Well ebay has finally lost me.

witchie · Post by **witchie** » July 19th, 2006, 9:31 pm

After receiving this in my email tonight it is the finall straw that broke this camels back. I'm done as of August 15th before the new billing changes. Bill Cobb just got one heck of an email from me and I am wondering when I finally sue their asses for copyright infringement (think Napster) it I will get to meet the poor scape goat. Now that I'll be ending my store and most if not all of my listings (which is just under half my income some months) I'll have more time to devote to building my case.

I've stuck with them this long so why am I so upset? Well sales on ebay have sucked for a year. The past six months have been the worst in ebay history sales wise for me. Ebay Express actually had those sales picking back up becaue store listings were first. I mean when the average price of your items for sale is 7.00 auction fees will eat it all up without an ebay store. I'm usually dead on sales and catching up on other things that get pushed off this time of year. My sales are always dead in the summer. This summer has been better and now with them putting auction listings again on top it will kill that.

I've been wanting out of Ebay for ages and my website is finally doing well enough as are my wholesale customers. I'm furious but relieved at the same time. Meg can officially kiss my big white arse. The only thing Ebay will be seeing of me after August 15th is my VeRO notices and letters from my lawyers.

Jamie (ps Miss you all just plain old swamped with stuff to do but that changes in a month lol)

Dear witch_is_me,

Since its debut in 1995, the eBay marketplace has continually evolved to meet the needs of the eBay Community. For the most part, the behavior of buyers and sellers has naturally adapted to changing conditions -- over time, we've learned to allow the marketplace to direct itself as much as possible. On some occasions, though -- in the interest of the eBay marketplace's long-term vitality -- we've had to step in and implement new policies, introduce new formats, or make changes to our fee structure to create needed incentives for eBay members.

Put simply, we at eBay have two basic roles: to deliver the best overall value for buyers, and to maximize cash flow for sellers. As eBay has grown over the years, we've added various enhancements and tools to the site -- but in essence, our "products" are two types of listings:

* Core listings (auction-style, auction-style with Buy It Now, and Fixed Price) deliver the signature eBay buying experience. For sellers, they're the fastest way to sell inventory on the Internet -- the only place where items typically sell within about two weeks.
* Store Inventory listings were introduced in 2001 and intended as a low-risk way for sellers to display large amounts of product in their eBay Store. This format employs low insertion fees and higher final value fees to encourage an abundance of inventory on the site.

Amid all this change, one thing has remained constant: auction-style listings are the foundation of eBay. Auction-style and other core listings made eBay what it is today -- and they'll always be front and center on eBay.com. They account for about 91% of the gross merchandise value sold on eBay.com. But recently, we've been wrestling with some troubling facts:

* Store Inventory listings now comprise about 83% of active eBay.com listings on average.
* While eBay.com core listings typically sell in about two weeks, Store Inventory listings on average take 14 times longer to sell. In some media categories, Store Inventory listings take more than 40 times longer to sell than core listings.
* And, when you compare our operations costs for an average Store Inventory listing and an average core listing - factoring in the duration of each - our cost to host a Store Inventory listing is more than 50% higher than for a core listing. In fact, current Store Inventory insertion fees don't cover eBay's costs for hosting them.

It's vitally important -- to your business and ours -- that we maintain a healthy balance between listing formats on the eBay marketplace, and ensure that inventory conversion across the site remains strong. So we're taking action.

Today, I want to inform you of changes we're making to eBay.com -- changes intended to rebalance the overall eBay marketplace by further distinguishing the roles of core listing formats and our Store Inventory format. In short, we're improving the advantages of selling in core listing formats -- and taking action to manage the proportion of Store Inventory listings -- to ensure that the buying experience on eBay stays true to shoppers' expectations.

Core Listings
Core listing fees will remain unchanged. So for the vast majority of eBay sellers who use only these formats, their fees are not increasing.

And we'll be providing greater exposure for core listings on eBay Express. In late August, we'll begin displaying auction-style listings with Buy It Now on eBay Express for qualifying sellers. Also in late August, core fixed price and auction-style Buy It Now listings that qualify for eBay Express will be advantaged over Store Inventory listings.

Also, in response to the requests of many large sellers, we're raising the 10-item multiple listings limit to 15, effective Aug. 22.

Store Inventory Listings
For those of you who operate an eBay Store, we're making changes to Store Inventory listing fees, as well as to the on-site exposure we provide for this listing format.

We'll begin charging variable insertion fees for Store Inventory listings, as we do for core listings. Beginning Aug. 22, eBay.com Store Inventory format insertion fees will be tiered with an item's starting price.

* These Store Inventory format insertion fees take effect Aug. 22, 2006:

Starting Price New Insertion Fee Current Fee
$0.01 -- 24.99 5¢ 2¢
$25.00 and higher 10¢ 2¢

* Some Store Inventory format final value fees also will also increase, effective Aug. 22, 2006:

Selling Price New Final Value Fee Current Fee
$0.01 -- 25.00 10% 8%
$25.01 -- 100.00 7% 5%
$100.01 -- 1,000.00 5% (no change) 5%
$1,000.01 and higher 3% (no change) 3%

Please note that for current listings, the new final value fees will apply only after these listings are renewed.

* For more detailed information on these fee changes, please see our fee changes overview.

For some time, we've been working to identify the best way to display Store Inventory listings on the site. In the spring, we pledged to sellers that we would test a variety of ways to mingle their Store Inventory listings with core listings on eBay.com. We've tested several alternatives and these tests showed the ideal approach is how we're doing it today - that is, when a buyer's search returns 30 or less core listings, we display up to 30 Store Inventory listings. This is what we'll stick with going forward.

