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.

[patchoo78]

You're not being forced to rip off buyers.. If they buyer wants to pay the BIN they will, if they don't they won't... Something is only worth what the buyer will pay for it and if they are happy with the BIN price then they're not getting ripped off...

The BIN price will disappear anyway if someone makes a bid, so they can either pay the BIN price or bid and hope that they can get it cheaper

[bigbrickshop]

Are you listing on ebay.com.au? That is a new requirement on the US site but I didn't think it applied here.

[jensmanchester-australia]

This change is part of the new fee structure which came into effect this month and was part of the announcement made in April.

From the FAQ's page:-

13. How does adding a Buy It Now price to an Auction listing work?

Your Buy It Now price is required to be at least 30% higher than your Auction start price, to give buyers a distinct choice between placing a bid or buying the item immediately.

[the_hawk*]

wow shame it doesn't apply across all areas, I have seen a few that are only .01c difference between Auction and BIN price.

seems different rules for different folks

[bigbrickshop]

Thanks Jen. I just read that FAQs page today but must have missed that bit.

[judyztreasurez]

eBay's playpen, so eBay's rules 🙂

[***super_nova***]

Yep, that is what I just found  😞  Oh, well, saved myself the fee for BIN.

The problem for me is that if I did the BIN 30% above my starting price, it would be about $20 too much (therefore total waste of money) and if I lowered the starting price and somebody bought it at that price, I would be losing money. 

[tonalidesigns]

Just experienced the same issue - better go back and have a very close re-read of the FAQ as I didn't spot this before!!!!! I wonder what else I missed!!!

I have auto-relist on the small number of auctions I run - and have just had the auto-relist fail because of this. Generally I have the BIN the same as my store price and the start price $1 lower.

I guess all those sellers with BINS at .01 c above the start price will be changed or removed by May 10 as the current listings finish.

No biggie really for me - in fact I was tossing up whether to keep them going or not as the costs have gone up anyway (for the items we were listing as auctions the listing costs have gone up from around $32 to $128 per month ....)

I might put a few items on higher rotation in my store instead (7 and 10 day cycles rather than GTC).

[putney32]

hawkie it will be on all Auctions with BiN listed after May 1st