Ebay Execs Are at it Again

Raising the Price of Stores but a Huge Chunk of Pocket Change

Ebay execs are at it again, raising the price of stores but a huge chunk of pocket change. One must wonder why they wish to commit corporate suicide on a steady basis, increasing pricing to the point that now both the small-time seller and the big business sellers can no longer justify listing on eBay. With eBay’s Paypal still deemed a customer service nightmare and fierce competition from Asia’s Tao Bao marketplace, people are beginning to consider that the home team will not make it out of this recent scrapping.

On August 22, 2006 scheduled changes in insertion fees and final value fees for stores is scheduled to more than double. Recently, eBay store sellers were outraged when store inventory was penalized and removed from regular listings. EBay’s excuse for altering stores structure and inclusion in search requests is that the store sales are “imbalanced.” In other words, their fee hike that outraged sellers a few months ago resulted in sellers finding solace in the stores. EBay’s greed has forced them to again increase pricing structure.

How much will eBay store fees increase on August 22? Insertion fees for something a penny to $24.99 will increase from two cents to five cents. Things $25.00 and higher will cost a ten cent insertion fee, when they once were two cents. Final value fees are also being increased from 8% for $25 to a hefty 10%. Items from $25.01 - $100 will increase from 5% FVF to 7%. It is of no wonder sellers are crying “FOUL!” Announced on eBay’s website over 1600 eBay stores have closed shop, but the number is estimated at several times that amount, a majority that are silently leaving and utterly disgusted.

Recently eBay announced they would not be accepting Google’s new payment system into their ranks. When asked why, they buffed over some sort of security excuse. Many sellers feel that eBay is refusing the competition, and has been emphatically “pissing on trees” to try to prevent sellers from becoming accustomed to Google Checkout and other services. So what is a dependent eBay seller to do?