Do you think Ebay should be a more active and more ethically conscientious with sellers

[ford-speed]

Ebays life blood is their sellers. They have continued to put up their fees and they are almost 10% of the sale price. Yes they are a buisness and they deserve right to make money. I beleive they are a little too greedy and are limiting the profitablity of the sellers. I beleive that if they make their fees 1/2 the cost then they will get more than double the amount of business. I would list at least  twice as much as i do. How do you think Woolies and coles became mega rich? Not buy gouging the few, but by billions of small amounts. I really think ebay is a good system for sellers and buyers alike but come on Ebay, how about making a reasonable amount of money, and let us all do the same?

[nevillesdaughter]

Apples and oranges - Gumtree and eBay are nowhere near the same thing product!! I don't like the fees much myself but on eBay you are paying for much more than a community noticeboard to pin your ad on.

I'm not knocking Gumtree (every time one of my kids wants something - a bigger desk, towers to keep cd's in, a sofa for the games room - the first thing I do is get onto Gumtree to see if someone's giving one away nearby!

Ebay's list of competitors is growing daily and this competition is the only thing I can see having any sort of influence on fees and charges.

Cheers,

Marina.

I'm not insane, and I have the psychiatric reports to prove it......

[ford-speed]

Crikey, with almost 5500 posts i wonder if you do anything else other than defend ebay on forums.

Some people would agree with you on a lot of your points and i beleive you are most probably capitalists at heart. Thats Ok, but id like to think Ebay are interested in what their customers have to say, then they will listen to the issues that may limit their profit making ability.

In my mind their 'buisness model' is making money, yes, but off the few. They may want to consider re-adopting an aproach that got them a huge customer base to start with. They had a lot of sliding scale listing fee arrangements and a moderate FVF scale. In the last 12/18 months they have increased the fees significantly across the board and changed the store arangements and unless you make a ( so i;m lead to believe) special personalised arrangement with ebay, with super large sales volumes pretty much gauranteed you are gauranteed to make less than you could have before the changes. So what i am suggesting, and some will support me, is that if ebay want to keep me and others with relativley small volumes, they will make some changes. It is possible in our capitalist world to become a little greedy and upset peolpe in the process. Yes Ebay are in buisness and so are thier customers. Its called you scratch my back i'll scratch yours. 

[*crikey*mate*]

I would have more posts, but they keep disappearing!

However, your point is a bit rude and personal.

I've been on the boards for about 5 years, and lots of my posts are from pictures and smileys.

As to the Business model, Maybe read eBay and Lithium's Mission Staement.

Have a look at eBay's 5 year Strategic Goals

plus, as the business owner, eBay get to decide whose back they want to scratch.

[davewil1964]

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@ford-speed wrote:

Crikey, with almost 5500 posts i wonder if you do anything else other than defend ebay on forums.

Some people would agree with you on a lot of your points and i beleive you are most probably capitalists at heart. Thats Ok, but id like to think Ebay are interested in what their customers have to say, then they will listen to the issues that may limit their profit making ability.

In my mind their 'buisness model' is making money, yes, but off the few. They may want to consider re-adopting an aproach that got them a huge customer base to start with. They had a lot of sliding scale listing fee arrangements and a moderate FVF scale. In the last 12/18 months they have increased the fees significantly across the board and changed the store arangements and unless you make a ( so i;m lead to believe) special personalised arrangement with ebay, with super large sales volumes pretty much gauranteed you are gauranteed to make less than you could have before the changes. So what i am suggesting, and some will support me, is that if ebay want to keep me and others with relativley small volumes, they will make some changes. It is possible in our capitalist world to become a little greedy and upset peolpe in the process. Yes Ebay are in buisness and so are thier customers. Its called you scratch my back i'll scratch yours. 

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ha ha ha.

eBay will, as required by their shareholders, maximise their profits. That is their duty to their shareholders, and their ONLY duty. Apart from obeying laws.

Yes, they have regarding changes. My fees are now less than they were before May this year and my sales are up. So ebay is obviously scratching my back. 800 listings, 50 odd sales a month would qualify me as relatively small, would it not?

