Ebay Store Operators Fee Increases

[Robev]

I don't know how many of you or if any of you are eBay Store Operators but if any of you are I would like to hear your opinions on the Listing Fee Increases of up to 400% and the Success Fee Increases of up to 25%.

Thanks for your input

Cheers all

[JAC]

WOW! .... so an item selling in a shop for between 5-10 UKP was charged a final value fee of around 7% .... that has gone up to 18% !!!!!!!!!!!! when you add in the paypal fees its probably closer to 25%. Ebay must be sure of themselves in the markeplace... lets see... drive away some sellers straight away with the price hikes.. force other sellers to push prices up and the net result is buyers go because it is too expensive and there is not as much choice as before. Look out for some creative accounting from ebay.. maybe they are in trouble.. spending big wads of cash on skype and other auctions sites.

[chipcollector]

400%? I think that's completely false

[JAC]

[Robev]

[Robev]

This Link makes for some interesting reading:

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jspa?threadID=2000181776&start=0

Cheers all

[FDIV]

I must say, I have a mixed reaction to this announcement. On the one hand I hated the stores because sellers used them as a way to list a high volume of crap (most of which would not sell but who cares fees were cheap) that I had to wade though. On the other hand greedy bastard ebay really dosen't need any more cash and to me this reveals a great deal about the way ebay thinks they can make money. They figure that if they raise fees they will get paid more. This is untrue though. Liberal politicions in the U.S. are always trying this. They figure they will increase taxes and then get more revenue but it dosen't work. The reason it dosen't work is that raising taxes/fees is a variable in itself that changes the equation. In the U.S. when taxes raise income drops dramatically. This happens because most of the taxed income in the U.S. comes from the top %20 of earners who have a great deal of flexability regarding when they make their money. If you raise taxes they just don't move assets in such a way as to have them taxed (incedentaly this has an unfortunate affect on the rest of the economy which decreases the income of poorer americans as well). The resualt is less income to tax at the higher rate resualting in less revenue. Ebay will see this as they raise fees. Their will simply be fewer things sold to collect fees on. Their will also be fewer things unsold but listed to collect fees on. And finaly the things listed and sold will be sold for a lower, not higher, price as a resualt of sellers being more worried about loosing all those listing fees on an item that dosen't sell. All in all it will hurt their bottom line a great deal. You know, with all that money they ought to hire a good economist. If they desired to reduce clutter auctions (as they claim ) They should have raised listing fees and dramaticaly lowered final value fees as an incentive to sellers to list items that will actually sell.

On a side note I do not belive that ebay will loose out clients to other auction sites because of any of this though. Ebay has an almost total monopoly. They are like a government. They may get more or less revenue but I doubt anyone will move to canada because of any of this.

[Robev]

This is a good intepretation of the Ebay Letter to Store Operators:

Instead of following our instructions on how to we want you to run your business, you have ignored us and continued to grow your store business at a much faster rate than you have grown your auction listing business.

While most businesses would be delighted to have this growth in revenue and profitability, the large fund managers and analysts that we answer to do not like the trend. This has caused the value of our stock to decline. The lower stock price has negatively impacted the bonus component of our compensation, not to mention a dramatic decrease in the value of our stock options.

We realize that you may be driven by your desire to increase your profits, but your first responsilibity to keep our business profitable with quartlerly results that impress our large investors. After all wihout us, you would not have an auction or store business.

Unfortunately, your defiant behavior has made it necessary for us to re-purchase millions of shares to increase the value of our stock and restore our lost compensation. Since you have created this problem for us, we have decided to let you fund the repurchase of these shares by increasing your store fees. We also hope that the fee increases will help you to understand that we want you to do more auction listings while continuing to pay your store fees.

Please help put this issue begin us so we can focus our creative energies on more productive endeavors. Your cooperation in this matter will help us to focus on new and innovative ways to micro manage you, and charge you more while delivering less. We will reward you for your cooperation by investing billions in unrelated businesses and establishing new marketplaces in third world countries.

Regards,

THE MAN

I saw this on another Website and feel that it is very relevant
Cheers all

[FDIV]

You hit that nail right on the head.