eBay's Happy New Year message: higher fees
Not much surprises me anymore, but I've gotta say, my jaw hit my spacebar when I got this message in my inbox this morning from eBay honcho Bill Cobb:We're increasing the Insertion Fee for the $1.00 to $9.99 level from thirty-five cents to forty cents.Huh? I could swear it was only a few months ago when eBay announced a big fee hike, and several booksellers were trampled amidst the stampede toward the door.
If I recall, Cobb's last announcement was about "rebalancing the core" back towards auctions and away from Stores, which so many booksellers had found promising.
Seems to me eBay is forgetting about its core sellers.
What do you think?
posted by Steve Weber at 1/04/2007
12 Comments:
Ebay is raising prices in that range for Insertion Fees to encourage more sellers to list auctions starting at $.99 or less. Historically, items listed lower generate a higher final selling price, yielding more revenue for eBay. Granted, there are exceptions to this, but it appears to be the general rule.
I agree it's a good idea to start auctions at a low price. Many of the buyers browsing eBay are looking for things with lots of bids, on the theory that it must be a hot item and a great deal. So the quickest way to get lots of bids is by starting at a low price.
But that's auctions. Personally, I prefer fixed-price selling for most books.
Everybody's on a fee raising jag...except for the sellers...I'm investing in petroleum jelly
Starting a book auction with a low price is a good idea only if the book is a HOT SELLER. I'm referring to books that always get several bids and often have bidding wars. Few books fall into this category. In most cases, book auctions result in selling the book "at wholesale" with only one or two bids (and will be a good candidate for arbitrage).
If your book is not a HOT SELLER, an eBay store or other fixed price venue will bring you higher prices. I've shown several examples on my bookselling blog of books that sell for substantially more in eBay stores than in auction format.
The book needs to be priced correctly, of course. Some sellers give their books away in eBay stores also. Don't price your book based on closed eBay sales alone, but take into consideration prices on Amazon and other fixed price venues.
So these fee increases will have little effect on most savvy booksellers. It would only be HOT SELLERS that are auctioned that will have Final Value Fees raised from 3% to 3.25%. All other books sold from stores will have the same fees we now have.
I spend my entire life on Amazon and I am used to their fees and the efficiency of listing and selling books on Amazon.
Around Christmas, I decided to sell some stuff on Ebay. It was the first time in more than a year I did an Ebay transaction.
The complexity of the whole affair blew my mind. Showcase the stuff. Take pictures. Download and chose the right shots. Write a header and description. Buy packing materials. Pack the items up (big items like my daughter's doll house can take an hour because they are so cumbersome to package). Weigh and measure items. Get a price from UPS. Set up a Paypal account. Go to the UPS store and stand in line (For Amazon, I never, ever go to the Post Office, since my mailman so conveniently takes all my Amazon book orders for me, but not Ebay packages!) And, and, and...
I was quite shocked how complicated the Ebay interface for listing the most basic items had gotten. Pages and pages of choices to go through. It used to be so simple a couple of years ago. I used to sell on Ebay all the time. But it has gotten very challenging to list even the most basic item. Tons and tons of choices. And you better read through all this stuff very carefully. One mistake or oversight can have terrible, irrevocable consequences. I set up my Paypal information on the Ebay page with the wrong email address and so my money disappeared into Cyberspace. I tried to change the email before my other 4 auctions ended, too. I called both Ebay and Paypal customer service, but since it was less than 12 hours before end of auction they wouldn't let me do a thing. Just plain refused to budge. So I was reduced to watching my money from my 4 other auctions disappear into Cyberspace, too, and I wasn't able to do a thing about it. Had to contact each and every winner and beg them to cancel their payment and send the money out again.
The next shock was the bill. I was very surprised how expensive the whole thing has gotten. They nickel and dime you over every single extra. If you need more header space because their lines are too short. If you want a 10 day auction to attract more customers. If you want Buy it Now. If one picture does not say it all. Etc. etc., etc. Boy, does it add up fast!
And then you need to pay again, this time for Paypal taking care of the financials for you.
Amazon feels so nice and easy in comparison. I can list a dozen books in just as many minutes. Other than the monthly fee, I only pay if the item actually sells. Books are easily packaged. My mailman takes them away for me. Financials are taken care of and included in the commission/monthly fee.
To sum it all up, my experience with Ebay was a gigantic amount of effort for something like a $300 return and complete sticker shock at Ebay and Paypal's rates. I will think long and hard if I want to go through this again.
So now they want to raise prices....
First to the poster that complanied about how complex ebay has become. You have to use ebay frequently as they do change things around. I grumble and gripe but when you finally figure it out it becomes a better way. Use Turbo Lister...makes it all worthwhile. And I would never take Paypal. Too many stories to go into there.
Anyway..I received a survey this morning from ebay and it is something I don't like at all and I know they will be changing this soon. On your auction page where it says 'bid history' and you can see who is bidding on this auction. NO MORE!!! They will be listing the bidders as bidder #1, bidder #2 and so forth. The seller will be the only one able to see the identity of the bidder. How will they ever catch the shill bidders now?? We will not be able to follow certain bidders to see what they are bidding on and such. Just another thing ebay is doing to make it all ANONYMOUS!! I don't like it!!! They don't care!!!
My first lesson in economics was "If it's too expensive, don't buy it". eBay will continue to raise fees until doing so means that they make less money.
I'm mainly sell books only on Amazon, as my results with eBay have been mixed at best. I haven't tried doing any auctions for books on eBay, but for I've sold a few with fixed price listings because I knew the demand for the books was there.
In any event, this is just more incentive for me to stick with Amazon, which hopefully is the lesser of two evils. :)
I tell ya" Ebay is slowly going to do away with their Ebay Stores and small independents and go back to auction style and cash in on the new craze "Ebay drop off store fronts". Their making tons for ebay/paypal.....
Have ebay dropoff storefronts actually worked? They have all closed up in my area. Not sorry to see that happen, either.
The Ebay drop off stores in my area are booming.. One just expanded there warehouse.. Of course I talking about the more known name brand (auction it today, etc.) drop off places.
Some of the small locals that try it are not doing that well.
As it was in the 60's and 70's with FARMING, it looks like the same for Ebayer - GO BIG OR GET OUT>>>>
I've been selling auto parts on eBay for my husband who does the scouting and research. That's been working well for us and their price increase won't hurt us much there...but I started selling used books online and their price increase (along with the general difficulty in listing items) has sent me scurrying over to other, friendlier bookselling venues.
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