The Catch-22 is that more people will turn to free shipping....which, as you know, means CHEAP shipping. Which means yes, your item will be sent media mail in a brown envelope with no padding to save money.  Which means sellers will get dinged more and more on their "condition received" DSR rankings.  So, you can either ship in a priority box or envelope, which is quicker and better protected, and then pay additional fees....or ship in a plain manilla envelope with his slower and cheaper, and get dinged on your feedback as the item inevitably arrives beat to hell, or be out the cost of the item as you have to refund the cost of a damaged item.  Ugh.

Ebay, the auction site, hasn't made money for years. Their cash cow is Paypal (and Skype, which they sold for a tidy sum last year), with the revenues for Ebay being entirely flat for three years now.  It stands to reason they will keep raising fees to make that part of the business more viable.  They want to become Amazon and have been leaning in that direction for years.

Sadly there is no alternative for Ebay, Amazon is much worse, and while RPG marketplace is really an incredible deal (practically free to list and sell) it will never get the traffic necessary to compete with any large-scale auction site. Ebay is not really interested in "small" sellers at this point as most of their money comes from the larger (5K or more) a month sellers, who will not be impacted much (they will absorb the extra fees and shipping costs into their overall profit/loss numbers).

What sucks is that this really impacts international buyers.  With fees already running from $15 for a flat rate envelope to $45 for a flat rate box to Europe, I'll have to raise the price to $20 per envelope and $50 per box just to break even on the shipping price!  That's too bad because international buyers are some of my most reliable customers.  

Mike B.

My wife has told me to switch over to my own website, sadly this is a break even proposition at best, without the advantage of hundreds of hits a day from Ebay buyers....

Mike B.

benjoshua wrote:
I'll just charge more for international shipping, but that will certainly reduce items bought from international buyers.  And, I predict other sellers will do the same reducing international purchases overall.

Still, I was sick and tired of reporting auctions where sellers had totally reversed the purchase price and the shipping cost to avoid eBay fees.  And whenever I did searches, I would often see attractive prices for items only to discover the S&H was outrageous.  This policy change won't completely stop that, but I would predict it'll reduce it.

I think I like the changes as most of my items are of the lower cost variety, and eliminating the listing fee is probably an overall advantage.  Plus, I think I might list a bunch of buy it now items that I normally would not since I have little confidence they'll sell.  Even if it isn't overall financially advantageous for me, I really don't see it as that big a deal.  Then again, I may change my mind.  

It's not going to happen, and here's why:  They said the same thing when they eliminated the seller leaving negative feedback for the buyer: "Without the threat of retaliatory feedback, the buyer won't stand for high shipping prices!".  Did that happen?  Is the buyer experience appreciably better than it was years ago? Anecdotally, I"m finding out it's WORSE for most people.  Not to mention, many categories already have "set" maximum prices they can charge for shipping (ex, $3 for cds, $4 for books, etc).  Has this helped? I can't see that it has.  It's only encouraged the unscrupulous seller to spend the smallest amount of money possible for shipping a book, to the point where I've had books literally wrapped in newspaper or stuck inside a cheap white envelope with tape wrapped around it to get the best price on shipping for the seller.

The rule of thumb is, that for the last five years, NONE of the changes made by ebay has appreciably improved the Ebay Experience for either buyer or seller, and every single change has resulted in the seller giving up more money and having to charge more, and the buyer having to pay more to fund the changes the seller is having to make. They are kind of like the TSA of online selling....your'e spending more money and getting the exact same, if not worse, service.

Mike B.

From what I've read (and that's just this thread - I haven't gone digging for clarification), this affects store sellers, not casual sellers.  Is that right?

Could some of you drop your stores and go back to being a regular seller, or are there other advantages that make it worthwhile?

Here's the info:



http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation ... e2011.html

April 19—List Auction-style FREE with FREE Buy It Now—up to 50 items per month with new Standard Fees.

   * Under the new Standard fees, list Auction-style FREE, any start price—up to 50 items a month. Pay only if your item sells. Plus you can add a Buy It Now price to your 50 items FREE—set the price you want and grab buyers ready to act now.

   * The Standard Final Value Fee rate for Auction-style listings will stay at 9% and be applied to the total amount of the sale—including shipping—with a maximum Final Value Fee of $100.

   * Auction-style fees for Store subscribers will NOT change in April: If you sell more than 50 items Auction-style per month, an eBay Store subscription will most likely give you the lowest overall fees. If you don't have an eBay Store, consider opening one now.

As always, eBay Standard fees are the right choice if you sell occasionally or sell to earn extra cash. If you sell more than 50 items a month, you'll benefit from the overall discounted rates that come with an eBay Store subscription.

So auction final value fees will include shipping for Standard sellers on April 19th - but auction insertion fees will be free for the first 50 items, plus free BIN. Fixed price (Buy It Nows) will include shipping for all sellers come July 6th - and will still have an insertion fee charged - but have lower final value fees (7.5% up to $50).

The email I got from Ebay said:

That's why, to encourage low-cost shipping, Final Value Fees for all sellers will be applied to the total amount of the sale, including shipping. Just keep your shipping costs low to get the lowest overall fees.

