Ebay Plays Dirty - Spins Crippling Higher Fees for Auctions/Store Items as 'Great News'
In this Issue:Ebay Plays Dirty - Fees SkyrocketSpotlight on Sellers - ApfelbaumRecently Bid On ItemsFeatured ItemsWin Items! Enter Our Monthly GiveawaysEbay Plays Dirty - Fees Skyrocket
Ebay is up to their old tricks again
with their latest announcement made earlier today. With the headline
“Our lowest insertion fees ever coming this spring: free
auction-style listings; fixed price as low as 3c with full search
exposure” you would expect that selling on ebay is going to be
less expensive. At the very least you would think that auction-style
listings will soon be free to list. However, nothing could be further
from the truth. The headline itself is so misleading it should be
considered an outright lie!
In many cases, sellers will soon be
paying 50%-200% more in fees to ebay. Even if you have read ebay's
entire announcement you may have very well overlooked this because
almost all of the fee increases were hidden on a separate 'details'
page. However, once
all the details are taken into account, it's easy to see past ebay's
deceit. For example, the headline mentions “Free auction-style
listings.” However, this only applies to auction-style listings
99 cents and under (with further restrictions as well). As for the
fixed price listings (which are replacing store listings) at 3c per
item per month? That rate only applies if you subscribe to a $299.95
per month Anchor store subscription.
You can review most of the fee
increases on ebay's announcement 'details' page directly on ebay here. Keep in mind you'll still need to scroll
down the page past even more spin to get to the actual details. To
help get past the trickery, we'll give you an overview as well.
First, let's take a look at the new insertion and final value fees
for auction-style listings (some categories may have different fees):
Old
|
Starting
Price
|
Insertion
Fees
|
|
$0.01–$0.99
|
$0.15
|
|
$1.00–$9.99
|
$0.35
|
|
$10.00–$24.99
|
$0.55
|
|
$25.00–$49.99
|
$1.00
|
|
$50.00–$199.99
|
$2.00
|
|
$200.00-$499.99
|
$3.00
|
|
$500.00
|
$4.00
|
|
Selling
Price
|
Final
Value Fee
|
|
Item
Not Sold
|
No
Fee
|
|
$0.01-$24.99
|
8.75%
|
|
$25.00-$1,000.00
|
3.50%
|
|
$1,000.01
& up
|
1.50%
|
* All Final Value Fees are inclusive.
Example, for an item $25.01-$1000 you would pay 8.75% of the initial
$25.00 ($2.19), plus 3.50% of the remaining closing value balance
|
New
|
Starting
Price
|
Insertion
Fees
|
|
$0.01–$0.99
|
FREE!*
/ $0.10
|
|
$1.00–$9.99
|
$0.25
|
|
$10.00–$24.99
|
$0.50
|
|
$25.00–$49.99
|
$0.75
|
|
$50.00–$199.99
|
$1.00
|
|
$200 & up
|
$2.00
|
|
Selling
Price
|
Final
Value Fee
|
|
Item
Not Sold
|
No
Fee
|
|
$0.01
& up
|
9.00%
($50 cap)
|
* Up to 100 items per month, without a
store subscription
|
As you can see, there are no longer
tiers for final value fees of auction-style listings. According to
ebay they decided to help sellers by making the final value fee a
simple flat rate of 9% (with a $50 cap). There reasoning behind this
is that sellers not only won't mind higher fees if they are easier to
calculate, but sellers should prefer them!
Now for a look at some examples. What
fees are you currently paying, and will you soon be paying when you
list an item at auction for $40, and it sells for $65? Currently on
ebay this would cost you $4.59 in total fees. By March, when ebay's
new fees take effect you'll be paying $6.60 in total fees, an
increase of 44%. List and sell an auction at $150? That would cost
$8.57 currently, and will soon cost a total of $14.50 in fees, an
increase of 69%! For comparison, on bidStart that same item would
cost $5.62 in total fees, almost a third the cost (and even less
currently for non-stamp items).
In ebay's defense, you can save on
final value fees for auctions by subscribing to a store subscription.
However, you'll need to pay a monthly store subscription fee, and
while the final value fees for auction-style listings are tiered with
a store subscription, they're still higher than they are now.
Store subscriptions themselves are
drastically changing as well. To start, store subscriptions will no
longer allow sellers to list store items. Store items will be
replaced by fixed price 30 day listings. Depending on the level of
store subscription you have, you'll pay different listing fees for
fixed price 30 day listings (which your store listings will be
automatically converted to in March).
Old
|
Store
Item Price
|
$1.00-$24.99
|
$25.00-$199.99
|
$200.00+
|
|
Insertion
Fee
|
$0.03
|
$0.05
|
$0.10
|
New
(Per 30 Days)
|
Fixed
Price Insertion Fees
|
|
eBay
Stores Level
|
Anchor
($299.95/month)
|
Premium
($49.95/month)
|
Basic
($15.95/month)
|
Standard Fees
(non-subscriber)
|
|
Insertion
Fee
|
$0.03
|
$0.05
|
$0.20
|
$0.50
|
While each seller will need to figure
out what their own costs will be, in most cases the cost to maintain
a store will be skyrocketing. For example currently a store owner with
a basic store subscription who has 1,000 items between $1.00 and
$24.99 pays $30.00 in insertion fees, plus a $15.95 store
subscription. In March the insertion fees alone with a basic store
subscription will be $200.00! A store owner could upgrade to a
premium store subscription, to save some money. However, this would
result in $50.00 for insertion fees, plus a $49.95 store
subscription. So total monthly store listing/subscription fees would
increase from $45.95 a month to $99.95 a month - over a 100%
increase! Final Value fees in most categories for items under $25
remain the same at 12%, and are slightly less than they are now for
items over $25. So overall, if you own a store on ebay expect to be
paying significantly more than ever before. Or, you could switch to
bidStart!
With the recent launch of our new
collectible categories, very low selling fees and unrivaled customer
service, there's never been a better time to switch to bidStart.
Especially with the recent antics of ebay! We also offer an easy ebay
sync process, which lets you copy all of your current ebay store and
fixed price listings to bidStart. In as little as 2 minutes you can
set up a store on bidStart, and schedule all of your ebay listing to
be imported, whether you have 1,000 or 50,000 listings.
Our sync process not only imports your
listings, but can keep your listings on bidStart automatically synced
with your ebay listings. We can automatically add any new listings to
bidStart which you add on ebay, and end any listings on bidStart
which you end or sell on ebay. So why not import your listings today,
experience the benefits and low cost of bidStart over the next few
months, and then once your ebay fees skyrocket you can make the
switch over exclusively to bidStart! If you don't personally list
items on ebay yourself, be sure to tell everyone you know. As always,
we'd love to hear from you, and will promptly respond to your email.
Just reply to this message, or use the 'Contact Us' form on our
website if you have any questions, or would like any additional
information.
Mark Rosenberg
President
bidStart / StampWants
Spotlight on Sellers - Apfelbaum
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