eBay's 2010 price changes - for anyone who still sells things...

[the blob]

I was not so worried about exposure. People looking for something find it. They compare prices and listings for the 4 copies of Strange Tales 166 they're interested in and decide to buy one. I haven't run a comic auction for months. I now have less than 100 comics in my store. Yet every week or so someone makes me an offer on a $5-$25 comic, which I usually accept if it's reasonable, or someone just buys something at the listed price. If I had 1,000 listings in there I suspect I'd get 10X more offers (assuming the same quality of listings) and/or sales. Actually, it would probably be more as I'd have more chances at tack on sales.

[Poe]

That is a significant fee increase. If I recall they charged 8.75% on the first $25 and then only 3.5% on the rest up to $1,000.

 

If it is a flat 9% now they increased fees on amounts above $25 by 5.5%. Ouch.

[the blob]

I just wonder when someone who actually relies on their ebay store to make the $12-18K or so they need to survive and eat is going to get F-ed over enough by these changes that they just loose it and go to ebay HQ and blow someone's brains out.

 

I had it as a goal to build up the store and auctions to get $1,000/mo out of it. Run some auctions, hope to pick up some $3-$5 comic sales out of the store as people combine to save on shipping. Now listing those cheap comics is totally out of the question. The fees will eat me up.

 

I guess this will be good for buyers in the next couple of months as sellers just say "F-This" and liquidate their stores via auctions.

[Topnotchman]

 

I get this email:

Dear topnotchcomics:

 

The upfront cost of selling on eBay is about to be dramatically reduced with our lowest Insertion Fees ever. I wanted to personally let you know about this exciting change and how it can help your business in particular.

 

 

Looks like my current rate of running my store is $16.00 per month and 3 cents per listing for 1500 listings. Which is $61.00 a month. Now its $50.00 for the store, than 5 cents per listing total $125.00 per month listing fee's. Looks like they just doubled my minimum store listing fee's.

 

Granted the exposure is suppossed to be more, but so is everyone elses, so how does that give anyone any additional advantage.

[thehumantorch]

I have been selling approx 40-50 items a week on ebay for years... the last 4 months were really "bad" in terms of realized prices (for same items)... but this past week I had an extraordinary week (about 50% more than any week in the past 4 months)... hopefully it is a good sign

 

Did you have your early Actions up on ebay this past week?

[fastballspecial]

I get this email:

Dear topnotchcomics:

 

The upfront cost of selling on eBay is about to be dramatically reduced with our lowest Insertion Fees ever. I wanted to personally let you know about this exciting change and how it can help your business in particular.

 

 

Looks like my current rate of running my store is $16.00 per month and 3 cents per listing for 1500 listings. Which is $61.00 a month. Now its $50.00 for the store, than 5 cents per listing total $125.00 per month listing fee's. Looks like they just doubled my minimum store listing fee's.

 

Granted the exposure is suppossed to be more, but so is everyone elses, so how does that give anyone any additional advantage.

 

Yep that about sums it up.

 

[sterlingcomics]

This thread just helps cement my current strategy of consigning books I sell to ComicLink/HG/others for a flat 10% fee, with no costs whatsoever up front. Nice and simple.

[Escaflown4]

I get this email:

Dear topnotchcomics:

 

The upfront cost of selling on eBay is about to be dramatically reduced with our lowest Insertion Fees ever. I wanted to personally let you know about this exciting change and how it can help your business in particular.

 

 

Looks like my current rate of running my store is $16.00 per month and 3 cents per listing for 1500 listings. Which is $61.00 a month. Now its $50.00 for the store, than 5 cents per listing total $125.00 per month listing fee's. Looks like they just doubled my minimum store listing fee's.

 

Granted the exposure is suppossed to be more, but so is everyone elses, so how does that give anyone any additional advantage.

 

That's just for the listing fees. You didn't take account on the price hike in the final value fees which we will have to pay almost 2 times more then what we're being charged now. This is pretty much the final nail in the coffin for Ebay as I will be closing up my shop before March 30th. Until then, I will be looking for an alternative outlet and marking many of my items for sale. I can't believe Ebay can be mis-managed like this. I'll give them at most a few more years before they go belly up.

[the blob]

This thread just helps cement my current strategy of consigning books I sell to ComicLink/HG/others for a flat 10% fee, with no costs whatsoever up front. Nice and simple.

 

Yeah, but there's also a big market for the $3-$25 books out there and ebay is working on killing sellers of those books, which aren't really comiclink, etc. material except maybe in lots (and even then, it would need to be lots of stuff at the higher end of the range). True, it was never worth the effort to sell a single $3 or $4 book and even at 3 cent listings I probably got eaten alive on fees as stuff sat there, but I didn't mind them as a tack on sale or selling a few of them at once.

