Ebay has a major problem on it's hands. They definitely have an issue with sellers who are opening stores and dumping 1000's of unsellable items into them for 2 cents a month. The cost of hosting these listings for ebay is too much and they don't want to carry them. How they jump from that to increasing back-end fees I will never know. Like I told my ebay rep....charge me 25 cents an item per month but reduce my FVF's and give me some exposure.
They honestly think they can force sellers back to the auction format, but you can't put the Genie back in the bottle. They fail to realize that stores were not the downfall of auctions. Increased front end fees and a lower number of bids per auction and were the downfall of auctions. The format just became too expensive for most sellers to use it as anything more than a venue for advertising. I actually write off my ebay expenses as an advertising cost.
In all honesty this is the most short-sighted decision I have seen a major firm make in a very long time. ebay has the name recognition, the expertise and the resources to become THE major on-line shopping mall. They are close to reaching the peak of their growth for the core auction format which is evidenced by the lower list/sales and bids/item ratios. Any substantial future growth will have to come from a different avenue. Enter stores. If they managed the store format properly it could be their largest future revenue generator.
Charge a higher front end fee to ensure that only items that have a potential to sell are listed...lower back end fees to somthing the sellers can live with and still make a decent profit...provide some exposure for the store inventory listings.
It's not rocket science, but you'd think it was given the actions ebay has taken in the past few years.
ebay no longer wants your store business. Maybe they will come to their senses at some point but it isn't likely to happen soon. It is time to develop your off-ebay site and promote it at every opportunity...
Flyers in your shipments...URL in every e-mail...keyword programs...message boards.
Monique

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Monique
