Changes to Ebay. They are a coming!

[Jiminy_Cricket-migration]

 

Checklist items with this symbol may require updates to your listings. Save time and effort by making multiple updates at once whenever you can.

 

Starting now

 

Make sure you’ve got the right plan to get the lowest fees when the fee updates take place on April 16 and May 1. See the new fees at a glance and use the Fee Illustrator to determine if subscribing to an eBay Store or upgrading your subscription is right for you.

 

Update any listings now that don’t meet eBay’s picture quality requirements. Starting July 1, listings with pictures that don’t meet the requirements may be blocked or removed. Remember, quality pictures help sell your items and optimize your listings for mobile devices and eBay’s new personalized homepage.

 

Opt in to the new business policies functionality as soon as you see a message in My eBay > Activity that it’s available to you. Get familiar with this functionality now to see how easy it is to define your payment, return, and shipping policies once, and apply them easily to all of your listings. Starting in June, all sellers will be automatically opted in (with the ability to opt out).

 

In April

 

April 16—Standard fees change to include 50 FREE fixed price or auction-style listings* and one flat 10% final value fee. If you sell more than 50 items a month, you may benefit from subscribing to an eBay Store for even more free listings* and lower final value fees. See the new fees at a glance and use the Fee Illustrator to determine if a new eBay Stores subscription is right for you.

 

Starting in early April, you can open an unpaid item case as early as two days after a transaction ends and payment is not received —either manually in the Resolution Center or using Unpaid Item Assistant. If you use Unpaid Item Assistant and want to take advantage of the shorter 2-day wait period, update your UPI Assistant settings in site preferences in My eBay to select the 2-day option.

 

Mid April—Item specifics changes are being made in several categories. Be sure to update your listings as needed.

 

In May

 

May 1—New eBay Stores subscription plans launch with free listings* and new competitive flat final value fee rates as low as 4%. See the new fees at a glance and use the Fee Illustrator to determine the right plan for the way you sell. Also taking effect today are the new requirements for a Buy It Now price to be 30% more than the Auction-style start price and the fee updates for the Heavy Equipment, Concession Trailers & Carts, Imaging & Aesthetics Equipment and Commercial Printing Presses categories within Business & Industrial.

 

Starting the first week in May, categories changes will be made. Note: the category changes may result in reduced or increased fees for listings in the affected categories.

 

To help reduce unpaid items, eligible fixed price and auction-style listings purchased with Buy It Now will now remain for sale until a buyer has paid for the item. This change will take effect gradually over the coming months. Most sellers won’t need to take any action. If you offer combined shipping discounts, update your listing descriptions with instructions for buyers to add the items they want to purchase to the eBay Shopping Cart. Get details.

 

When you accept a Best Offer in the Jewelry & Watches, Art, and Computers & Tablets categories, the buyer will need to commit and often pay, for the sale to be confirmed. You can now start accepting multiple offers to increase your chances of selling the item, without fear of over-committing.

 

Late May: You can now specify same-day handling and an order cut-off time for same-day shipping. If you routinely ship the same business day, consider updating your listings to reflect this service.

 

In June

 

Last chance to update your pictures to meet the picture quality requirements! Starting July 1, the picture quality requirements will be enforced.

 

All sellers will now be automatically opted in (with the ability to opt out) to the new business policies functionality for defining shipping, payment, and return policies.

 

In July

 

Picture quality requirements are now being enforced. Update any remaining listings now that don’t meet the requirements to avoid interruptions to your business.

[Jiminy_Cricket-migration]

LINK

[passion4comics]

Wow! Excellent improvements; I get to pay more!

[cdrag]

Wow! Excellent improvements; I get to pay more!

 

I couldn't agree more.

[stippy52]

yep

[underthebigw]

Sounds like they know the days of explicitly requiring paypal payments may be numbered, so they're doing everything to force immediate electornic payment without explicitly requiring them.

 

When it comes to my other hobbies, which often require in-person inspection and pick-up, this will be a freakin' nightmare.

[Columbia Comics]

No surprise here. eBay is always looking to generate more fees from sellers.

 

Funny b/c ebay doesn't exist without sellers and now you're going to raise their fees again?

 

Is this to be an annual occurance? Before long, it'll be 20% FVF.

 

I was liking the tiered structure for BIN/Best offer listings. Now these changes are going to jack the fees up by more than 50%, not to mention Paypal fees on top of it!

