My selling fees are going to go down?Somebody pinch me I think I'm dreaming

[ricarmic]

Hmm I just perused the spring seller update. I think this is the first time ever that I've read the spring updates and so far I think they are going to save me money! (I'm not sure what the "policy" stuff will do I think I'm ok but time will tell on that one). Maybe I missed something because my joys of savings overwhelmed my sense of reading and interpreting but at least I'm happy for a while!

I'm glad they're finall giving us "Store people" a break on the fees, at least for the first 500 (for me)

I have a premium store, looks like I'll stay the same with that, I don't use selling manager pro, I'm a turbolister addict so far at least.

Hopefully it is good news for the rest of you too!!!

[farmer11704]

I would also like to point out, if I understand the update correctly, a potential gotcha on paypal transaction fees.  If listings default to immediate payment required, customers who are purchasing items with free shipping have no incentive to combine their orders before paying; in fact it is the opposite.  So should they buy three $5 items with free shipping they are encouraged to pay on three separate transactions (3 x $0.30 per transaction) rather than only paying once which would generate a single $0.30 fee.  This is not an insignificant expense on lower cost items, not to mention extra paperwork and potentially higher postage costs should the buyer stretch items out over a few days.

Rob

[pierrelebel]

"downgrading store"

???

Why would you downgrade your store?

[ricarmic]

I completely agree with the comment that "They are meant for eBay to raise more revenue.  And eBay will." - however an optomistic way of looking at this that ebay is hoping to encourage more sellers to sell more (or come back to) ebay because theoretically having more stuff available will bring more buyers, which brings more sellers and the cycle continues, and we all know that the more stuff that sells the more eBay makes. I noticed in the FAQs some comparisons to the AMAZON rates, which I believe is a big competitor of ebays in the big picture kind of things (certainly not in stamps, at least not the last time I checked albeit a long time ago). So I have to believe the Sr Management somewhere in Senior eBayleadership land, with all their zillion reports understands this too.....

One caveat, regarding quantity, a problem with making the original listing fees low is that it can generate an awful pile of trivial sized items which floods categories with small stuff....

[pierrelebel]

If you look at the historical pattern, you will notice that the gross revenues generated by eBay (not including PayPal) always increase at a slightly faster rate than the Gross Merchandise Sales (sales by sellers).

Why?  Because every fee change by eBay is meant to generate higher revenue, not only from the growth of the platform but on the average transaction.

The actual percentage of fees paid by sellers - overall - has increased every year from the beginning of eBay.

Some change may benefit some sellers (like I benefitted two years ago when they drop FVF on fixed price listings and charge FVF on shipping (all my listings offered "free shipping"). 🙂

However, this time, it is a bit of a wash.  Some sellers will save - mostly on lower price items.  Part time sellers who were only using auctions - less than 50 a month - will end up paying more 10% instead of 9%.

Sellers with stores face some complications depending on their volume and number of listings.  Many sellers with a large number of listings have already complained about the extra listing fees to pay.

Sellers with store selling at both fixed prices and auctions need to really sharpen their pencils. While FVF percentages appear to go down in many categories, FVF charged on auction listings will generally go up (from 7.5% plus 5% over $50) to a flat 9%.

Many sellers still think they will save money when fees are in fact going up!.

[pierrelebel]

brande - "anything $100 and under I save I save compared to current fee structure.."

13% of $50 + 5% of $50 =$9

9% of $100 = $9

That is correct for fixed price listings in DVDs, books, music and video games (categories with the highest 13% FVF)

However, I noticed that about one third of your listings are at auction.

Auction FVF for sellers with a store are generally going up

the old 7.5% plus 4% over $50 is replaced by a flat 9% 😞

[pjcdn2005]

Why would you downgrade your store?

Post 11 explains it. He's in a category that costs just 5 cents to list regardless of the type of store so a basic store would end up less expensive in the long run.

[pierrelebel]

But I understood that $0.05 only applies to fixed price listings in those selected categories.  Auction listings will be charged a higher listing fees (depending on store level) and about one third of the listings are auction listings.

