher prices, some sell for hundreds of dollars but even a 17 year collector veteran like me wouldn't spend that kind of money on one, no matter how rare it is. (Lucky for me I got all the rare ones way before the invention of ebay drove up the cost!!) But anyway, I buy a lot of dispensers on the bay, and even though I typically buy in bulk so I can have a complete set of serial numbers, there are still plenty occasions when I will find that great dispenser for a few dollar! I guess as of February 20th, that'll be a think of the past Not only that. I like to trade my older dispensers with people, that was why the bay started after all, ebay was a great way for me to meet people to trade with, and to sell my dispensers too. Part of being a PEZ head is buying in bulk the dispensers that are from your region, then selling them off individually to people who can't get them. It's a really nice way to make a little extra cash, but now it seems that it'll end up losing me money[huh]
Of course thanks to ebay there are now a ton of other places to buy dispensers that you can't get in your own region, but nobody had a better selection than ebay, especially of limited edition dispensers and discontinued ones

The glory days of ebay are over. I thought that there would be a ton of new listings in the vintage category with Viva just a little while away. This is usually one of the best times to be a seller. This is gonna be a bad thing for them. I am thoroughly disappointed[huh]ARGH!!

Rant stop........

 

[nobodyspecial]

As a buyer I don't so much shop ebay to find new items for less as I shop to find items period. For me ebay has been a way to collect items easier than shopping at thrift stores as most items I shop for won't ever show up locally. Various forum boards and Craigslist are really the best bets as there are no fees.