The Other Shoe Finally Drops

[digital*ghost]

Most sellers will probably wake up to the email, but since I'm up I thought I'd mention part 2 of the reduced fees and other changes introduced recently...

Featured store $49.95 per month (no more basic store, so that's the minimum your store will cost) - from September 15.

I'm figuring that's going to get the most attention, but there's a few other bits and pieces worthy of attention - new standards for TRS, variant format introduced to more categories... An Item Condition clarification field...formerly know as the description (I wonder if the option to create an HTML description page will eventually be gone?)

Interesting stuff, to say the least.

[the3coopers]

What is SO annoying about this is that there is another site just sitting there, ready to go. But they steadfastly refuse to promote themselves to BUYERS, so it ended up a pile of junk and spam listings with no sales.

This will be the third time that I can recall when there will be a mass exodus to over there by disgruntled eBay sellers, yet they do absolutely NOTHING there to make it attractive as a selling place.

Yeah, cheap fees... but there's no bleeding buyers. If only they would do some promoting. Surely it's not that hard, especially when you are being handed a MASSIVE slice of business on a plate by your opposition.

Then again, they'll also need to do something about the free listings over there, because right now it's impossible to sell anything there due to the spam. Imagine trying to sell a Lego set, when one seller there has 3,959 listings for (literally) single lego blocks.

[misterforgetfulsbooks]

You are wise in your logic.

The other place is like a ghost town.

No matter how many people go and set up there, sales is what makes someone do what they have to do.

If the other place isn't cutting the mustard, what is the use of all that effort setting up the listings and going through all that hulla balloo just to end up eating humble pie and coming back to where your customers know to shop online.

I tried to remember the other places name, I couldn't even though I used to sell there before the name change.

I still remember the old name and that google search led me to it.

Had I not known about it like I'm sure 99% of the population doesn't, then I never would have found the place.

Ebay doesn't have to do anything as it is just a generic term everyone knows to go straight to if they want something to buy, it will be there, why waiste your time looking elsewhere if it's all in the one place?

[digital*ghost]

Imagine trying to sell a Lego set, when one seller there has 3,959 listings for (literally) single lego blocks.

:^O Lego blocks - best defence against bare-footed assassins! You could build a custom "moat", selecting your bricks one at a time...

I tried listing there recently. Kind of a half-hearted attempt, I suppose (<10 listings), but my category (handcrafted artisan jewellery) had maybe 2 or 3 other legitimate listings and the rest were Avon branded stuff (still totalling less than 50 listings all up), but in the two weeks my listings were live I got less than 15 clicks on each of them.

[misterforgetfulsbooks]

That site has always been a community of sellers buying off one another, ie: the thread where sellers tell one another about their best bargains barf.... emoti

Buyers haven't a clue that place even exists.

Ask 10, 20, 100, 1000 people in the street and they will say "what sales"

[the3coopers]

Ask 10, 20, 100, 1000 people in the street and they will say "what sales"

Not only people in the street - the sellers all say the same thing! :^O

[sqaukibuf]

We all know that the US & Euorope are basket cases financially. Is that a factor in why it it is eBay Australia, one of the few countries to get out of the GFC intact in so many ways, that is copping the major hike in store fees? They know not everyone will close up shop, that many will grin & bear it. Aussies paying more fees to prop up less profitable sites in Europe & elsewhere. *shrug*

[arb_games]

And Ebay are still claiming that they are only a venue.  What a load of garbage!

They are basically trying to tell us how to run our businesses, 1 day handling time, free postage or express postage etc.

Soon they will be insisting that we run our Ebay shops 24/7, but we will also have to pay the privilege to do that.

[misterforgetfulsbooks]

I believe Australia Post has done far more damage to online selling than any small ebay fee could.

I gave up trying to compete with overseas sellers who give real free postage subsidized by Aus Post.

How is it we can order a new title book from the UK with free postage for less than it costs to post it within Australia?

If Aus. Post were to charge o/seas sellers the same postage they charged us, we might be able to compete on an even playing field.

Better still, offer us the rates they charge Royal Mail and US Post.

Obviously they would have a bit of a hassle having heaps more local parcels to deliver if they were to do such a thing.

[tonalidesigns]

I have two stores - my main one and another one I was going to develop (but haven't really got around to it yet as I got busy on my main ID) .. so that's an easy decision - I'll just close the other one and focus everything here - so that's break even. Still a pretty savage increase thought.

One aspect of the changes coming next year is the no text and watermark restrictions. We have a number of products (stickers that are sayings) that are basically text so that will be interesting. I wonder how book sellers will list their books as they all have titles!!! We also have licenses for a couple of items that require us to have a watermark on them for copy protection reasons (it doesn't work, but we are required by the copyright owner to do it!) - the discrete watermarks that ebay is talking about may not achieve this. Will be interesting to see how this works ... or not! Sounds like we might be forced to show a picture of some items that has nothing to do with the item (scantily clad bodies - tastefully done of course - might do the trick!)

On the positive side they are talking of adding multi variant to more categories - that can't come soon enough for me as without it we are at a significant disadvantage against O/S sellers who have had it for years. We will be able to save heaps on fees  and it will cut back on our workload in following up customers who don't provide information on colour, size etc.

[the3coopers]

One aspect of the changes coming next year is the no text and watermark restrictions. 

...

I wonder how book sellers will list their books as they all have titles!!!

I hope you realise that this new rule isn't to ban "text" in the images (eg: books), but just to stop people (like me) from having banner adverts on the gallery images.

With the new larger gallery pics, it's been really nice to add my Store Name at the top, and the words "Shipped from Melbourne" at the bottom. They are really clear and readable, and I reckon it really helps with branding and differentiation from the onslaught of overseas listings.

Sometimes I add text to clarify what the buyer is getting (eg: a few feature words) or the quantity (one image, then "Qty 2" in text).

All my listing gallery pics have this kind of text on them, and it will be sad when this is banned. But eBay doesn't want use to present ourselves as individual sellers... they want buyers to be buying "from eBay", Stock images, stock descriptions, pre-filled Item Specifics, etc, etc... it's only a matter of time before we will have no listing space whatsoever - just an item code (EAN or SKU) and a price.