5500 posts over how many years? Let's say 5. That's 1100 posts per year, which is 3 per day, plus 5 extras sometime in each year. Get real, how long does it take to submit 3 posts?

[clarry100]

We have two stores in operation as of Apr-May this year.

Since the beginning of the new financial year I have been tracking all kinds of profit/loss for tax purposes.

Since July 1st this year the fees between eBay and Paypal combined are running at 15.6% of total sales.

We are about 90% BIN listings and 10% auction.

We would list far more auctions if we did not have to pay $1.50. Meaning eBay would get their FVF on the increased auction sales as well. But the $1.50 makes it not viable to list the auctuion format for a possible 50/50 sale.

On the odd occasion when they give us 100 FREE auction listings we make sure we use ALL those.

More than half of our auctions end up in sales in this case. Definitley gives our monthly sales figures a boost, meaning their FVF as well.

So in our opinion they would earn more in FVF if the auction listing fees were lower.

[davewil1964]

ALL my listings are BIN.

Excluding store fees I average pretty close to 20% in listing/FVF/Paypal fees. Why am I still here, you ask? Or not.

Because I still make more per item than I do if I try to sell elsewhere. Where the same items are significantly cheaper, but fail to sell. It is hard to validate listing on the 'main' competitor when an item I had there for 15 months sells here, within a fornight of listing, for a higher nett than there.

eBay seems to be where the buyers are, thus I find it prudent to list here. Which makes money for eBay but more importantly, from my POV, makes money for me.

[thecatspjs]

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@clarry100 wrote:

We have two stores in operation as of Apr-May this year.

Since the beginning of the new financial year I have been tracking all kinds of profit/loss for tax purposes.

Since July 1st this year the fees between eBay and Paypal combined are running at 15.6% of total sales.

We are about 90% BIN listings and 10% auction.

We would list far more auctions if we did not have to pay $1.50. Meaning eBay would get their FVF on the increased auction sales as well. But the $1.50 makes it not viable to list the auctuion format for a possible 50/50 sale.

On the odd occasion when they give us 100 FREE auction listings we make sure we use ALL those.

More than half of our auctions end up in sales in this case. Definitley gives our monthly sales figures a boost, meaning their FVF as well.

So in our opinion they would earn more in FVF if the auction listing fees were lower.

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Clarry this is very, very similar to my own experience as a seller.

Ebay definately got more dosh from me before the last lot of fee hikes and unacceptable 150% increase for Australian auction listings, unlike its massive giveaways and seller performance rewards on US site.

The market interference with buy-it-nows having to be 30% above an auction start is also costing ebay my $$$    Just can't see any winners with that trade restrictive practice.

The dosh they have lost from me is more than just listing and FVF, but as a buyer too.  I have taken my buying $$$ elsewhere, until they start to introduce a fairer global trading base for Australian sellers.   

[1sweetap6v8]

LOL ebays life blood is the sellers LOL arrr hahaha you really think so , That's a dumb statement. There life blood and they no it is BUYERS hence they have changed completely towards BUYERS. Without buyers you have nothing .
Theres always someone desperate enough to try sell something . Sellers are not charged to list only when they sell and payments for that service comes from the buyers pocket not the sellers. Sellers are meaning less theres always someone wanting to sell something but is there someone to buy it. ? That's who keeps the sellers here and ebay viable but that's changing. It now cost more for the postage than a lot of items cost or are valued at .
If I was looking at an item that's say 22 bucks to buy but ebay has one for 9 dollars , cheap hey but is 15 to post so why would I bother or anyone else for that matter. Pay more wait days hope it don't go missing if it does wait even longer for it to be sorted then leave with a sore ass, great stuff ebay LOL your finished and you don't even know it.Just a matter of time. Believe me they have taken a drop since the new pricing , They maybe reaping in the same profit margin but sales are down and if they don't change it will only get worse. Come on baby wipe em out **bleep** company. Not liked anywhere in the world.

[*crikey*mate*]

did someone pee in your wheaties this morning?

[1sweetap6v8]

so it was you.