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Ebay changes…Good or Bad?

Recently, eBay announced several changes that affect sellers greatly. The main changes include lower insertion fees and free gallery. In addition, buyers will only be able to receive positive feedback.

While many fees on the front end have decreased, the final value fees have increased dramatically, going from 5.25% to 8.75% (on the first $25), and from 3.25% to 3.5% from $25.01-$1,000. For eBay store sellers, the increase goes from 10% to 12% on the first $25, and 7% to 8% on the sale total from $25.01 to $1,000. This benefits powersellers that list a lot of items, but ultimately items costs more to sell. See this example below, courtesy of www.auctionbytes.com:

 

Part 1: Individual Item Analysis
Start Price End Price Listing Gallery FVF Total Fee
1 Old Fee Structure $9.99 $100.00 $0.40 $0.35 $3.75 $4.50
2 New Fee Structure $9.99 $100.00 $0.35 $- $4.82 $5.17
3 Difference $ $0.67
4 Difference % 14.8%
5 New DSR 4.6 - 5% FVF Discount $9.99 $100.00 $0.35 $- $4.57 $4.92 9.5%
6 New DSR 4.8 - 15% FVF Discount $9.99 $100.00 $0.35 $- $4.09 $4.44 -1.2%
Part 2: Monthly Overall Impact Old Fees New Fees New Fees New Fees
4.6 DSR 4.8 DSR
7 # Listings/Month 100
8 Listing/Gallery Fee $75.00 $35.00 $35.00 $35.00
9 Sell Through Rate 100%
10 Total Monthly Sales $10,000.00
11 FVF Fees $374.75 $481.50 $457.43 $409.28
12 Total Fees $449.75 $516.50 $492.43 $444.28
13 Total Net Fee Change $
$66.75 $42.68 $(5.47)
14 Total Net Fee Change % 14.8% 8.3% -1.1%
15 Total Fee Change as % of Sales 0.7% 0.4% -0.1%

Powersellers will most likely benefit, or at least break even with the changes. The real winner, of course, is eBay. They will make more money in fees, while being the good guys lowering insertion fees and making gallery free.  Of course, the big loser is the average ebay seller that will have to pay 15% more on average in fees. As far as the feedback goes, my feedback is at 100% and I have always tried to provide exemplary customer service as a seller, so this change doesn’t concern me.  I guess it is good because it will level the playing field.  It ensures that buyers are not being held hostage by sellers threatening to leave negative feedback if they are left negative feedback.