eBay May Eliminate Listing Fees
Aug 23rd, 2008 by Sally
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The Pros and ConsIs eBay Trying To “Cuddle Up” To Sellers? |
| Business as usual at eBay is in chaos. Partly because eBay has made some serious changes and then rescinded those changes and partly because sellers have become alienated and disappointed with their sales and decided to leave.Since January of 2008 there have been so many rule changes that even as a PowerSeller with 5 years experience, I can’t keep track of them. Many of them, I don’t even understand.One day you can have links to your website, the next you can’t. Wait a minute - Now they’ve reversed the decision and you can have links to your website - but only 1. What about your blog? I think you could only have one link previously, but I am not sure.Last week a new rule went into effect that allows you to list 20 or 30 of the same item, but only 1 will show in the search page, until someone bids, then item 2 will show along with item 1. But, never more than 10 on the same listing page. So you could have 30 items with 10 each on 3 pages assuming you received bids on 29 of them. Even though they probably won’t hit the listing page, you will still pay the listing fees just like before. Sellers with limited products are changing their listings so that product 1 which is the same as product 10 looks different. Different picture, description and titles. “Make Money on EBay”, “Earn $5,000 in one hour on eBay”.Late last week it was rumored that eBay will push the fall season by announcing “no listing fees”. There are two ways this could roll out on eBay. One - a flat out “everything listed” or a gradual “Category” identification. So, some categories would get the honored position of no listing fees. If I had to guess, it would be categories where almost everything sells in the first 7 days…..such as “coins” or, in general, “collectibles”.
The downside of all these changes “en mass” is that sellers cannot get their bearings on the best way to list their items. I have a friend who decided to ignore all those changes and keep listing just like she always had. Her sales have slumped and she has been forced to list twice what she used to in order to get the same sales she had last year. The moral to this story is, eBay is very much like the environment. Tiny changes can have awesome consequences.When I was a child, the big thing during the summer was having your block sprayed with DDT. The goal was to get rid of those nasty mosquitos. Trucks would run up and down our street at 10:00 at night with billowing clouds of spray spewing from their spraying hoses. It worked. Then we found out that the moths were becoming a problem. Somehow the absence of mosquitos had caused the moth population to quadruple. Everytime the city went after another bug, we had new problems to contend with. Illness from the DDT spray, squirrel population dwindling, Dutch Elm disease.This is what eBay (the city) is doing today. I can no longer get my bearings on which day to list. Can I list the same thing twice? Can I link to my blog and my website? With this in mind, here is my assessment of the pros and cons of the rumor to end listing fees. PROS 1. At first I was elated. I am a small PowerSeller with my own store: Take The Leap Today. I could list something and not worry whether it will sell or not. Just make it automatically renew if it doesn’t. Not to worry, it doesn’t cost me a thing. 2. I could also list some of those “hard to sell” items that I won’t pay listing fees on now because it could take months to sell. 3. I can list 100 items instead of 4 or 5. 4. I am willing to pay up to 15% final value fee because it will take a long time to sell and I will add that extra 8% onto my selling price. $10.00 item will sell for $12.00. Price increase problem conquered. CONS 1. What if everyone else does the same thing? They could list 100 hard to sell items and they would be listed mixed in with my 100 hard to sell things. Maybe 3 months to sell would become 6 months. 2. What if I go in to buy something and find the entire category filled with thousands of “hard to sell” items which I would never buy. How many page listings will I go through just to find what I am looking for. 3. eBay recently stated that they are a platform that other people use and they cannot “police” all these listings. What about the jerks that list 100’s of items that are frauds or scams? FINAL DECISION I would seriously consider a 6 month “no listing fee” policy. After 6 months, eBay would have to decide if this was good for the PowerSellers or not. What’s good for the seller is good for eBay. At least I could adopt a new selling strategy, which right now, is sorely lacking. |
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