Bay Fee Increase Good For Business
Much of my email from readers this month concerned the recent announcement from eBay that it will increase many seller fees on February 18, 2005. Since many business people use eBay's online store system as their primary ecommerce point of sale, it's no surprise that most of the emails I received were of the angry variety.
One email in particular caught my attention because it urged me to visit a website to sign an online petition protesting the fee hike. The email directed me to http://www.petitiononline.com and upon further investigation I found that 22,548 digital signatures had already been collected (as of this writing).
Thank goodness not all of them had my email address.
This will be the fifth rate hike in as many years for the auction giant and should really come as no surprise. Price hikes are a normal course of business. It was the size of the hike that has many sellers upset.
The rate hike involved the following fees:
* A basic eBay Store will now cost sellers $15.95 a month, a 60% increase from the current $9.95 a month.
* Closing commissions on most items sold through eBay Stores will increase by 50 percent.
* Gallery photo fees will increase from 25 to 35 cents.
* The Buy It Now fee will jump from a flat fee of 5 cents to 10 cents for items priced over $10 and 25 cents for items over $50.
* Final value fees will rise from 5.25% to 8%.
Many of the emails I received pointed out that small sellers are making very little profit as it is so the increase in fees will only serve to drive these sellers completely out of the eBay business. Some sellers accuse eBay of purposefully trying to run them off, but I doubt that's the case. eBay has no reason to drive away the small sellers, but that realization never occurs to those who feel they are being priced out of the market.
Not everyone is too concerned over the fee increase. Jim Cockrum, eBay Powerseller, publisher of |
