Sunday, January 31, 2010

Ebay Raises Fees Not Lowers Them and the Press Has Blinders on the Story!


Ebay is lying to the public, media and all its loyal sellers once again.  They have raised prices and not lowered them.

For the first 100 auctions that you post you will not incur a .15 cent fee if you post them below $1.  However, if you want to post them at $1 or more you will be paying the regular fee plus a higher final value fee as 8.75% has gone up to 9%.   That is an increase and not a reduction for many sellers.  If you sell more than 100 items a month then you will pay .15 cents for everything over 100 auctions plus a 9% fee.  That is an increase.  So there is no relief for sellers if you really look at what ebay is doing. 

Now if you own a store the increase is even greater.   They have offered 3 new payment plans for stores.  On the present plan all store owners pay $15 a month for 3 cent listing fees for 30 days.  With the new plan to get 3 cent listings you will have to pay $300 a month!  If  you want the $15 plan then you will pay .20 cents for each posting.  From 3 cents to 20 cents is an increase and not a reduction.

The fourth estate has fallen for the ebay lies and said it was a lowering of prices.  They should be ashamed of themselves for doing such a poor job when it comes to investigating the behavior of ebay especially during such hard economic times.   Most of the business on ebay are mom and pop stores and these increases are just too much for them in today's economy.  

There is also a failure of the press to pick up on the fact that ebay takes a double hit on its fees because they own paypal and have set it up so most sellers have no choice but to accept paypal only as money orders and checks are no longer allowed.   So you pay the ebay auction fees plus the ebay/paypal fees.  You get hit twice.   The paypal fees have also gone up since ebay took them over.  

Now one good idea is that ebay is offering buyer protection meaning they will pay for items if buyer gets a poor item or has trouble with seller.   The only question I have on this is why are sellers who sell large amounts allowed on if they get 20 negatives in a month?  I buy as well as sell on ebay and I find it unfair when I see someone with 20+ negatives in a 6 month period still selling on ebay.   Most of those sellers are ignoring buyers and think they can do whatever they want.  They are a legal business and need to behave like one. Ebay let's them get away with it because they sell high volume.   If ebay ends up paying too much in buyer protection they may wake up to this problem as it hurts all ebayers and the ebay community. 

Ebay should be ashamed of itself for lying to its sellers and the public and the press should be ashamed for not investigating false claims.

2 comments:

  1. Go Zippin! is a simple-to-use new classifieds marketplace with no fees whatsoever.

    http://www.gozippin.com

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  2. I figure I would give you a couple of free tools for selling on other marketplaces - Calculate your selling price with the selling fees by profit margin or gross profit dollars for Google Checkout, Paypal and Amazon Marketplace.  Now you know what to charge a customer by using the following free tools, PayPal calculator, Google Checkout Calculator and an Excel sheet that you can download that will be an Amazon Marketplace fee Calculator.

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