w~~_7.JPG "pjcdn2005"){kind=avatar}
With the stores changes of March 2013 I warned this was coming. eBay is heavily tilted in favour of "user pay".
I pay for my store and I am inundated with promos. So far for June I have had at least five, that I remember, totally tens of thousands of listings.
Legend, this as good as will get for non-store sellers. I predict it will get a lot worse. Your choice as to what you want to do.
Do not like it if you do not want to, that is your right. But? How will that solve your problems?
I pay for my store and I am inundated with promos. So far for June I have had at least five, that I remember, totally tens of thousands of listings.
Legend, this as good as will get for non-store sellers. I predict it will get a lot worse. Your choice as to what you want to do.
Do not like it if you do not want to, that is your right. But? How will that solve your problems?
"making our lives as sellers pure hell. "
???
If I may.
I have seen several posts by you over the months, using your posting ID, with similar very negative comments about eBay.
Why bother? Why sell on eBay if things are so bad for you?
eBay offers a free listing promotion: still not good enough for you. They offer another one: still not good enough for you.
What is the point of all your negative posts?
I have an ex who is/was dedicated to making my life "pure hell". She was pretty good at it. On a scale of 1-100, she was probably about an 85. eBay? They are a 1.
eBay I can get up and walk away from anytime I like. The other things in my life? Not so much.
Pierre, that reminds me, I owe a local barista an apology. My travails came out of my mouth when she was being pleasant to me. The look on her face made an impact on me. I thought "Just how negative am I right now? Note to self, stop that.".
eBay I can get up and walk away from anytime I like. The other things in my life? Not so much.
Pierre, that reminds me, I owe a local barista an apology. My travails came out of my mouth when she was being pleasant to me. The look on her face made an impact on me. I thought "Just how negative am I right now? Note to self, stop that.".
Hello 'legendofpikachu',
<<Ebay already costs an arm and a leg with their final value fees which make no sense at all,>>
Well, I don't know about an arm and a leg, - after all, why would ebay be stockpiling other people's limbs?, but the
system does make sense even if it is not always well liked. You've seen this link all about how fees work:
http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/insertion-fee.html#how
The Final Value Fee for your items is probably what, 10%? Other sellers of those same items are paying the same
amount. But if you are paying, say, 30 cents each for a listing fee, on a $2 item, you're right, that is too high.
Why not, then, do as PJ suggests and list them at $1.99 (?) start price on auction when you get free listings to do it that way?
The FVF system is about the 'fairest' way ebay can charge, -- it is a percentage of how much each seller sells. If you are
selling $2 'shipping included' items, indeed you are not making much money. Have you ever considered pricing in US
dollars and listing on 'dot com'? In your listings you mention shipping to the US, but you ship to Canada only so your
items to not appear on the American ebay.
<<How do the little guys make any money?>>
By offering the kinds of items which will turn a bob or two, listing on the US ebay and pricing in American dollars. 
<< eBay is . . . making our lives as sellers pure h*ll.>>
On a day-to-day basis, 'honeybed' you must have an astonishingly wonderful life if all it takes is a little bit of ebay to
turn everything to "pure h*ll". Either that or you are far too young to have encountered any of life's truly cruel experiences.
I envy you in either case.
<<it is becoming more and more "not safe" due to many unreasonable amount of unpaid item bidders >>
Non-paying bidders are not a threat to public safety. They are, however, an irritating nuisance and if you have sent a
pleasant reminder, file an Unpaid item case - each and every time:
http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/unpaid-items.html#work
Doing this gives these irresponsible louts a 'strike', and if they get a second one, it will be very difficult to find available
sellers on ebay. Most sellers block users with 2 or more strikes, so if you have not already set this up, do so here:
http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/manage_bidders_ov.html#set
And as always, if you are one of those people who feel personally violated because some kid doesn't pay for your item,
you may be better off listing your items at a fair price with Immediate Payment Required:
http://pages.ebay.ca/help/pay/require-immediate-payment.html#works
Then you don't have to block anyone at all but no one can grab up your listings without you receiving payment first.