 

 

[masterlogan2000]

 

This is a mixed bag for me personally. Some of this is good, some of it is asinine. I'm really only affected on the following changes:

 

Starting July 1, listings with pictures that don’t meet the requirements may be blocked or removed.

I understand that eBay wants users to add pictures to their listings, as the more an item sells for, the more money they make on final value fees (and items with pictures sell for more money). However, I'm on the fence about whether or not eBay should even require pictures, as I think it should be a seller's right to list a crappy auction with no pictures if they'd like.

 

Similarly, to require pictures and then make the pictures meet a specific size is dumb. I've scaled all of my pics down to a manageable file size, while still keeping a high quality photo. Now eBay is going to delist those auctions?!?!? I'll either need to retake all my pictures or just add a big ugly white border around them so they meet the file size requirements.

 

 

Standard fees change to include 50 FREE fixed price or auction-style listings* and one flat 10% final value fee.

Most people are already getting 50 Free Auction listings with Free Buy It Now. I believe that final value fees are already 10%. It's a nice touch to add Fixed Price to the mix. I just hope they don't get rid of their monthly promotions where you can list an unlimited amount of auctions for a 2 or 3 day period (one is going on right now, but ends tonight).

 

 

Also taking effect today are the new requirements for a Buy It Now price to be 30% more than the Auction-style start price

This sucks. When trying to get a quick sale without taking a huge hit on the item if someone actually bids, the 10% gap was sometimes tough to abide by. With this gap widening to 30%, this will almost be impossible. I guess I'll just convert everything to Fixed Price now.

 

 

To help reduce unpaid items, eligible fixed price and auction-style listings purchased with Buy It Now will now remain for sale until a buyer has paid for the item.

This is good for the seller, but bad for buyers that like to negotiate and combine shipping. You essentially need to pay for an item up front then try to reach terms with the seller afterwards if you have any questions. You risk losing a purchase here if you don't pay right away. Not a huge deal, but still not great.

 

 

-ML2k

[skypinkblu]

I LIKE this one, but Mile High is going to have a problem

 

"Stock photos may no longer be used as the primary photo for a used item listing. Catalog images are acceptable, but not as the primary photo for non-new items; exceptions are the Books, Movies, Music, and Video Game categories. Video Game Consoles, however, must adhere to the new requirement."

[Jiminy_Cricket-migration]

The FVF % decreases as the price of the item increases. Say a $5 item versus a $5000 item. Does this new policy mean it's always 10% FVF no matter the price of the item? If so, this means dealers with high priced comics will be paying a much larger FVF.

[mschmidt]

Starting July 1, listings with pictures that don’t meet the requirements may be blocked or removed.

I understand that eBay wants users to add pictures to their listings, as the more an item sells for, the more money they make on final value fees (and items with pictures sell for more money). However, I'm on the fence about whether or not eBay should even require pictures, as I think it should be a seller's right to list a crappy auction with no pictures if they'd like.

 

Similarly, to require pictures and then make the pictures meet a specific size is dumb. I've scaled all of my pics down to a manageable file size, while still keeping a high quality photo. Now eBay is going to delist those auctions?!?!? I'll either need to retake all my pictures or just add a big ugly white border around them so they meet the file size requirements.

 

All they require is that the picture must be at least 500 pixels on the longest side - which is pretty small as is. I don't see how this is a bad thing at all :shrug:

 

 

Standard fees change to include 50 FREE fixed price or auction-style listings* and one flat 10% final value fee.

Most people are already getting 50 Free Auction listings with Free Buy It Now. I believe that final value fees are already 10%. It's a nice touch to add Fixed Price to the mix. I just hope they don't get rid of their monthly promotions where you can list an unlimited amount of auctions for a 2 or 3 day period (one is going on right now, but ends tonight).

 

The current FVFs for auction style listings in the comic book category are 9%,

For BINs, it's a tiered scale depending on the category - comics are 11% for the first $50, then 6% up to $1,000, then 2% after that.

 

This is a big- FVF increase for anyone selling pricier items as BINs on eBay - here's an example:

 

$400 BIN:

- $26.60 FVF (current)

- $40 FVF (in spring)

 

$2000 BIN:

- $82.50 FVF (current)

- $200 FVF (in spring) !!!

 

For people with eBay stores, it sucks even more - because they're going to get reamed on auction style listings too:

 

$400 auction in store:

- $17.75 FVF (current)

- $36.00 FVF (in spring)

 

$2000 auction in store:

- $61.75 FVF (current)

- $180 FVF (in spring)

 

$400 BIN in store:

- $26.60 FVF (current)

- $36.00 FVF (in spring)

 

$2000 BIN in store:

- $82.50 FVF (current)

- $180 FVF (in spring)

[slym2none]

Simple enough - don't use eBay. Or, more concisely, if EVERYONE (yeah, I know, it'll never happen) stopped using eBay for 2-4 weeks, maybe they would get the message.

