The New eBay fees and pricing :(

[Cauterize]

Sorry to flood this board with so many eBay topics. Mods, if you feel there is a better place for this, then feel free to move it.

Take a look here:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/pricechange08/index.html

This might actually be the time to finally give up on eBay. Ive lost my faith over the last few months, however this seems like the final kick in the teeth.

Basic Shop fee goes up to ?15 from ?6 per month
Listings fees go way up, Games dont fall into the cheap 'media' section they have.
eBay now take a much higher % of your final selling value too...
The only plus side to this now is that Gallery pictures are now free

I worked out, now, I pay ?6 per month for my shop and approx 6p per listing. With approx 1000+ listings, this is working out to around ?66-70 per month + PayPal fees.
However, if i keep the current set up, were looking at ?15 per month for the shop and ?200 per month for all the listings O_o Not including final value fees... Absolute robbery...

If i upgrade to the Featured shop, (was ?30 p/m) at ?50 p/m, listings cost 5p each. This works out to approx ?100 per month not including final value fees.

Now I know alot of you are selling on eBay too and I really would appreciate your views. IMO this is gonna cripple alot of sellers and lot of us will pack it in. It wont be worth it for people selling the odd item here n there.

I seriously think theyve gone too far, with the amount of auctions on at any given point, along with existing shops, the amount of money they make per second must be ridiculous...


So heres the deal.
Eventually, listing all those common games on PS1, MD, SMS, (well any console for that matter) is really not going to be worth it. Half of the stock I currently hold (and alot of yours no doubt) will become pointless to have on eBay.
So, do I bundle up all the crap and sell it on in a big bundle (Proved successful recently with a large PS1 lot) and juxt sell high value items?
Or is it finally time to call it a day and accept that StealBay is just not the place for selling?

Originally my shop was meant to be a stand alone website. Unfortunately, eBay is well known to the retro collectors and a stand alone shop would not get the hits it deserved. Therefore this idea was canned. Obviously there would be no fees involved with this (except web hosting) which would be considerably cheaper, but would it get the sales like eBay does?


Ugh, as im sure you can tell by how poorly composed this message is, im in a bit of a tiz, any views and ideas will be greatly appreciated. We have until late septemeber to decide what to do... Help me NTSC-UK gurus!

Cheers, Adam

[noobish hat]

Why don't you set up the independent site, with links to it from your ebay listings, keep them up for a while till the word gets out, inform your regulars and ****. Put a link to your site in your sig here. Ebay are taking the piss now.

[Cauterize]

Why don't you set up the independent site, with links to it from your ebay listings, keep them up for a while till the word gets out, inform your regulars and ****. Put a link to your site in your sig here. Ebay are taking the piss now.

Thats what im seriously considering right now. Ive got a few ideas in mind i might throw into effect!

My site was originally meant to be independant and a full php shop was 99% complete, however scrapped in favour to eBay (when it was cheap)

The only problem is guaranteed sales. Im gonna make a few calls now n sort out my ideas

[Hohum]

That's quite a hefty increase!

Real shame that Yahoo Auctions decided to become an Asia-only thing, as eBay badly needs some proper competition... and these fee increases just further highlight this.

[mezzanine]

Games are still in the media category on ebay US btw. Typical.

Media categories (Books, Video Games, Music and DVDs/Movies

[Lok]

Ive just hooked up to cqout they say it's the 2nd biggest auction in the uk outside of ebay, give it a look folks.

[Tirian]

Ebay doesn't want to be eBay any longer, it wants to be Amazon Shops. That's what this is all about.

Yeah, the new changes suck. But it will just mean that I switch back to my old method of selling, which was just to auction everything starting for 99p. Unless you're selling either huge volumes, or very high price items then it's insane not to under the new fee structure. I only switched to listing everything BIN when they changed the fee structure to make that way ridiculously cheaper.

BTW - what the hell do they mean when they say "International visibility" on the auction features section? I certainly never paid anything to get "international visibility" before, so what does it mean to say that it currently costs "£0.05 - £0.15" - and that it's going to be "removed for Buy it Now"? Removed, as in there will be no charge - or removed as in 'international visibility' will be removed? That's a pretty important point for me, probably at least half my sales go abroad!