<< Plus ... we don't get any profits from shipping costs >>
Were you expecting you should? Do you imagine it to be your due? Your profit is in your item price. If you
find that insufficient, raise it.
<< I would love to put the final value fees, insertion fees, PayPal fees in the shipping costs >>
Evidently. Try putting them in your item price. When you buy at a grocery store all the merchant's overhead
costs (item costs, import charges, staff, property taxes, utilities, insurance, etc) are in the item price. Or would
you prefer to go to the checkout and learn you are being charged an additional $5.78 per bag?
<<but the buyers are not that stupid as they can research and find the postal rates>>
You sound entirely disappointed when you say that. 
I know you are not going to believe this next bit and you will clearly think I am making it up, -- but there is still a
sizeable number of people around brought up to value honesty and integrity. What you propose is sly deception
and a longing to prey on the ill-informed. Truly successful sellers eschew that kind of behaviour.
<<Very simple to eBay:
No sales - NO final value fees to eBay>>
It's that way already. If you do not get paid, file an Unpaid Item case and get back your fees.
The reason that fees are incurred right away is to offset the tempation to 'sell' the item on ebay but accept
payment elsewhere. Otherwise, if a seller lists an Armani watch and it sells for $2,400, and the buyer picks it up
and pays with a cashier's cheque, -- ebay would get no fees.
Imagine if it was a Hermes Birkin croc bag for $60,000+ instead. That's a lot of FVF.
Ebay is not here to do people a favour, it's a business. Businesses exist to make money. The fairest system is
that everyone pays a percentage of their intake for having used the site.
Familiarize yourself with the tools that are available to you and put together a plan that works best for you. Everyone
is different. Most people will tell you that selling on ebay is not 'easy', but learning and implementing the best practices
will increase your chances of achieving increased rewarding sales transactions.
Best of luck.
Ebay is not here to do people a favour, it's a business.
Further, I am not here to do anyone a favour, I am a business. I can take my business in any number of directions and to any number of platforms. This one works best for me.
" it was harder in the old days around 2000 with a sliding scale for FVF and listing fees that varied depending on the price listed at."
You are so right!
Many sellers do not realize that, back ten years ago, it did cost us a minimum of $0.60 to list a low priced item on eBay (including the "gallery" fee). There was no regular "free listing" promotion (except one day after Christmas). We paid a listing fee for every listing.
Over the years, eBay has slowly moved the overall fees towards FVF by lowering listing fees ("gallery" fee was abolished about five years ago) and increasing FVF. A few years ago, eBay introduced a system of "free insertion fees" while increasing FVF a bit more with discounts offered to Top Rated Sellers to offset the fee increase.
Today the bulk of eBay's revenues come from FVF - in other words if the seller sells, eBay shares in the success.
Still eBay maintains small listing fees to prevent everyone from listing low priced "stuff" that has little chance of selling or bringing profit to sellers. With hundreds of millions of listings already available on the site, there is nothing to gain by anyone, including sellers, by increasing the number of listings through a more liberal policy of free insertion fee. At the end of the day, the overall sales volume on eBay depends on buyers ability to spend on the site.
What we all need are more buyers willing to buy and pay for the the millions of items available, not more "stuff" available only because sellers are not willing to pay a few cents to list them.
"then 2.75%, "
I liked the 1.25% on sales over $1,000. It was great for those large face value lots.
"at least the listing fees we did pay generated sales proportionately more than now. "
That is true. However, eBay has many different sellers today, selling different "stuff". The number of listings available on eBay today is much larger than the increase in sales seen in the last ten years.
Sales may be up three times but the number of listings is up ten times. For most sellers, the "sell thru" rate is lower than it was.
Sellers wishing to sell on eBay today have to adapt to the current reality.
