Newsletter: Auction fees

[cocollectibles]

I'm not clear on this announcement in the latest newsletter (heck, I don't even remember the original announcement about this!):

As of January 1, 2012, our listing fees for auction and non-store items were changed to be 50 free per month, followed by a 2¢ listing fee for each item after the first 50, if your sell through rate on auctions was under 5% (you sold less than 1 in 20 auctions).

Is this based on the total number of auctions listed for the month, or is it based on each auction group? For example, let's say I list three auctions this month, each with 50 items.

The first auction sells no items but it is the first 50 items, so no listing fee. I got that.

The second auction sells only 1 item out of 50 for a 2% rate, and the third auction sells 10 items out of 50 for a 20% rate. The average sell through rate of the second and third auctions is 11/100 items or 11%.

So will I be charged the 2c listing fee for all unsold items on the second auction only, or not charged since my auction total this month was 11% after the first 50 free listings?

[Mark]

This wasn't an announcement with details about the change, just a quick reminder. For full details, see the original Newsletter announcement:

http://www.bidstart.com/Today-in-Histor ... isplaynews

Any seller which would have been effected was also emailed directly several times throughout December and January, and we followed up by phone and email with any affected sellers who did not make appropriate changes after January 1.

There's no concept of 3 'auctions' with 50 items. That's just 150 auction listings. The auction sell through rate is based on your last 30 days of auctions. That information was included in the original announcement (above), and in the emails we sent directly to affected sellers.

-Mark

[cocollectibles]

Thanks; I missed that original announcement and your reply cleared it up. I understand the logic to address the sellers who are flooding the market with auctions at store prices or close to them. The only thing about this is, it can also work against sellers who list auctions at "real" auction prices (1c to 10c) for higher valued items, yet sell very few.

[Mark]

Almost all of our sellers who list higher valued items, at 1c to 10c starting prices, sell well above 1 in 20 auctions (which makes sense, since the starting bids are so low). Which is why we added that threshold, to ensure those sellers are not affected by this change, and can continue listing auctions the same way that they currently do.

For example, that's similar to what you do, and you have a current 35% auction sell through rate, which is well above 5%, so you wouldn't be charged any auction listing fees.

-Mark

[bidskw]

I am a little upset about this. I did not see the original announcement about the change and the only reason I ever put up auctions in the first place was last year when the pricing structure changed we were told the advantage was that it would be free for someone like me that has a basic store subscription to list auctions for free. I do not know why I do not remember seeing the first notice about this change - but I would have limited my auctions to 50. Now that I have listed over 200 this month - I see i was charged the additional listing fee - which I did not notice since I switched store items to auctions in batches and I never saw a warning about additional fees as they were converting from store items to auctions.

[Mark]

If the you've exceeded the 50 free auctions per month, and have a sell through rate of less than 5% there is a large warning message displayed at the top of the My bidStart Selling sections. It's very large, and has an exclamation. So if you were moving store items to auction, you would have seen this message displayed to you.

It looks like you're just under the 5% threshold at 4.5%. If you review the items you're sending to auction, you can probably easily get above the 5% threshold, and continue to list auctions for free. If you go to the site fees page, or click on the "More Details" link (which takes you to the site fees page), you'll see your current sell through rate displayed there.

Also, just to note, if you've listed 200 auctions, with the first 50 being free, the next 150 would only have a total fee of $3-

-Mark

[michael78651]

I think something important like this should also be posted in the Forums. I also missed this announcement in the newsletter.

[Mark]

Not all members use our forums, but every seller whom is affected would see a large highlighted note in their My bidStart area - which can't be missed. If you haven't seen the message - you're not affected. We also contacted any affected sellers directly by phone and email. Most sellers aren't affected in any way by this change. Only about 2% of our sellers were affected.

-Mark

[bidskw]

I did not see that message on the top of the selling page until today - so either I was not looking for it - or it was not there. No I know to limit my auctions each month. I assume it was there and because I just selected an entire page of items and hit the move to auction for all 100 at once - I must have missed it. Thanks, STEVE

[michael78651]

Not all members use our forums, but every seller whom is affected would see a large highlighted note in their My bidStart area - which can't be missed. If you haven't seen the message - you're not affected. We also contacted any affected sellers directly by phone and email. Most sellers aren't affected in any way by this change. Only about 2% of our sellers were affected.

-Mark

I understand that not everyone reads the Forums, but many do. Many don't read the newsletters. What's wrong with another venue of providing the message of a change in terms of selling on this site? Only 2% may be affected, but there's always someone who could become affected and not know about it. I bet that person won't be a "happy camper", and then there's negative publicity about the site when that seller leaves. When banks want to change their credit card fee structure, they have to notify all the card holders.

The message in the Forum could simply say "make sure to read this month's newsletter for a special announcement about a change in the fee structure. Other than that, it is simply just a copy and paste of the newsletter item into a Forum message. This is the fair thing to do for the sellers, and I don't think is asking too much from the management.

[Mark]

What's wrong with another venue of providing the message of a change in terms of selling on this site?

That's exactly what we've done. However, the other venue besides newsletters, and besides direct emails, and besides phone calls to affected sellers, was to place a very large notice at the top of the My bidStart Selling sections. A place where every seller who is affected would view and see. A venue in which 100% of our sellers view. We also plan to leave this notice at the top of the page permanently, once it affects a seller. So it's a constant reminder. So there won't be a case where a seller becomes affected and doesn't know about it.

-Mark

[OPMP728]

OMG- I missed that annoucement too. I wasn't active this passed two months because of personal reason. I was just doing a quick auctions relisting for about over 300 items.Now I received the bill and was surprice at the total , because I know that I didn't sell that much. But anyway i cklick to make the payment and was even more surprice- The bill has more than bouble-WOW. ( my sell for the year is much less then that)
Now I read in the forum - that the fees has changed. What can I do now? Can I END the auctins early -and get the refund?
I just relisted them yesterday and some today.Because when I was relisting them- I have no way of knowing about the fees.

[Mark]

Just contact our support staff, and we'll work with you on this. Click on the "Contact Us" link at the top right of any page on bidStart (excluding the forums).

-Mark

[cocollectibles]

I just discovered that if you go to the Fees link at the bottom of the (non-Forum) bidStart pages, you can see your rate of auction sales for the month.

[OPMP728]

I just discovered that if you go to the Fees link at the bottom of the (non-Forum) bidStart pages, you can see your rate of auction sales for the month.

Ok-Thank You Mark!