posted on January 12, 2005 06:20:57 PM new
Didn't the Brits or Germans or someone overseas boycott the site because of price increases? Can't remember who or what for, does anyone remember if it worked? Seems to me like it did. If so, then yes maybe we should all band together and boycott not just one day but a week. May not be feasible for some but its a thought.
posted on January 12, 2005 06:31:33 PM new
Was it Spain? I think I remember reading that somewhere...
if you want to boycott, lets do it within the time frame of Feb 3 - 18 (I'll be on a cruise then!) LOL
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"Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "...holy sh@#...what a ride!"
posted on January 12, 2005 09:48:58 PM new
Boycotts will not work because there is not enough union among the sellers. It began as a group but eventually became split.
Everyone for themselves, undercutting other sellers, big-time retailers versus small sellers....part of the capitalism
Would a boycott against WalMart work if they raised prices (and they do..)?
Store people might be able to recoup their store increases, but a little harder for the 7 to 10 day auctions. With the volume of auctions, you know not enough people are seeing your auctions.
No matter how many sellers drop.....it still isn't going to guarantee sales to those who remain on the battlefield. eBay is accelerating either the loss of those barely hanging on and/or positioning for larger sellers in volumes the majority of us never had or ever will. There was an old saying that said that the internet was created for sale of videos, books, and music. Maybe there was some truth to that.
Impossible, but I'd like to see a site dedicated to just vintage or older items.
The new stuff eBay wants can stay here.
posted on January 12, 2005 10:00:58 PM new
It was Spain too http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/23/ebay_spain_strike/
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"Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "...holy sh@#...what a ride!"
posted on January 12, 2005 10:04:39 PM newAnyone know how much difference it makes--gallery pic vs. no gallery pic?
When gallery first came on the scene, it made very little difference in the amount of bids a seller actually received. Often times now, it actually hurts sellers. What bidders are doing is looking at the gallery pics and bypassing many auctions to find other items. The auctions without gallery photos need to be opened to see the photo and often entices bidders to actually bid once they see the description and terms.
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Alive in 2005
posted on January 12, 2005 10:10:31 PM new
stonecold613. I agree with you. i have already decided to do away with gallery photos. i am not prepared to pay 35.cents a photo in the gallery.
posted on January 12, 2005 10:42:16 PM new
::It was the Japanese site! and now after boycotting, they are GONE. I think? ::
Jack - there was no organized boycott of the ebay Japan site. Ebay dumped the site because in Japan Yahoo Auctions is the 2 ton gorilla. Japan is the one market where Yahoo holds complete dominance.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on January 12, 2005 10:44:54 PM new
Sometimes I wonder if we sellers - and Ebay in general - are the canary in the mine. Is it possible we're the first group to notice a downturn in the economy caused by, hmmm, wages not keeping up with inflation, stupid tax policies, people saving more or spending less or such out of fear of what the economy is doing--whether perceived or true?
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Is it true that the only difference between a yard sale and a trash pickup is how close to the road the stuff is placed?
posted on January 13, 2005 05:19:34 AM new
Yeah, Roadsmith. You should be mad at the media for wrongly reporting the truth about this much improved economy (Thanks Bush!) and scaring people into thinking things are bad.
------ "Bend over backward for the customer. Don't bend forward."
posted on January 13, 2005 08:13:21 AM new
My neighbor, who was a big buyer on eBay for a couple of years, just started selling on a site called Trocadero, for antiques and high-end collectibles. They also have a low-end site called Collector's Attic, though that doesn't get as many listings.
It's a monthly fee for fixed price listings, everything included, including Web hosting.
My neighbor has the high-end package for $70 a month, and seems to be selling relatively well.
There's also a mechanism where you can take your Trocadero listings and shoot them through to eBay for auctions, and she may do that, just to drive some traffic to her other Trocadero listings.
She's also done a bit on craigslist, and has done well with that.
posted on January 13, 2005 08:37:13 AM new
I will try to answer some of your concerns and most of the questions raised.
Thank you for the nice compliment on my ability to use number; numbers have always been my profession and my hobby, so much for that!
How will these increases impact your cost of selling on eBay?
This is the analysis we made for ourselves; I imagine it would also apply to many of you.
First, we do not use Galley at all, except on eBay Store items, were the price remains $0.01
Secondly, We list very few items under $25.00; most of our items are over $25.00 and under $1,000.00.
Third, we will no longer use the 10-day option, we use to use that option for higher price items, if we didn’t have bids on the last 13th hours of the listing.
Fourth, our sale mix on eBay is approximately 80% auctions and 20% eBay Store items.
Fifth, we will no longer use the Buy It Now (BIN)
Sixth, we don't expect the Sales Thru Rate to improve in the near future, so we made our estimates based on the present 29% Sales Thru Rate, which means you must list an item 3.5 times before you receive a bid.
Seventh, at the end of November 2004, Sales Thru rate fall below the 40% Sales Thru rate, which it means, that on the average, you must list an item 2.5 times before you receive a bid.
Eighth, about half of our monthly fees incurred on eBay are listing fees, the other half are Final Value Fees (FVF)
Nineth, we use our own website to host pictures for eBay, so there is no additional cost to us.
Tenth, we do not use any eBay per pay auction launching software, nor any third party service, so there is no cost on launching auctions on our case.
We estimated that our costs of selling on eBay store would increase between 2.25% and 2.75%, with the average increase being about 2.6%, since most
of our eBay items are over $25.00 on value.
However the hidden increase on the form of the lower Sales Thru Rate, will have a greater impact, since now we have to list an item 3.45 times before we receive a bid. About half of our monthly fees incurred on eBay are listing fees, the other half are Final Value Fees (FVF), so that means that
instead of listing 2.5 times an item, now we have to list it 3.5, that is a 40% increase on listing fees.