Reading all this through, I'm feeling pretty glad that I pretty much decided to wind up my ebaying already, now that I've started a new job that (a) pays more and (b) requires a lot more work!!

Hopefully I can clear everything out before any this crap actually happens ...

And what the hell's this about? -

Ranking in search results

The placement of your listing in search results will be affected by your Detailed Seller Ratings score and the number of items you sell from a single Buy It Now listing.
The more items you sell, the more likely that listing is to appear higher up in search results.

This is such a bad idea I can't even begin to put it into words. Basically, it means that every search for any kind of laptop / mobile phone / computer related item is going to result in six pages of Hong Kong based sellers each flogging 999 chargers/covers/etc before you actually see any listings for the thing you're actually looking for.

I can tell you now, that feature is going to be abused soooo badly .. and will make shopping on eBay a nightmare. IF you got shares in eBay, I say sell now ..

[angelx]

Wow, this all sounds so messed up, Actually Adam I spotted your Last Battle auction through work (answering a Hokuto No Ken answer, I didnt realise it was related! )

Well I had a few DVDs & clothes I was going to auction but at this rate Ill use it even less than I did before, ranking sellers in the search window just discourages a small seller like me, I too would like to see an alternative as its about time they got a come uppance.

I stopped putting games & DVDS & other stuff on there a long time ago and it might have to stay that way such a shame...

[AllYourBase]

I hardly ever sell on eBay anymore, its too much hassle and too expensive. Playtrade and NTSCUK sales threads FTW!!

[krashed]

Just read all this. It sucks, Ebay are in a monopolistic position (before you even look at the paypal connection) and are abusing their power. Out of all the ebay sites it's Ebay.co.uk that leads the way in the profiteering. I do wonder why thehy are able take us (U.K sellers) for bigger mugs than U.S sellers. Lack of proper competition? Less stringent monopoly laws?.

[yesteryeargames]

EBAY and PAYPAL are the biggest monopolies I have ever seen and need to be challenged - Only problem is it would take alot of time, Money and effort to get the millions of people who are comforable using ebay to swich - However if EBAY continues to abuse its power and a big new auction site was to launch then maybe they will live to regret what they are doing.

How about TESCOauctions.com ! LOL After all they have their greedy mits in most pies?
I would welcome such a thing just to make EBAY think.

If I was a Billionaire (would need to be! C'mon Branson!) I would start a new auction site with free or very much cheaper listing fees etc than ebay and also have a similar paypal system with very low fees. I would make my profit from having some advertising on the auction site.

BTW Cauterize, What is your ebay shop called mate?

[krashed]

Check out ebay singapore- no listing or final value fees- I guess ebay are trying to take out Yahoo Auctions, lest they have competition in any market. http://pages.ebay.com.sg/help/sell/fees.html

[angelx]

Yes, they start off nice to sellers and when they have no competition they tighten the screws as we see now...

[Leon Retro]

People would use other auction sites - if they delivered the items people want - with an easy way to pay.

I'd like to see new auction sites - and new online pay services.

It's funny that there used to be rivals - but they faded away.

Ebay with Paypal, have a monopoly.

I've felt sick everytime I've sold something on Ebay - because of the fees.

Yes, the site has lots of users, eager to buy things, but the extortionate fees that Ebay & Paypal demand, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I can only hope that Virgin, and some other companies, decide to play Ebay at their own game.

Rivalry is what's needed.

[Max P.]

Total sympathy with the OP. I posted the exact same words virtually on another forum (nothing to do with games but bike stuff which is my business). I have a small shop and sell most items under £15 all on buy-it-now fixed price. As with you I lose out in every way - shop fee up to a silly amount, individual listings costs double, final fee up form 7.5% to 9.9%.

It's an absolute ****ing joke. Been with eBay as a seller 8 years and seen fees go up and up and up. They just want the big volumes and stuff the little man.