I don't see this as reducing shipping costs. Won't everyone just charge 9% more for shipping? Keeping your shipping costs low to get the lowest overall fees will also mean getting lower returns.

This news isn't quite as bad as it looks, but it's still not good.  If you look carefully at the fine print, foreign shipping will be charged fees only on the top listed domestic shipping cost.

Example:

You sell a $20 book and charge $15 shipping outside the US.  However, you offer $4 shipping inside the US.  Ebay will charge you fees on $24, not $35.  

Base FVF fees have been reduced from 12% to 11% for ebay stores. Different shipping prices will have different break points.  Basically the math works out so that every dollar shipping you charge adds $11 to the breakpoint.  So if you charge $3 shiping, the breakpoint is $33.  Your fees will increase if the sales price is less than $33 and will decrease if the sales price is above $33.  If you charge $4 shipping, the breakpoint is $44.  Etc.

Low price items will have fees just skyrocket.  A $4 item with $4 shipping cost means your fees almost double from $0.48 to $0.88, a whopping 22% of the sales price!  This change will definitely make any seller think twice about listing anything below $10 sales price.

gaming_fool wrote:This news isn't quite as bad as it looks, but it's still not good.  If you look carefully at the fine print, foreign shipping will be charged fees only on the top listed domestic shipping cost.

Example:

You sell a $20 book and charge $15 shipping outside the US.  However, you offer $4 shipping inside the US.  Ebay will charge you fees on $24, not $35.  

Base FVF fees have been reduced from 12% to 11% for ebay stores. Different shipping prices will have different break points.  Basically the math works out so that every dollar shipping you charge adds $11 to the breakpoint.  So if you charge $3 shiping, the breakpoint is $33.  Your fees will increase if the sales price is less than $33 and will decrease if the sales price is above $33.  If you charge $4 shipping, the breakpoint is $44.  Etc.

Low price items will have fees just skyrocket.  A $4 item with $4 shipping cost means your fees almost double from $0.48 to $0.88, a whopping 22% of the sales price!  This change will definitely make any seller think twice about listing anything below $10 sales price.

For the life of me, I've never understood how people make a cent now off a $1.99 item with free shipping; the only thing I've been able to think is that they are just padding their DSR scores (you get an automatic 5 for shipping costs if you use free shipping)....  Even if you just wrap the item in newspaper or tissue and tape it, you are losing money in your time wasted messing with that!

Mike B.

TheHistorian wrote:Hmm, looks like the occasional seller isn't too bad off.  Choose free shipping, work all the costs into the starting price, and go for it.

Sorry, but I dissagree with you...

I am one of those occasional sellers and I can tell you that this new fees coming from the Shipping Costs crap sucks.
You are saying I can simply add the extra shipping costs into my starting prices?

Heck, I sometimes cannot sell stuff with a 99 cent starting price (Unless I post it as a 99 cent BIN and its a freaking OD&D White box Set)  

If I list my stuff at a price that I feel is at or even just below what I think it is worth, I seldom get a single freaking bid.
IMO if I also added in S&H costs on top of that... Forget it dude... Folks will run from those listings in droves!

Worse: I NEVER gouge buyers with hidden S&H costs.
And after I post the items I ALWAYS refund any S&H that was overpaid ...(if over a buck)  yet I have still been blasted with low scores on the little DSR thingy for shipping charges... after only (MAYBE) 150 or so sales total (Since 2002) and just 28 TOTAL feedback scores from buyers in the past 12 months.  

Some folks on EBay suck rotten eggs (IMO) and E-Bay itself is the worst freaking auction web site in the world, except for all the other bad ones.

I agree that more items won't sell because sellers will try to pass along these additional S&H costs to their buyers, but because I will be able to list 50 items a month with a Buy-It-Now price at no risk/cost to me, I can just keep re-listing these items over and over again until they sell.

In the past, I have listed virtually all my items with a 99 cents start price and a reasonable shipping charge just to make sure the item sold as I didn't want to have to re-list it.  Plenty of items sold below market value, but over time, because I am a regular seller with a mailing list, I ended up doing O.K. on average.  Now, the pressure is off.  I list things at what I believe is a fair market value over and over again with no losses.  What I hope I don't discover is that nothing of mine ever sells due to the increased S&H costs.  

I think ebay just became a bigger dumping ground.  i also think ebay just got themselves some new sellers.  This new ability to list all kinds of crap risk free is going to turn into more people selling junk at higher prices.  If people are doing the ebay thing to make a living, their profit margin just took a siignificant hit.  But if someone has junk they just want to unload, they might like the idea of only paying eBay if it sells.  I'm not saying this is a smart or good strategy for ebay, but it might work.

If ebay does indeed become an increasingly larger dumping ground, it's possible that we'll see more D&D stff for sale.  And while these auctions might be the lower quality stuff and might have a higher price tag than we'd like, I'd guessing/hoping they'll be some deals in there from time to time.

I think for people selling higher quality, collectible items and for those who sell often, and especially to make a percentage of their income, it's not good.  And that hits us more than misses us.