As Ebay has moved to attract bigger sellers and more fixed-price listings better to compete with Amazon, critics say the e-commerce titan has abandoned the small auctioneers that fuelled its early growth.
John Donahoe has worked to reverse that perception since he took over as chief executive almost two years ago — seeking to woo back the basement auctioneers, even as he keeps the big sellers happy.
On Tuesday Ebay made changes to its already complicated pricing structure it says will reduce seller fees and spur new activity on the site. But the changes also include higher commissions for Ebay on some transactions, while pressuring high-volume sellers to sign up for new monthly fees.
Starting on March 30, Ebay will eliminate fees for auction listings on items 99 cents or less, with a maximum of 100 items per month. At the same time though, it is increasing the percentage of the final sale price it takes from 8.75 per cent to 9 per cent. That’s good news for the occasional seller, who might offload a few baubles a month, or those selling lots of low priced items like baseball cards.
The big changes come for sellers who use the Ebay Stores format, which has become increasingly popular with medium and high-volume sellers. Per-item listing fees for Stores sellers are being reduced dramatically, to as low as 3 cents per item. That’s a 90 per cent reduction in some cases. Stores sellers also get additional features to manage their inventory for free.
But to qualify for these new low rates, Stores sellers must pay upfront subscription fees, which range as high as $300 a month for the largest sellers. (A full breakdown of Ebay’s new fees structure is here.)
It’s unclear exactly how this will play out for sellers. Commenters on AuctionBytes, a hub for Ebay sellers, were of mixed opinions. One seller wrote that “at first glance, I like the store changes. With free pictures and free selling manager pro, it should be well worth it for me to pay the $49.99 fee a month.”
Others were sceptical of Ebay’s motivations: “Once again this evil empire is juggling the numbers around in a way that at first may appear appealing to some, but in the long run it always and only benefits eBay.”
Sellers probably won’t have a good grasp of how the changes will affect them until April or May, once they’ve been around for a bit.
There does seem to be some indisputably good news in the changes. Items from Ebay stores will soon be included in general search results, which until now hasn’t been the case. That will be a boost to Stores sellers, who want more visibility, and should also go a ways towards fixing Ebay’s notoriously flawed search engine.
