Forced to Set Buy It Now Price 30% Above Auction Start Price

[waddingtonfirstaid]

I have a screenshot of eBay stopping me from relisting my items until I increase my Buy It Now Price to a set 30% above my normal auction start price. I have reported this to the ACCC. I feel like I am being blackmailed into collusion, predatory pricing and price fixing. My auction start price is already set as low as possible so now eBay is forcing me to rip off buyers by setting the Buy It Now price way above what I would normally charge. This needs to go on FB too. How many eBay sellers are now being forced to rip off their buyers??? I guess everyone doesn't bother with auctions any more? I guess eBay needs to lift their bottom line with everything sold at a premium retail type price? No announcement, no readily available information about this on their fee table. Something sure ain't right any more about this place, that I do know.

[kirralaa_dist]

Well I think it's a nuisance.  Actually I can't say the exact words that I really want to say.  I'm in the same boat as people who don't want to slash their margin to the bone but also don't want to price themselves out of the market.  Surely 10% should be sufficient to stop the ridiculous 1c cheaper than BIN auction listings.  Who would bid and risk losing out or having to pay more than the BIN anyway?

For those who suggest the people who do have a problem with this list their items elsewhere could you please tell me where I might do that?  I don't know of any similar auction sites but frankly as both a buyer and a seller I think Ebay has made some ridiculous calls over the last 12 months and I'd love to see/use some competition.

Furthermore, anyone who thinks "if buyers don't like it they can just go somewhere else" clearly has never run a successful retail business.  If I said that to my customers I'd expect to go broke pretty quickly.

30% is not "fair enough" if your margins are small and you still want to remain competitive.  Absolutely nothing to do with wanting to appear higher in search results.

[zenremix777]

Well, you could always short auctions with your otherwise-BIN price and see if anyone will bid on an item ending within one to three days. Keep relisting for those short-time auctions if you want and if it doesn't sell, simply lower the price. Or just run an actual BIN at your BIN price with Best Offer to let the market decide. You've got a few options.

[waddingtonfirstaid]

tonalidesigns you hit the nail on the head - excellent take on this. eBay always seem to do a very good job at minimizing bad news so they hide it away in the small print, then when you complain, you end up finding out that the truth is buried and you have to drill down about 5 to 10 links to find answers. jameshouseofstyle - I like your style, great response, thank you!

chezzy & kirralaa_dist - exactly what sellers will discover when they list low cost items. i-once-was-bump - it's not about how high you can get away with when the 30% is applied, it's all about how low you can afford to go with a start price. The lower the overall price, the lower the margin. If you have competitors, then you simply can not have a high price at either end, which means the auction starting price could well put you out of business if it attracts no more than a couple of bids.

the_hawk* - interesting and smart solution but...

the-kazbar - Thank you for pointing out the eBay rule against listing identical items. Why is it then that there are many identical items listed on eBay by the same sellers all over the place? I did a quick search for memory cards, usb drives and hdmi cables and bingo, heaps of identical listings by identical sellers. If a seller has 10 item A, lists one item A without postage included and another item A listed including postage, are these 2 separate listings classed as identical under eBay's rules?

[chezzy]

Does anyone know (or know how I can find out) if auction style listings get more exposure than fixed price listings? This is my main concern. I know a while back when I did a 'test' with some fixed price listings I had trouble finding my listings in searches despite using the right words, correct spelling etc. No problem 'finding' the ones that were auction style though.

[the-kazbar]

the-kazbar - Thank you for pointing out the eBay rule against listing identical items. Why is it then that there are many identical items listed on eBay by the same sellers all over the place? I did a quick search for memory cards, usb drives and hdmi cables and bingo, heaps of identical listings by identical sellers. If a seller has 10 item A, lists one item A without postage included and another item A listed including postage, are these 2 separate listings classed as identical under eBay's rules?

It is my understanding that there must be at least three differences ie title, price & P&H but you would be best to carefully read the policy and anything you can find relating to it if that is the path you decide to take. A few policy violations on your account would be far worse than this new auction/BIN rule.

ebay relies on member reports to a large extent so just cause others are doing the wrong thing doesn't mean you wont get caught doing the same

[waddingtonfirstaid]

the-kazbar - oh, so the identical item rule doesn't centre on the actual item being identical, it can be named differently in the title, the price not the same and a differing P&H. When ever I think i have read eBay's policies I always come up against misleading and deceptive conduct due to tricky, hard to find, hard to understand or constantly changing rules and consequences. I doubt anyone has a complete handle on the rules as this thread is demonstrating.

chezzy - i too would like to know the answer to that. there are other sellers posting in this thread who have also asked the same question without any definitive answer. i guess it is part and parcel of my reply to the-kazbar above.

I'm starting to think that maybe the answer to all of this, which everyone has over-looked (even eBay in the way it gets tangled up in its own complexities - for example, I have online transcript from eBay help that clearly shows even the helpers have little idea about the rules) is the use of "Best Offer". I wonder if use of Best offer will affect ranking or put "Best Offer" listings on search par with auction listings. The more I hear about eBay influencing search results in a deceptive way tends to set alarm bells ringing as to whether the whole system may favour certain sellers at the expense of other sellers unfairly.

[lane-ends]

Increased price of BIN is the premium for convenience and surety of winning the item. If a seller is setting the BIN price with that in mind then what is the purpose of a close matching auction price. Either to hope it will go over and beyond premium "convenience"purchase price, or simply to appear in more searches.

If anything starting auction price at close to expected retail price is false marketing. Having to compete at auction with uncertainty about winning item should come with the possibility of achieving price less than BIN, otherwise what is the point of bidding rather than just using BIN price?

If you have no margin for price variations, nor loss leaders, then be honest and list at BIN only

[lane-ends]

The next step will be for items having best offers to have auto accept a certain % below. As it is sellers can throw in this function as a marketing eye catcher, yet effectively not accept any offers

[ozmachineryandequipment]

Remember some of us put an offer function for multiple purchases like a wholesale rate.

anyway what does ebay give a damn they break federal policies anyway, sellers only make them their money so why would they care less what's beneficial, overseas sellers never seem to be affected. by policy breaches i've noticed

[the_hawk*]

Be very careful if listing some with free post and some with postage additional in BIN format

Duplicate Listing Policy

Sellers can't have more than one listing of an identical item listed at the same time. This includes listing an identical item in different categories or listing an identical item using different user IDs.

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/policies/listing-multi.html

Thats great, shame its not what actually happens, check out how many of the same item is offered by the same seller in different formats  " LED CREE Day Spot Light Work bicycle Motorcycle Car Truck Boat Off"