The New Listing Fees are Going to Ruin Me!

Maybe a strong comment, but I don't even know if I should even continue on eBay.  I rarely pay any insertion fees ... $4.00 or $5.00 at most in any given month.

 

I have two selling accounts.  Before the fee change:

 

Health and Beauty:

 

50 free auction only listings on each of .ca and .com.  When an auction promotion came along, I could re-list (or sell similar) any 7-day listings which had ended.  With a fixed price promotion, I could list these items for 30 days and if I ran out of the free ones, I still had the FP visible.  On occasion, I listed specific items as FP at a cost of 30 cents .... never more than a dozen.

 

(As of May 1st, only 20 free auction listings per site)

 

Media:

 

50 free Fixed Price on each of .ca and .com.  If I had used all my free listings, I could re-list for only 5 cents.  Again, with the promotions, I would be able to have all my available items visible each month ....  at little or no cost.

 

(As of May 1st, only 20 free fixed price listings per site PLUS the listing fee has increased from 5 cents to 30 cents.)

 

 

I was always grateful for the free listings and any promotion I was invited to because it allowed me to list the majority of items I had available.

 

Now if I open a store for both @ $19.95, that's a $40.00 expense I've never had before.  I usually have 100 to 125 listings available on each of the selling accounts.  If I reduce the number of my listings to those I can afford, I'm still looking at fees close to the $20 mark for each (with fewer items listed).  That's not a lot of money for the majority of sellers.  However, I don't earn a lot on eBay but what I do earn is always devoted to monthly expenses, like rent or utilities.  I don't do this as a hobby and I don't view the money I earn as an "extra" to be used to treat myself.

 

On a good month, I might earn $400 or $500, so the $40 I would spend on stores/fees would not be prohibitive.  But often, I have a very slow month, like this past April, where my profit was only $160.00 (the $40.00 would have a larger impact).

 

Are there other sellers out there like me .... who are having a real problem with the new fee structure?  Maybe you can offer some advice as to how best to deal with this new policy.

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The New Listing Fees are Going to Ruin Me!

"you must be on eBay's priority messaging list somehow"

 

I suspect it may have to do with eBay.com (fast) and eBay.ca (usually slooooow)

 

I am registered on eBay.com (legacy user) well before eBay.ca was created.

 

Did your message mention eBay needs to give you 60 day notice for the change?  My message did.

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The New Listing Fees are Going to Ruin Me!

"and it costs more than amazon's seller "

 

????

 

Care to give specific details, please. 

 

I have sold on Amazon and the overall fees have generally been more expensive than eBay (other than my monthly store fees, my listing fees are "nil", and FVFs are 4.8% (I am TRS).

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The New Listing Fees are Going to Ruin Me!

well maybe fees wasn't my best choice of words But all together for me to sell on amazon seems like a better alternative after the fees have been pushed up on eBay.That probably isn't the case for alot of the people here and there is no problem selling on ebay It really is great and has a ton of traffic. But doing research and testing on amazon a game I struggle to sell on eBay for

 

9$ I can sell on amazon for about 13 to start -1.25 on variable closing than 13-5 (amazon does not fee shipping which is why i subtract 5$ you can have a max value of 5$ shipping ) = 8 x.15 (15% fee) = 1.2

 

1.2+1.25= 2.45 - 13 = 10.55

 

 

 

 

 

9x .029 = .26 + .30 = .56 paypal fee

 

9x .09 = .81 ebay fee

 

.81 + .56 = 1.37 full fee

 

1.37 - 9 = 7.63

 

The thing that really bugs me the most is the .30$ an item..

 

like everyone I would like to sell my item the next day but there is no guarantee it will even sell in the next week or month.

 

I really don't intend on having 500+ items but I do like to have 200-300 up that would cost me 7.5 extra a month if i were to have 300.