However, starting in about a month, we'll also include an unlimited number of Store Inventory listings after all matching core listings, when the buyer clicks the Buy It Now listings tab at the top of every search results page. When the buyer hasn't selected this option, eBay.com will display Store Inventory listings along with core listings as described above.

Half.com Listings Added to eBay.com Search Results
I recognize that sellers in the Books, Movies, Music and Video Games categories will have unique challenges with the changes we're making. As many of our media sellers have requested, starting in late August we'll again provide visibility for Half.com listings in core search results, by bringing back the Half.com listings merchandising feature we used previously (click here for an example). We're also exploring additional ways to promote Half.com listings in search results on both eBay.com and eBay Express.

How These Changes Affect You
I'm confident the actions we're taking are the right thing to do for the overall eBay Community. We'll more effectively deliver on our buyers' needs and expectations. And for sellers, these changes will ensure that eBay remains a differentiated and distinct e-commerce channel with fast inventory turnover.

I know there's a lot to digest here, and that you're probably most interested in quickly determining if and how these changes will impact your business.

A typical eBay Stores seller who uses Store Inventory format -- making no adjustments to his or her selling strategy following these changes -- will experience an overall fee increase of less than six percent, based on our analysis of all June selling activity. Of course, you need to clearly understand the impact on your business -- which could be greater or less than six percent. To get started, please visit the seller resources page or consult the Frequently Asked Questions we've prepared. Also, use your seller support resources in Customer Support. Our CS teams are fully prepared to help you understand the effect on your business, and discuss your options for adjusting your eBay selling strategy to minimize impact to your bottom line.

In addition -- to help eBay Stores sellers make informed decisions about any changes to their selling strategies -- we're making eBay Marketplace Research Basic available to them at no cost for eight weeks, starting today. Through September 19, eBay Stores sellers can use this data to compare selling formats or determine how best to price inventory on eBay. You can access eBay Marketplace Research here.

I'll be hosting a Community Town Hall discussion on Thursday, July 20th at 4:00 p.m. Pacific time, where I'll answer your questions. Please click here for more details on the Town Hall, or to submit a question in advance.

Sincerely,

Bill Cobb
President
eBay North America

MidoriMeadows · Post by **MidoriMeadows** » July 19th, 2006, 9:53 pm

Hi Jamie!

I know. Did you see the nice website Doc built for me? http://www.midorimeadows.com. We're still working on it but it sure looks nice.

Hope you have time for us soon.

Post by **Doc** » July 20th, 2006, 10:13 am

Hi Jamie..

Yep eBay is trying to drive business back to their auctions, It will give them a planned shot of increased revenue. They could care less who closes their eBay Store!

You should check out the store i set up for Sharon, It is included in http://www.webmasters.com 9.95 month hosting plan. It works very well, has real time shipping calculation through UPS and USPS via API access. Multiple payment options including Merchant Account, PayPal, Checks, MO. Very easy shopping and checkout.

I have a fully functioning demo (ecept usps, no account to the api) over here: http://www.docsplace.org/oscommerce/catalog/ Check it out.

How is everything else with you two??

witchie · Post by **witchie** » July 20th, 2006, 8:00 pm

Great looking site. Now make oatmeal or oatmeal vanilla soap and I'll eve be a customer Sharon! Not that I'll have much money after I drop my store but I have two more stores picking up my charts so I'll survive.

Connor and I finally found a good web host and are now hosting a few more accounts with a little room left so if either of you need space, or know anyone who does let me know.

Have you two checked out my new shopping cart yet at http://www.whitewillowstitching.com yet? I am using Cube cart and still customizing it (ok Connor is) but has all the same features. I'm checking into other gateways to use besides paypal. It doesn't yet have a modification to add for google check out or I'd switch to that and help them run Ebay out of business.

I did get a call in response to my email to Bill Cobb. It was from someone in his office and a oh please don't go. The gal was very nice but she she got pretty quiet after she pulled up the stats to my store and saw that 85% of my sales on ebay are from my store. She had a hard time saying it wasn't going to effect me much. When she tried I gave her an earful from the fact that listing fees for my store are going up by more than 50% to the fact I lose thousands a month on Ebay due to copyright infringement and that trust me they will still be hearing from me and even more often now that I have more time on my hands.

She kept trying to tell me all the great things an ebay store does and how many people search through them. I said oh how many because when you look at my states of those 85% store sales 90% of the customers found my store from an auction not from searching stores and that now they are ruining the only good things about having a store. She couldn't argue much. I've been with Ebay since day one. Sure my current ID has only been there 4 years or so but that wasn't my original ID. I save that one for buying and when I gave it to her she started apologizing like crazy. When she asked if I realized why they were making these changes I said Yeah for more money because if Ebay cared they wouldn't shut out the little people who make up most of Ebay. At least I was heard not that I expect one thing to come out of it except for maybe a ban. Either way I'm at least a VeRO member and if they try and take that I'll be seeing them in court a LOT faster than they could ever imagine.

MidoriMeadows · Post by **MidoriMeadows** » July 26th, 2006, 9:08 am

I'll have to make some. I haven't been soaping much, just too busy.

Most of my sales are in my store too. It's going to raise my fees. I'll use them as long as I have to then get out. I'm tired of playing their game.

I think the real reason the fees are increasing is because they need to pump up earnings. They know there are a lot of people like me who will stick around for a while.

Meanwhile, eBay China has free stores and listing. I guess someone needs to pay for those.