 

*EDIT* forgot, no politics allowed, I won't even try to use that for a comparison.

 

 

 

-slym

[Designer Toast]

eBay

 

 

This seriously sucks for sellers. I'm telling you, there are enough tech savvy business people here to get their own thing going.

[ju42-migration]

yet they still don't allow sellers to leave negative feedback which disgusts me.

 

if anything they should allow those with ebay store subscriptions.

 

i have absolutely no clue how this will effect their EPS I'm just glad I got on board back in September of 2009 when $28 PS.

 

 

[Buzzetta]

In the end it means that prices increase for the buyers. It means that items are not going to be offered under a certain amount in order to make it worth paying those fees.

 

Looks like after ten years I may seriously take a hard look at amazon marketplace.

 

It means I may look into consigning larger priced items to comiclink metropolis.

 

It means that I may seriously start listing more plastic crack in forums like rebelscum or TFw2005

 

It means that I will study their new terms and use every loophole I can find in order to exploit their policies against them.

 

[masterlogan2000]

Starting July 1, listings with pictures that don’t meet the requirements may be blocked or removed.

I understand that eBay wants users to add pictures to their listings, as the more an item sells for, the more money they make on final value fees (and items with pictures sell for more money). However, I'm on the fence about whether or not eBay should even require pictures, as I think it should be a seller's right to list a crappy auction with no pictures if they'd like.

 

Similarly, to require pictures and then make the pictures meet a specific size is dumb. I've scaled all of my pics down to a manageable file size, while still keeping a high quality photo. Now eBay is going to delist those auctions?!?!? I'll either need to retake all my pictures or just add a big ugly white border around them so they meet the file size requirements.

 

All they require is that the picture must be at least 500 pixels on the longest side - which is pretty small as is. I don't see how this is a bad thing at all :shrug:

 

You're right, and I stand corrected. Thanks for clarifying. Before, I was worried that my pictures weren't in compliance, but now realize that my 600-900 pixel images didn't meet their recommended size. I guess I don't have anything to worry about here.

 

"Recommended size: For the best quality, use pictures that are more than 1600 pixels in height or width."

 

I will re-iterate, however, that it should be the seller's right to shoot themselves in the foot by providing a crappy image or no image at all. I know why they do it, but eBay shouldn't mandate this.

 

 

Standard fees change to include 50 FREE fixed price or auction-style listings* and one flat 10% final value fee.

Most people are already getting 50 Free Auction listings with Free Buy It Now. I believe that final value fees are already 10%. It's a nice touch to add Fixed Price to the mix. I just hope they don't get rid of their monthly promotions where you can list an unlimited amount of auctions for a 2 or 3 day period (one is going on right now, but ends tonight).

 

The current FVFs for auction style listings in the comic book category are 9%,

For BINs, it's a tiered scale depending on the category - comics are 11% for the first $50, then 6% up to $1,000, then 2% after that.

 

This is a big- FVF increase for anyone selling pricier items as BINs on eBay

 

I completely forgot about the tiered pricing for FVF. It's because none of the drek I sell is priced very high. This really only affected me an extra 1% (which I'm not thrilled about). However, I am happy to trade this 1% for the ability to list all my "auctions" as Fixed Price if it means an increase in my own sales. Whether that will happen remains to be seen.

 

The fee hike does kill a good number of sellers, though. Most of these costs will just be passed along to the buyers if a transaction takes place at all. For both buyers and sellers, this is just another reason to take your business elsewhere.

[Jiminy_Cricket-migration]

Ebay reps ("pinks") are being raked over the coals in a special discussion board set up for today and tomorrow only.

 

LINK

[Arsenalherd]

they need to get rid of restrictions of how many you can actually sell, my account is 100 a month, waited a hour on the phone to up it, and they said no after 2 mins, waste of my time.

[Buzzetta]

Here is one for you -

 

I don't know this off hand but do the "recommended" picture parameters aligned with the capabilities for the smart phones that eBay designs their apps for? My app says selling is one two three using the official eBay app?

[Gotham Kid]

Starting in early April, you can open an unpaid item case as early as two days after a transaction ends and payment is not received —either manually in the Resolution Center or using Unpaid Item Assistant.

 

This is nice