eBay Seller Release to Include Changes to Fees, Feedback

[pierrelebel]

By Ina Steiner
EcommerceBytes.com
February 28, 2012

eBay will announce the first Seller Release of 2012 today, and fees and feedback are on the table. Some of the forthcoming policy changes are designed to encourage sellers to send items quickly and reward sellers for having no communication with buyers, and eBay is raising the bar for Top Rated Sellers who wish to receive the 20% Final Value Fee discount.

Beginning July 2nd, eBay will offer sellers free image hosting, and beginning in the fall, all listings will be required to have at least one picture - additional quality standards for pictures will also be in effect.

eBay will also raise the maximum Final Value Fee for auction listings to $250 for non-Store owners, which impacts auctions that close at $1,111 and above.

for more:  http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y12/m02/i28/s00 

[pierrelebel]

Blog: http://blog.ecommercebytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2012/2/1330420188.html

[pierrelebel]

eBay usually makes the official announcement on its Announcement Board on eBay.com :

http://announcements.ebay.com/

Last year, the announcement was posted a few minutes after 8:00am (Pacific) or 11:00am (Eastern).

[catsnewwife]

Pictures are FREE in some catagories? Since when?

[doumb21]

Well ... it seems like I will lose my 20% discount on FVF soon.

Upload tracking information to eBay on at least 90% of all transactions with US buyers: I cannot ship my items to US with tracking number.  I sell low value item.  A solution would be to stop selling to US buyers.

A 1-day or same-day handling time:  That I always do, but I guess I have to provide a tracking number to prove that right?  Or just selecting that option in my listing is enought?

A 14-day or longer return policy with a money-back option:  Wow now that is a huge problem.  People will start buying all the top cards for a special week-end events and then return them all back when they are done using them.

They just wanted to prevent small seller to take advantage of this discount.  Too bad for me.

[pocomocomputing]

Pictures are FREE in some categories? Since when?

Pictures are currently free in some categories on eBay.com USA since Jan 2009. It was a move to keep antiques and collectibles sellers on eBay.  It never applied to eBay.ca. :0

eBay.com USA current fees link

Here is the relevant info from the help page:

Note: eBay-hosted pictures, Picture Pack, and Gallery Plus are free for all listing formats and durations in the following categories: Collectibles, Art, Pottery & Glass, and Antiques.

I will repeat again that it never applied to eBay.ca Canada, only on eBay.com USA!!!.

[pierrelebel]

The Update has now been officially posted on the Announcement Board on eBay.com

Nothing yet on eBay.ca 😞

[vincenzo@ebay.com]

Hi everyone,

We just posted the announcement on the Canadian site.

http://pages.ebay.ca/sellerinformation/news/SpringUpdate2012.html

You will see that there are rules specific to Canadian sellers when it comes to the Top-Rated requirements and benefits.

I will be here to answer questions. 🙂

[dutchman48]

So basically Canadians that sell on .com or list on .ca and sell most of their stuff to the US will lose their TRS as tracking on low priced items is not going to happen thanks to Canada Post costs. Is Ebay .ca going away eventually as it may start to be very difficult to compete. High postage, insurance restrictions, no discounts, etc.

[vincenzo@ebay.com]

Hi,

Canadian sellers will not be bound to the tracking upload requirements to qualify for the 20% discount and Top-rated badge on eBay.com. The tracking requirements only applies to Canadian sellers when it comes to receiving the highest level of promotion in search on eBay.com.

To sum up, Canadian sellers who meet all the US Top-rated requirements except tracking will still receive some search promotion on eBay.com and will receive the badge on their listings and the Top-rated seller discount.

[pierrelebel]

Good morning Vincenzo.

Long time no see on these boards! 🙂

Quick technical question for you:

What exactly does "tracking number" mean as far as listings on eBay.com is concerned?  For the specific purpose of DSR, will eBay.com accept:

Tracking; FirstClassMail  Carrier: Canada Post  ?

[dutchman48]

sellers get shafted and lose income, they go elsewhere to buy, and Ebay loses sales and income as a result. Great way to run a business.

[dutchman48]

Vincenzo - So Canadians get penalized in the search area as a result of our crappy postal sysem. Great for us. NOT

[vincenzo@ebay.com]

Hi Pierre,

Yes, sorry! I'm actually now working for the North American business out of San Jose which is why I have not been on the Canadian boards a lot... but I'm giving a hand to the Canadian team for this announcement. 🙂

To answer your question, any valid tracking number will work for Canadian sellers as far as providing the info required for DSR protection and eBay.com TRS promotion qualification.

[dutchman48]

Vincenzo - does it matter for tracking and tsr if you list on .com or .ca - .com need tracking, .ca don't or what???????????????? Does Ebay really think about anything as far as Canadian go

[dutchman48]

Vincenzo - there is no tacking on letter mail that is reasonable so we are royally shafted and no one will be able to find our items as we will be on the bottom of search, correct or not

[vincenzo@ebay.com]

Hi Dutchman.

Canadians simply won't receive the maximum search exposure promotion if they don't meet the tracking requirement.

We are very aware that it is indeed harder for Canadian sellers to meet this requirement but as far as US buyer experience is concerned (which is the target of the US TRS program), not providing tracking makes a difference and it is reflected by this small difference.

[dutchman48]

Vincenzo - It is a huge difference to Canadians whose major market is the US

[vincenzo@ebay.com]

Hi again Ducthman,

If you meet all the other US TRS requirements you will still receive the badging, discount and search promotion on eBay.com. Seller who meet the tracking requirements will simply have an additional "boost" in search but if you consider all the factors that come into play in Best Match ranking it should not penalize you significantly as you will still have more exposure than the vast majority of sellers.

[it*s-not-me]

I use online Paypal shipping and 99% of my items are shipped via Small packets.

That comes with a fake tracking number which both the buyer and I receive.

Does that count as a tracking number and meet the requirements?

Also........ does this mean that US First Class International shipping will be discouraged?

Recently I've received these fake tracking numbers for First Class International and that's something new.

Does that qualify?

In other words......... for buyer and seller.........real tracking from the US to Canada and vice versa is not feasible because of high shipping cost.

Do these fake tracking numbers qualify?