Ebay Raising Closing Fees/Lowering Listing Fees

[deveandepot1]

EBay adjusts rules for avoiding 'listing' fees
(AP) - 9 hours ago

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) "” EBay Inc. has tweaked the requirements for avoiding "listing" fees when auctioning items on its site, letting users list up to 50 items each month at any starting price and allowing them to add the "Buy it Now" option to listings for free.

EBay has tinkered with its fee structure in recent years in hopes of improving the experience people have on its site and reinvigorating its growth. Changes like the ones announced Tuesday are meant to encourage more people to list items for sale.

The latest changes will be effective April 19.

Last year, the San Jose, Calif., company essentially did away with listing fees for people who occasionally auction items on its site, allowing users to auction up to 100 items each month without paying listing fees. The items had to have a starting bid of less than $1, though, and when they sold eBay would take 9 percent of the final price or $50, whichever was less.

EBay said Tuesday that as part of the changes it will charge sellers a fee of 9 percent of an item's selling price plus the amount the seller charges the buyer for shipping. This fee, which is now capped at $100, is meant to encourage sellers to offer free shipping.

I am glad we have the B&S.

 

[SpooPoker]

Thats nothing new - its been 9% for a few months now - and that bolded part is not accurate, the FVF is capped at $50.

 

[Hombre Secreto]

Before you could at least recover a bit on a loss with the shipping. Oh, well.

 

[greekgeek]

Dear eBay,

Regards,

-SF

 

[APK]

eBay has been trying to nudge its sellers to offer free shipping during the last several years as the site tries to become more Amazon and less of the online swap meet it gained fame for. Media sellers felt that a couple of years ago when eBay implemented the S&H cap on media-related items.

That change left little space between the actual cost to ship the item and the site-enforced cap. eBay framed the change as a means to curtail excessive shipping charges from some sellers. Realistically, though, the slim difference between actual cost and the cap suggests eBay made the change to force its sellers to make up for those losses on shipping costs by raising the prices on the actual items. This, in turn, meant higher final value fees and more money for eBay.

What we're seeing with this change is the same concept, except on a much bigger scale. Even as someone who predominantly sold media items, this latest change is grossly unfair. The shipping caps for media sellers put a squeeze on them, but ultimately, could be worked around. But what about the folks who routinely sell heavy items? This is going to be a huge blow for those guys.

 

[milosz]

**** Ebay. After I sell my Leica gear and some other small **** I hope to never use these F***ers again.

 

[imageWIS]

Someone should come along and make a new eBay, in the style of the old one and completely destroy them.

 

[norcaltransplant]

I wonder what happens to international sales? I recently shipped a pair of shoes to Singapore for an ungodly sum of $44.

 

[Cotillion]

I stopped using EBAY to sell last year, they are f-d up as a company. Use Overstock auctions or something else instead.

 

[intent]

****, I'd better list everything before April.

 

[LatinStyleLover]

They are also completely eliminating the Power Seller 5% disocunt and only allowing the Top Rated Seller doscunt. DSo, after they allowed buyers to get rid of most Top Rated Sellers by giving them low DSR's on shipping costs while protecting those who offered free shipping, now they are essentialy forcing everyone to provide free shipping and ionclude that cost in the price of the item. At least with free shipping buyers will not be able to screw the seller on his shipping cost DSR and since Ebay is now going to take a protion of shipping fees anyway why not just offer free shipping? Ebay has nothing to do with a sellers shipping costs and yet they think they deserve a percentage of it? Never has a company that was once so incredible wroked so hard to destroy itself. Please, Google, Facebook, or some other young-gun billionaire, re-create the old Ebay and you will guarantee yourself another billion dollars!

 

[burningbright]

I'm sure this also being done to curtail the people who routinely start their auctions at one penny or one dollar and then charge $200 for shipping to avoid getting slugged with the hefty final value fees.

Yeah, as a seller I'm fed up and done with ebay. They will eventually destroy themselves, it's just a matter of time.

 

[deveandepot1]

Found this today:

How to avoid eBay.com fees on shipping charges
by Chris Dawson
There’s an interesting wrinkle in the change on eBay.com where fees will be charged on free shipping.

Lets suppose you offer a One-Day shipping service, a slower domestic service and International Shipping options. eBay’s change says that in this instance you’ll only ever be charged final value fees on the slower domestic shipping service.

Final Values Fees will be calculated on the shipping service paid by the buyer unless the buyer pays for a One-day or International shipping option. If a One-day service or International option is selected, the first domestic shipping service offered other than One-day will be used to calculate Final Value Fees. If there are no other domestic shipping services offered, fees will be calculated on One-day service or International service.

There are two important points here, firstly if you currently only offer a One-day shipping or International service you should consider adding an economy service to your shipping options. There’s no need to make it your first shipping option, let buyers downgrade if they really want to use a slower service. However just by offering it means that’s the service your shipping final value fees will be calculated on.

Secondly consider making your first domestic shipping service offered (other than your One-day shipping option) free. This will mean you’ll never be charged final value fees on your shipping costs as they’ll always be based on the free shipping option even if your buyers stick with the first option for One-day shipping or are based overseas.