Changes to Ebay Final Value Fees

thebestnameshavegone

Lee999 wrote: »

Also, combined postage obviously goes out of the window as for example customers will now be paying £7 per item when before it was £2.70 plus £4.30 p&p. So where as buying 2 items would cost them £5.40 plus £4.30 (£9.70 with combined postage), now buying these 2 items with free p&p means they are paying £14 and ebay cash in on all the extra fvf!

Catch 22 really, lose profit and keep TRS, or lose exposure and possibly sales by not being TRS.....

The only thing I can think of is to make a multi-variation listing of these sort of items - where you price the item individually but then also list a variation of 'pack of two', 'pack of three', etc and price accordingly. Not sure how easy it would be to keep control of your stock levels though?

Lee999

thebestnameshavegone wrote: »

The only thing I can think of is to make a multi-variation listing of these sort of items - where you price the item individually but then also list a variation of 'pack of two', 'pack of three', etc and price accordingly. Not sure how easy it would be to keep control of your stock levels though?

I understand what you are saying and that would work if you have a large quantity of the same item, but the problem I have is that I have 150 different items and buyers will buy 3 or 4 different items. Not sure how to get round that?!

soolin

The increase in listing fees for auction style listings as opposed to the slight reduction in listing fees for a BIN does rather show which way ebay is encouraging us to go.

BINs are great for my bread and butter stock, pile them high and sell them cheap- but it is no good for my rare antique or collectable items. Some of them have no real price and I can get it horribly wrong. An item listed for £1.99 two weeks ago for instance (and I would have been happy with £1.99 as that made me a profit) eventually sold for £29..I have no idea why.

RFW

soolin wrote: »

The increase in listing fees for auction style listings as opposed to the slight reduction in listing fees for a BIN does rather show which way ebay is encouraging us to go.

Been that way for a while, the theory is auctions bring in customers BINs bring in the money. I haven't seen what it means for me but it's probably something they should have done a couple of years ago, or at least announced they were going to.

thebestnameshavegone

Lee999 wrote: »

I understand what you are saying and that would work if you have a large quantity of the same item, but the problem I have is that I have 150 different items and buyers will buy 3 or 4 different items. Not sure how to get round that?!

Ah - in that case I am defeated. Other than bundling commonly bought items together as a pack I'm fresh out of suggestions! Really hope you can find a solution.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

The thing is, at the end of the day, ebay has us by the short and curlies, we either just take their changes or walk, and being totally realistic, where else can you sell your stuff on-line successfully like ebay??

even if you had a website, the monthly cost to run it, and then you wouldn't get the potential traffic.

same with a bricks and mortar shop, you have regular overheads, whether you sell things or not..

Are ebay trying to flush away those people who only sell now and again, and low priced items????

soolin

I see live chat are up to their usual nonsense. According to the ebay thread (posted above) one seller has been told the FVFs will be based on the amount of the invoice, so if you manage to send a revised invoice before buyer pays then your FVFs will be reduced. However, another seller has stated they have been told the exact opposite and the FVFs will be based wholly on the charges shown on the listing.

The latter seems unlikely though as most of us offer more than one service, so how would ebay know what to charge?

campdave

Strapped wrote: »

Or list them separately directly on individual international sites, as they still only charge fees on the item price. Which is a bit of a pain, and a gamble - pay the listing fees (definitely) to save on FVFs (maybe).

Perhaps I'm being dumb, but presumably this is different than offering international postage on the UK site?

I ask because I see as a featured shop I now get free listings on Italian, Spanish and French sites as well as some free listings on US and Australia. As I sell a lot of items in Australia and Italy, I'd like to do this, but don't really want to go through the hassle of creating 1200 listings from scratch!

soolin

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

The thing is, at the end of the day, ebay has us by the short and curlies, we either just take their changes or walk, and being totally realistic, where else can you sell your stuff on-line successfully like ebay??

even if you had a website, the monthly cost to run it, and then you wouldn't get the potential traffic.

same with a bricks and mortar shop, you have regular overheads, whether you sell things or not..

Are ebay trying to flush away those people who only sell now and again, and low priced items????

I agree.

I have always had shops on ebid, purely out of stubborness as I have been determined to recover the cost of taking out their blooming life time membership. A couple of months ago I had a rethink and actually pulled all but a handful of items that I can leave on there and forget about. The costs of my time in keep listing based on the fact that nothing ever sold meant it just became a pointless exercise. Even with these ebay changes I doubt I will bother going back to ebid, and once i get completely fed up I'll probably pull the last couple of bits as well and close my account.

If I can't sell my stock on ebay and make enough to make it worthwhile, then I just won't bother. I knpw I have some stock that will still sell even after I jump through all the hoops, and maybe with BIN listings being reduced to 30p for 30 days I might try a few higher end antiques again- possibly BIN with best offer and add p and p into the listing price.

I'm going to sit and have a proper think about it though and see exactly what this will cost me rather than panic straight away.

campdave

soolin wrote: »

The latter seems unlikely though as most of us offer more than one service, so how would ebay know what to charge?

It says very clearly in the FAQ that FVF are charged on the postage option the buyer selects if you offer more than one service.

So if you offer free postage with an upgrade, you will get charged fees on the upgrade.