 

 

Now saying I had 300 and I sold 80 of those items I would be charged the .30 on those items which would be an extra 21.00 

 

I have also had some games for like 9 months basically since I started eBay I payed about .45$ on listing fees they do sell on the odd occasion but I am still making money on them.

 

Now if I have a game that doesn't sell in that long the total fee is 2.7$.

 

 

anyway I'm blabbering like many people say and will continue to say eBay is good for them and amazon is good for them it depends on what  you are selling!

 

 

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The New Listing Fees are Going to Ruin Me!

to be honest when I said that thing about the fees I forgot about amazons excuse for more money fee 😄variable closing which is 1.25 ) I was only thinking about the 15% fee. 

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The New Listing Fees are Going to Ruin Me!


@pierrelebel wrote:

 

Did your message mention eBay needs to give you 60 day notice for the change?  My message did.


No, curiously it didn't, no mention of a specific notice period.  There was simply this (as you quoted earier): 

 

"Know that your access to Sales Reports Plus is not affected and that in the weeks ahead, we'll let you know all about the new reporting features we'll soon offer."

 

(In other words, when it suits eBay to let us know).  

 

I actually don't mind having a gap between the old Omniture being removed and the new features being put in place, as long as they serve a similar purpose and are actually an improvement in functionality, not just window-dressing. 

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The New Listing Fees are Going to Ruin Me!

Anonymous
Not applicable

Who does eBay tell us to list "new" items not wanting us to "relist" "stale" items week after week????

 

In fact when I relisted the same items and some of them got sold, apparently it is okay to keep on relisting the "stale" items because they eventually do get sold.  eBay needs to buck out on how we should see.  In fact, eBay should be just a "venue" for us to list our items, not telling us how to do our business.  Do eBay tell WalMart how to run the business?  NO!!  Same thing here!!

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The New Listing Fees are Going to Ruin Me!

"In fact, eBay should be just a "venue" for us to list our items, not telling us how to do our business. "

 

I would totally agree with you if you agree eBay should charge you a fee for every listing you put on the site.

 

 

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The New Listing Fees are Going to Ruin Me!


@pierrelebel wrote:

"In fact, eBay should be just a "venue" for us to list our items, not telling us how to do our business. "

 

I would totally agree with you if you agree eBay should charge you a fee for every listing you put on the site.

 

 


While you do have a point, I must say I think there is far too much micro-managing of sellers' businesses on the part of eBay.  They seem to have their fingers stuck into every minute aspect of the selling process now. 

 

It seems to me that eBay's policies over the past couple of years have progressively removed (or at the very least, discouraged) just about every seller-buyer point of contact or direct interaction.  

 

Clearly there were a few areas that benefited from control by eBay, but there are also many aspects of selling online that did not need the ham-fisted interference.  

 

Just one example: mutually agreeable payment arrangements with buyers.  This used to make it far easier to sell customized items made to a buyer's specifications, with a deposit paid to seal the deal and the balance owing later.  Another example: layaway arrangements, short or long, as the seller wished.  

 

Now I don't even bother trying to work out such arrangements -- they're virtually impossible on eBay these days (but not so on my "other" site, which means eBay has lost my fees on that part of my business!).  

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The New Listing Fees are Going to Ruin Me!

Just one example: mutually agreeable payment arrangements with buyers.  This used to make it far easier to sell customized items made to a buyer's specifications, with a deposit paid to seal the deal and the balance owing later.  Another example: layaway arrangements, short or long, as the seller wished.  

 

 

How have they made this more difficult?

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The New Listing Fees are Going to Ruin Me!

Wow, I just sold a CD on another site.  It takes a long time to build up feedback although this venue did just import mine from ebay.  I love EBAY but 20 listings per month is not going to do it for me.  

 

A couple of good things, doesn't cost to list and they don't charge a FVF on shipping.  

 

CD sold for 16.75 x 3.5% = .58 cents. 

 

If I had sold it on EBAY it would be 16.75 x 10% = $1.67

 
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