[joe_collector]

Looks like my current rate of running my store is $16.00 per month and 3 cents per listing for 1500 listings. Which is $61.00 a month. Now its $50.00 for the store, than 5 cents per listing total $125.00 per month listing fee's. Looks like they just doubled my minimum store listing fee's.

 

It's even better if you're a lower-volume hobbyist seller who keeps only a few hundred listings, then adds new ones as they sell, and don't have the sheer volume needed where a $50 store makes sense.

 

Now: $15 store + $6 for 200 x 3-cent listing = ~$21

Then: $15 store + $40 for 200 x 20-cent listings = $55

 

That's one spicy meatball!

[comicwiz]

WOW! That is seriously expensive.

 

Given these kinds of prices, it would seem basic programming skills can be quite the asset to fall back on when considering the alternative of setting up an online shop of your own. That or brushing up on a few chapters in OSCommerce for Dummies.

[Shark]

It all boils down to one thing....eBay trying to make more money for themselves. They always disguise it as a benefit either for buyers or sellers, but ultimately it's about them making more money.

 

I was actually thinking of increasing my store inventory, especially now that I'm strictly on unemployment. But I think eBay has just precluded me from doing that. I've opened up a ProStores website but haven't sold squat from it yet. So, I guess if I'm going to sell any books it will have to be in here or some other venue. Has anyone had any luck selling books on Comic Collector Live?

[the blob]

It all boils down to one thing....eBay trying to make more money for themselves. They always disguise it as a benefit either for buyers or sellers, but ultimately it's about them making more money.

 

I was actually thinking of increasing my store inventory, especially now that I'm strictly on unemployment. But I think eBay has just precluded me from doing that. I've opened up a ProStores website but haven't sold squat from it yet. So, I guess if I'm going to sell any books it will have to be in here or some other venue. Has anyone had any luck selling books on Comic Collector Live?

 

They keep on making these moves, but clearly, they aren't getting what they want.

 

I guess they figure the person with the 1500 listing store is in this for the long haul and will just accept paying a minimum of an extra $50-$75 or whatever a month.

 

And they don't care about the person with the 100-200 listing store. $25 or whatever a month, let's say (more including paypal fees off sales). That's $300 a year. Are there 100,000 of these types of sellers in various areas? Is it more like 50,000? 50,000 X $300 = $15 million a year. I submit that this is pretty much all profit (and I suspect 50,000 of them produce more revenue than that anyway) as overhead is already getting paid for by other sellers. If ebay has a 30 P/E ratio (and maybe it's more...what is it nowadays?)..even at 20 that's $300 million off the market capitalization. Sure, I'm being simplistic and I do realize having a degree in economics I've barely used in the last 17 years doesn't qualify me to spout like this...but really, I'm not that far off.

 

Basically ebay is saying go in and make this a legitimate part-time job (which is what running a 1500 item store is, assuming you actually sell stuff out of it!) or get the heck out and list the occasional auction like you did in 1999.

 

What they don't realize (or seem to realize) is how many ebay SALES are fueled by the money being made by hobbyists selling other stuff on ebay...the same hobbyists they're making life harder on! And each time ebay gets a piece of the action...something they should ENCOURAGE!

[the blob]

With all of that I have a decision to make. I either have to bulk up my listings up into the quadruple digits or get the hell out of the store. Luckily, I have just finished a trial and have a little down time (relatively speaking).

[500Club]

eBay loves the shell game...lower this cost and that, but crank you where you're not looking.

[TupennyConan]

Yup, these lowest fees of all time sure are expensive.

[kahml]

Auctionbytes had an article that pointed to a Google Docs explanation that included the following analysis:

 

227 items is the point where a Premium Store is cheaper:

Basic Store:

$15.95 + (227 * .20) = $61.35

 

Premium Store:

$49.95 + (227 * .05) = $61.30

 

(Including store subscription fees, this comes out to about 27¢/item, for 227 items.)

 

This does not factor in the FVF, simply the insertion fees. So you have ask yourself whether you want to maintain a high level of monthly inventory to catch a price break (er, so to speak).

 

Link to Google Docs analysis

 

Larry

 

[PokerKid]

wake me up when ebay is taking 100% of a seller's sales with their vast array of fees

 

 

Time for the "buyer's premium."

[the blob]

do store owners get the 100 free auctions for 99 cent and under items as well? (i guess that's one way to get rid of cheap items...) it would seem odd not to offer this to someone paying $50/mo if people paying nothing get it.

[the blob]

this is going to cause even more padding in shipping costs, more tack ons for combined shipping, etc. I can live with 99 cent starting auctions on stuff i might list for $3 in my store (though not really...), but not if I'm charging a flat $3 fixed rate to ship everything combined.