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EBay is about to increase its seller fees to 10%

pages.ebay.com

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Re: EBay is about to increase its seller fees to 10%

#61

Post by api »

anigbrowl wrote: post #2

If you were looking to dirupt eBay's business model, you couldn't pick a better time. While considering a price adjustment on a high-value item I'm selling, I went to their fee calculator to explore some other price points. I was mystified to see not only the fee I expected of ~$55, but a 'New Fee' of $123. Thinking I'd made a mistake, I explored further, and noticed that as of April 16, casual sellers who don't have…

Their site is rather awful too. Someone needs to Hipmunk them to hell and back.

Re: EBay is about to increase its seller fees to 10%

#63

Post by GFischer »

anigbrowl wrote: post #2

If you were looking to dirupt eBay's business model, you couldn't pick a better time. While considering a price adjustment on a high-value item I'm selling, I went to their fee calculator to explore some other price points. I was mystified to see not only the fee I expected of ~$55, but a 'New Fee' of $123. Thinking I'd made a mistake, I explored further, and noticed that as of April 16, casual sellers who don't have…

I'm not sure if it holds for all items, but for the collectibles I buy, most of the sellers are actually companies, which are better served by their own ecommerce platform, but use eBay due to the discoverability / traffic.

There are thousands upon thousands of small stores - I believe the alternative to eBay should be a vertical search engine that aggregates all those stores.

Maybe a homogeneus e-commerce platform (with some sort of discoverability for their items) + vertical search engines.

For the individual "garage sale" sellers, something like Craigslist or other classifieds, that just has a listing fee and doesn't handle payment & shipping.

Re: EBay is about to increase its seller fees to 10%

#64

Post by tocomment »

I've found selling on Amazon to be a good alternative for most mainstream, easily shippable items. You don't have to fool with writing your catchy description and worry about auction timing, reserve prices, etc. And I'd guess the fees are lower?

Do you guys agree? Are there other good alternatives?

Re: EBay is about to increase its seller fees to 10%

#65

Post by homosaur »

tempestn wrote: post #29
anigbrowl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's OK if you have a store, but you are paying a monthly fee for the privilege and FVFs are close to what they are now. As an occasional seller who does maybe 5-10 moderately high value trades a year, it's a terrible deal - simplicity is not worth hundreds a year in additional fees, or an equally complicated 'store' that I have no wish to rent.

Agree with you there. Presumably eBay is looking for more volume of the smaller stuff, which would fit with the theme of strengthening competition with Amazon. For the larger stuff, they don't have as strong a competitor (outside local options like craigslist), so they probably figure they can afford to boost their margins, and bundling it in with a 'simplification' and cuts elsewhere is a convenient time to do it.

Does eBay actually think they have any juice to compete with Amazon when Amazon offers warehousing and tons of other vendor services? Sounds more like the last gasps of AOL when they were trying to deliver pretend Internet.

Re: EBay is about to increase its seller fees to 10%

#66

Post by homosaur »

dreen wrote: post #44

I was successfully deterred off eBay when I tried to sell a hot item (recently released top range smartphone), other people selling same items just register bogus accounts and sabotage your auction. Getting insertion fees back is not always guaranteed, I spent almost £40 on them. Fuck eBay.

I couldn't give negative feedback to a nonpayer fake buyer because I sold the item 2nd chance. That will be my last trip ever to eBay to sell anything.

Re: EBay is about to increase its seller fees to 10%

#67

Post by jbrowning »

icelancer wrote: post #40
Jsarokin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to see this move by eBay - we've found that high fees for casual sellers is a huge pain point. By focusing their fee structure towards power-sellers they also happen to be alienating a large group of casual sellers. We're trying to solve this problem (among others) with our product SellSimple. Free app, free postings, and 5% if it sells. Check it out, would love to know what you think: http://sellsimple.c…

I looked at it; very interesting. But why does someone have to sign-in to buy? That is a major turn-off. I can't use something that people need to register an account for to buy. Just take a CC and shipping info and pass it to me.

Seems to be a fraud deterrent. I once had an eBay listing that was "purchased" by a Nigerian scammer. Buyers need to have a reputation system as well in a viable eBay replacement.

Re: EBay is about to increase its seller fees to 10%

#68

Post by Spooky23 »

Jsarokin wrote: post #10
anigbrowl wrote: post #2

If you were looking to dirupt eBay's business model, you couldn't pick a better time. While considering a price adjustment on a high-value item I'm selling, I went to their fee calculator to explore some other price points. I was mystified to see not only the fee I expected of ~$55, but a 'New Fee' of $123. Thinking I'd made a mistake, I explored further, and noticed that as of April 16, casual sellers who don't have…

Interesting to see this move by eBay - we've found that high fees for casual sellers is a huge pain point. By focusing their fee structure towards power-sellers they also happen to be alienating a large group of casual sellers. We're trying to solve this problem (among others) with our product SellSimple. Free app, free postings, and 5% if it sells. Check it out, would love to know what you think: http://sellsimple.c…

This is their way of dealing with seller-side fraud -- drive out the small sellers. eBay has more leverage over the big guys anyway.

Re: EBay is about to increase its seller fees to 10%

#69

Post by gallerytungsten »

icelancer wrote: post #40
Jsarokin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to see this move by eBay - we've found that high fees for casual sellers is a huge pain point. By focusing their fee structure towards power-sellers they also happen to be alienating a large group of casual sellers. We're trying to solve this problem (among others) with our product SellSimple. Free app, free postings, and 5% if it sells. Check it out, would love to know what you think: http://sellsimple.c…

I looked at it; very interesting. But why does someone have to sign-in to buy? That is a major turn-off. I can't use something that people need to register an account for to buy. Just take a CC and shipping info and pass it to me.

>But why does someone have to sign-in to buy?

How would eBay enforce "your bid is a contract" for auctions without user authentication?

Re: EBay is about to increase its seller fees to 10%

#70

Post by joonix »

Nursie wrote: post #52
anigbrowl wrote: post #2

If you were looking to dirupt eBay's business model, you couldn't pick a better time. While considering a price adjustment on a high-value item I'm selling, I went to their fee calculator to explore some other price points. I was mystified to see not only the fee I expected of ~$55, but a 'New Fee' of $123. Thinking I'd made a mistake, I explored further, and noticed that as of April 16, casual sellers who don't have…

Is gumtree a thing in the US? Worked very well for me in Australia and was mostly free (you only pay for 'premium' listings). You did have to sell locally and usually actually meet the people you were selling to, but it did seem to work.

Gumtree is a richer form of our Craigslist. I've had better experiences on Gumtree, because there's less volume and better sorting. Craigslist is a non-profit, though.
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