"EBay profits take a leap"
That was the headline in a newspaper article that I read yesterday in the Stratford Beacon Herald. The article originated in San Francisco. The subtitle reads: "Up 50 per cent in second quarter".
Could that possibly be because they doubled the listing fees? What a way to show investors that they are doing well!
Another line reads: "But analysts remained concerned about the declining number of items for sale on the site."
Could the reason be the doubling of listing fees and the closing of stores indiscriminately with the attitude that you are guilty until proven innocent?
The last paragraph reads:
"Despite rosy financial performance, the company hasn't been able to maintain the number of listings on its e-commerce sites. Instead, it's wringing more money out of a shrinking number of listings."
We have been exhibiting at a popular festival for the past 14 years. As the number of vendors has steadily shrank, the cost of doing the show has steadily climbed to the point that we decided not to do it this year because the profit margin would be so low even if sales are good.
Maybe I am missing something here, but would it not be better to reduce costs (both at this festival and on eBay), thereby attracting more sellers since it would then be profitable for them to be there? After all, both this festival and eBay would be nothing without the sellers. The festival is funding the entire day's events on the backs of the vendors and I believe that unless things change they will price themselves out of business. The same principle can be applied to eBay.
This festival charges for space and then charges sellers 10% of their days' sales as well. It is a well known fact that the majority of vendors do not pay the full amount at the end of the day making it a very unfair system. The parallel that I see with eBay is the fact that eBay allows the big sellers to get away with listing fee avoidance by charging excessive s/h fees. That makes eBay an unfair playing field for the sellers on eBay who do not participate in that practice. And they wonder why the number of listings is decreasing!
I spent hours listing items for the 5 cent listing day. I divided them up between 5 and 7 day listings to spread them out and not have them all end on that last day. Sales were terrible. Maybe they will improve when we move into fall and people start buying for Christmas. But with my biggest competitor charging 1 to 99 cents and then charging super inflated s/h I could also take a beating.
Come on eBay. Enforce your listing fee avoidance policies for the big sellers and don't push the small sellers away or you will end up as just another Walmart!