[ricarmic]

I wasn't really meaning that they aren't dinging us more, only that they may have multiple reasons for changing the prices which may include tyring to bring more material back/in.

I am not surprised by the disparity in rising costs, I would expect them to pull as much as they can from us as well as by attracting more sales as well. I've always tended to translate the online world to the pre-internet world - I think of eBay like a mall - storeowners in malls pay based on the "mall traffic" - if you want to be in a good mall with lots of traffic you are going to pay more $$ per square foot than you will in a mall with less traffic. Our fees in a way are like that - if you want lots of "traffic" is is going to cost you, and the more traffic there is the more it will cost you (like it would in a mall). If you want to pay less fees but have less traffic, it will cost you less.

I am only a wee stamp guy, but in my experience in ebayland and other online sites and in print, ebay by far brings me a lot more traffic for my "advertising" dollar (here we call them selling fees) than it does elsewhere.

The point about auction costs rising is a very good one, that also probably escaped a lot of folks notice too - generally I run few auctions, normally when I do it is more in the belief that it also brings more traffic to my store. As I mentioned above, I look at the auction listing fees as "advertising" costs and manage them that way.

My goal in the internet era has been to maintain my selling costs under 20% (which they were in the good days in the "print world") and so far so good (in ebay, this is not true on some of the other online sites I use, I am thinking of the related costs in them as "breaking into them" costs).

Sadly I have not enough hours in the day to truly understand why my current processes in ebayland are working, so I've fallen into a "management by exception" phase, where I'll keep doing what I'm doing until a bad trend begins and then I'll have to review and adjust again. The good news for me at this point is that the selling cost changes are not a problem. I am not sure though about the "policy" stuff, I'll have to spend some time looking at that down the road.

Boy I wrote a book, I'd better go do some real work......

[brandeentertainment]

This is only the second time I have ever run auctions I never do ...

my store has 1000 items normally once auctions end

basic $15.95 +25 $42.50 for 1000 listings Total $58.45

Premium $49.95 +$25 for 1000 listings Total $74.95

No Store $47.95 to list 1000 Listings

But I need a store to organize..

As for Auctions my current Final value fee is 9% so I will only see a difference if it sells for over $50 Otherwise no difference from old to new in my category..

[pierrelebel]

"my current Final value fee is 9%"

???

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/storefees.html 

Currently, with your store, FVF for auction listings are only 7.5% for first $50 and 4% over $50 as shown on schedule.

The 9% FVF for auctions is for sellers without a store.

[brandeentertainment]

Goes to show you how long it's been... I think before this last promo I have ran about 80 auctions one other time so never paid attention ... was it 9 a year or 2 ago ??

[pierrelebel]

" was it 9 a year..."

It depends.  When did you open your store?

It has been 9% for sellers without a store.  The lower rate has applied to sellers with a store. That was one of the advantage of paying $16 or $50 a month for a store.

The new system will somehow respect the same concept by having 9% FVF for stores and 10% FVF for non-store sellers.

The two major differences are that the lower tiers (above $50) no longer exist for fixed price listings and FVF have the same percentage regardless whether they are auction or fixed price. That is an important distinction. Will that affect the way you list? Or the number of items you list?

I also noticed that not all your listings qualify for the lower $0.05 listing fee.  Have you factor those in your calculations?

[brandeentertainment]

I started on ebay about 4 years ago but did my first 2 under an old user id ...

All in all this works for me I usually have 1000 listings no more.. almost all will be under $100 Any of those wholesale lots that are more will be adjusted to be priced higher .. I think I have only sold 2 wholesale lots over ebay the rest is from pounding pavement,kijiji etc... I usually never sell Auctions so this part does not really affect me either ,,,

I have a feeling this will hurt ebay and alot of sellers but it good for me .... i have alot of my stuff that cost .20 cents to list selling on amazon instead this change is very nice for me and hate to say it as most people are very upset right now but I am pretty happy..