However on the over all skim of things, it breaks down as follows:
The increase on eBay store fees, will result on an over all increase of fees of 0.5%, since our eBay store Sales are only 20% of our total sales.
Calculated as follows: .20 (the portion of eBay Store sales) X 0.026 (the actual increase on eBay Store fees) = 0.0052, or a 0.52%.
The hidden increase due to the lower Sales Thru Rate, will result on an overall increase of 16%, since our eBay Auction Sales are 80% of the total sales. Calculated as follows: .80 (portion of Auction Sales) x .50 (listing fees are 50% 0f auction total auction fees) x .40 (the increase on costs due to the lower Sales Thru rate) = .16 or 16% increase on overall eBay fees.
Our overall increase will be 16.52% (16% due to the lower Sales Thru rate and 0.52% due to the eBay Store sales increase.) We have managed to avoid many of the fee increases by not using these expensive options and running a Lean eBay Sales.
Your increase may be greater than the calculated 16.52%, if you use eBay Gallery, 10-day option, Buy It Now and also depending whether or not you host your own pictures on your own website and whether you use a pay service to launch your auctions. As we stated before, we host our own pictures on our website and do not use an auction launching service whether eBay or a third party.
[ edited by usmarines on Jan 13, 2005 08:38 AM ]
posted on January 13, 2005 09:41:11 AM new
I've had a chance to re-read the email I got from eBay and the postings.
Do I have this right?
The insertion and FVF's for regular, 7-day auctions aren't changing, BUT the FVF's on store items are being raised to 8% on low-ticket items below $25? And, they're also raising the monthly charge for a store so it's a double whammy for the stores?
I buy a lot of low-ticket books from people with stores. The only thing that makes it economic for them is that the store fees have been low, and people will typically combine multiple books to get combined shipping. Even a small difference in store fees will knock out a lot of the people who list popular fiction, where prices are low, especially on paperbacks.
I haven't done any auctions in a while, but I'm going to re-launch in February. So far as I can tell, the only difference with my auctions will be that the gallery photo is another 10 cents. But am I right? Most of our stuff sells for less than $25 - a 7-day auction, and the FVF is still 5 1/4% (????)
It seems to me that a year ago, they were driving people towards stores with an attractive fee schedule. Now, all of the people who opened stores are getting socked with much higher fees out of the blue.
posted on January 13, 2005 08:07:52 PM new
Ebay has probaly done me a favor by raising prices. I am cutting all frills, no Gallery, no BIN. I think BINs were hurting auctions any way. Many times when someone bid on an item and the BIN went away, the item ended higher than the BIN. BINs are a faster way to move inventory and I thought Ebay would have liked a quicker turn over, more FVFs for them. I'm going to stick to the basics. That's how I started with Ebay.
posted on January 13, 2005 08:10:36 PM new
Being and Ancient coin dealer, myself and many other yahoo coin groups members have now switched to a new FREE site that is mainly dedicated to Coin Collectors, but is vey much like ebay in that anything can be listed and sold it's called www.bid-it.com
It's a new site but growing fast! it had ove 28,000 hits in the las ten days. Free stores, no listing fees..
posted on January 14, 2005 09:03:33 PM new
Yes, tomwiii and Ralphie we run straight auctions I have very seldom used the Fixed Price format.
Here is an interesting article for you to read: Lean eBaying: Surviving & Thriving on eBay Fee Increases and lower Sale Thru Rateshttp://desktop-wealth.com/articles/35.shtml it certainly seems to work for us.
posted on January 14, 2005 09:17:21 PM new
Tom, thanks for posting that link. Very interesting. One comment: the writer seems to think Ebay Stores are still 9.95 a month; wouldn't the new $15.99 change even more some of his assertions?
And a question: He suggests listing first for 1 day, changing to 3 if it doesn't sell, then 5, then 7. I'm assuming that would have to be done right before the auction ends that first day, and so on, so as not to incur relisting fees. Have you or anyone done this successfully? Seems like you'd have to sit at your computer a lot more, to change those losers every couple of days. . . .
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Is it true that the only difference between a yard sale and a trash pickup is how close to the road the stuff is placed?
posted on January 15, 2005 02:56:04 AM newUSMARINES:
Tis an eye-opened, all right...
But, didja notice this:
"v. Allocate 80% of your items to eBay Stores and 20% between Auction and Buy It Now items, it will save you a great deal of fees, while maintaining your sale volume."
Think he talked it over with Ralphie?????
VISIT: Ralphie's Eclectic Garden of Earthly Delights & Swedish Marital Aids here: http://tinyurl.com/3rd5a
posted on January 15, 2005 06:40:12 PM new
Tomwii and Ralphie yes, my sales manager talked it over with Ralphie. I am sure Ralphie thought that she sounded very sexy. Here is her picture:
posted on January 23, 2005 11:26:02 AM new
Awesome post.
Glad to see I am not going crazy!
I wish there were another auction site to compete with Ebay, but there really isn't.
I think I will just have to go back to life with out Ebay......... no more boxes in the guest room, no more rushing to the post office to stand in line forever just to mail a package with an item that sold for less than all my costs to sell it added up to, no more late nights researching items to sell and wasted time trying to build listings to set myself apart from other sellers. Boy, if i really think about it this might be a good thing.
Once I figure all the time I spent listing and selling and packaging and collecting monies, the hassles of taxes and everything else I feel pretty good.
I was out for a few months due to the birth of my first child and was just about to get back when I found out about the fee increases.
I think I will spend my time with my child instead.........life is good.
LOL
