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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%

#71

Post by jbrowning »

Jsarokin wrote: post #16
minouye wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High fees are bad, but so is low sell-through. How do you drive traffic to listings?

Few ways currently, and more to come in the next few months. Basically: 1. Sharing your listing on social networks (good, not great for driving traffic). 2. Ability to list on multiple marketplaces, so you don't NEED to sell it through SellSimple - you can still list it on ebay, craigslist, etsy, etc. If it sells on one of those marketplaces, we'll auto-delete your item from SellSimple and all the other marketplaces.…

What are you doing to help attract sellers? Any plans for auction-style listings?

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

#72

Post by brink »

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…

Cool, though I wouldn't use it because of the listing page. Your formatting is great for an image search if how the image looks was my only criteria I was looking for. But to find out the price, where it's shipping from, who's selling it, etc. I have to hover over each and every item, and that's rather daunting when it comes to hundreds of results.

I'd really want to be able to scan over hundreds of results in seconds. Not tediously hover over each and every result to see what it's worth. It takes too long.

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

#73

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

YES!!!! The new price changes are actually going to save me money. Plus they're still cheaper than AMAZON.

FYI: I sell on both Amazon and eBay. On ebay I pay for "Buy it Now" listings ($0.50 insertion) and 11% final value fee. So for me the cost is going to drop by 1% and .50 cents.

eBay is doing this to compete and catch up to Amazon. Auctions are a fad on their way out, and "buy it now" is where it's all at. Store style.

Amazon fees are MUCH worse than ebay + paypal fees combined, btw. Plus on Amazon you can't have calculated shipping so you have to buffer your shipping. I had to lie about my calendar weighing 4lbs just so I can force Amazon to calculate shipping more fairly. So sometimes you lose some money and sometimes you win. While on eBay calculated shipping charges buyers based on dimensions, weight, and destination so you charge your buyer the exact shipping cost down to the penny.

The problem with the OLD ebay rates is that they discouraged people from posting "Buy It Now" items. There's a barrier to entry. If you wanted to sell, lets say, 10 products on ebay with a "buy it now" price you had to pay 0.50/listing (not per item or sale) and they would be on there for a month /or/ until that item's quantity reached Zero and sold out. Now, you can put up to 50 items on ebay for free.

Ebay's old prices favored Auctions, ebay's new prices favor store style listings. It's now cheaper to start a store on ebay.

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

#74

Post by jrockway »

ck2 wrote: post #38

Actually the cost to sell on ebay will be closer to 14% since paypal is practically mandatory and they take 3.3% I wonder what they are going to do when all the bigger ticket items start disappearing from listings, except for those with $250 a year stores of course.

As a casual eBay seller, I don't really care about the fees. I mostly want to get rid of stuff and make more money than I would if I threw it in the trash. 1%, 14%, 99%... it's all good.

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

#75

Post by unclebucknasty »

assholesRppl2 wrote: post #35
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…

looks like a good product, downloading now - always willing to try a sales competitor! quick typo in your App Store update description, though! separate. anyone have an easy mnemonic for that?

I've always just mispronounced it mentally: se-par-ate.

"par" is pronounced as in golf and emphasized.

Now that I'm typing this, it sounds a little crazy, but it's always worked for me.

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

#76

Post by Jsarokin »

jbrowning wrote: post #67
icelancer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yup - I think from a technical aspect we could totally have a user purchase before creating an account / signing in, however this limits us when it comes to dealing with fraud as well as brings up problems with the escrow system.

Since all payments enter escrow, without an account, the buyer can't release the payment to the seller.

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

#77

Post by e40 »

The elephant in the room is this: ebay is all but impossible to use for big ticket items. I tried to sell a camera (>$1000) and after two months of agony and several failed auctions, I pulled out of ebay and immediately sold it on craigslist.

Why? Fraud. The first time, I didn't set the option to only sell to established users. I got bids from people with minutes-old accounts that I knew were fraudsters waiting for the end of the auction. Sure enough, they tried to pull a scam and I contacted ebay. After weeks they ended up locking that account. I relisted and the same buyer bid, even though I really cranked up the safety controls that an ebay customer support rep told me to use. The winning bidder? Account created 5 minutes before. I called ebay, said the email I got from the winner was a carbon copy of the first, fraudulent bidder's email.... it still took weeks while I waited for the auction to be voided. The total time I lost was well over a month.

On Craigslist, I definitely got a bunch of scammers, but they had no power over me. I just ignored their emails and waited for someone serious, which didn't take but a few days and we finished the deal at a local bank. We were both happy with the transaction.

I will NEVER use ebay to sell again.

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

#78

Post by itsprofitbaron »

MarkMc wrote: post #32
Jsarokin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few ways currently, and more to come in the next few months. Basically: 1. Sharing your listing on social networks (good, not great for driving traffic). 2. Ability to list on multiple marketplaces, so you don't NEED to sell it through SellSimple - you can still list it on ebay, craigslist, etsy, etc. If it sells on one of those marketplaces, we'll auto-delete your item from SellSimple and all the other marketplaces.…

Here's an idea to really drive traffic: Your fees are 5%, eBay users will soon be charged 13% (including PayPal fee). So give your sellers the option to list on SellSimple for a price 5% less than eBay. For example, a $100 item on eBay would sell for $95 on your site. Then in the ebay listing description add some key phrase like "Heyy Folks Be Quick" - the buyers will quickly learn that such a phrase means "get a 5%…

Your idea is against eBay's Link Policy[1] and eBay actively remove listings (and in some cases limit users ability to sell on eBay) as their Policy states if you link to non-eBay sites where other items are offered for sale.

Likewise, adding a phrase which may even suggest purchasing for less on another marketplace will probably lead to them editing or removing the listing from eBay as well.

If you are going to do that idea then, do it as a marketing campaign, not on eBay listings.

[1] http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-links.html

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

#79

Post by unclebucknasty »

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…

What are you doing for fraud? I can tell you from (too much) experience that as soon as you gain any traction in being the "broker" between parties in transactions, you will become a magnet for a non-stop, cat-and-mouse, painful game of fraud.

After years of fighting and with a dedicated team, eBay is still losing that battle.

And, as the "conduit" for this fraud, you will be blamed by both buyers and sellers, which is obviously no good for your brand.

Not to be negative, but fraud can literally put you out of business.

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

#80

Post by eli »

gallerytungsten wrote: post #69
icelancer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

By requiring a credit card to bid?
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