<< <i>anyone that has a card listed for more than 10% over VCP average should lose their selling privaledge.
Ebay is great but I just hate having to wade through all of the ridiculous BIN's. It started as America's online auction place and now it's America's largest clusterf@#$. >>
Agreed!!! Ebay needs to do something about all of the ridiculously high BIN items that just sits there month after month after month.
<< <i>I tend to think half these BIN sellers don't want to get rid of their stuff, anyway. If their cards sell, great. If not, they get to hang onto them, and that's OK too. This isn't what Ebay wants and I don't blame them. Don't clutter up the site with items that have no chance of selling. It frustrates buyers, and IMO removes legitimacy from the site. >>
Interesting (and I hope related) observation. I have a party store directly across the street from my house, and a few months ago I was over there BSing with the owner about the liquor business. He told me that the goal for liquor stores is to completely turn over their inventory once a year. Now, obviously a brick and mortar retail outlet is usually (but not always) going to need a better sell through rate than an online vendor, due to the higher fixed costs, but I wonder how many Ebay stores come anywhere CLOSE to a sell through rate like that. I would guess far, far less than 1%.
Edit to add: For instance, take OCSI. They have free shipping, reasonable prices and so forth, and yet sell through about 3% every 15 days. This translates to moving about 55% of their inventory every year. And that just has to be near the top end for sportscard stores on Ebay, at least from a sell-through perspective.
I'm still trying to figure out what the hell this is going to do for me. I usually have 3000 items listed (all formats, mostly store), about a 10% sell-through rate, and had built my business model around right-sized buying and selling (IE: buy at a good price, list at a fair price that if it sits for 6 months I'm not going to get killed). My initial feeling is that I'm going to be DOA when the changes go through.
In a nuthell, the new deal as it applies to "everything else" stores. There are 3 types of stores - basic(15.95), premium(49.95), anchor(299.95). The basic will cost 20 cents per item to list. The premium will cost 5 cents. The anchor will cost 3 cents. So based on the number of items you list in your store, it will make sense to either stay at basic, or upgrade to premium or anchor. Depending on number of store items, the new premium or anchor store cost plus listing fees, could cost you less to list your stuff than you're paying now.
The final value fees for "everything else" stores will be the same % across all 3 types of stores.
Upgrading to a premium store will make sense for many sellers currently at the basic level.
<< <i>I'm still trying to figure out what the hell this is going to do for me. I usually have 3000 items listed (all formats, mostly store), about a 10% sell-through rate, and had built my business model around right-sized buying and selling (IE: buy at a good price, list at a fair price that if it sits for 6 months I'm not going to get killed). My initial feeling is that I'm going to be DOA when the changes go through. >>
My suspicion is that you won't feel this change at all. Your store price goes up from $15 to $50, but your listing fee will only increase by $.02. With 3000 items your fixed costs will go up by $95 a month, but your sales should increase with higher exposure.
Edit to add: Much probably depends on the size of your average sale (and, of course, the profit margin). If you're selling $8 cards then I think you're right; these changes will probably mean you're DOA. If you're selling $100 cards then I think you'll hardly feel them.
my local auction house charges 25% to sell and thats with little or no advertisements, ya just dont get the coverage ebay has and they charge more, granted they have buildings to operate ,, well ,, that ads to the ebay listing better side now doesnt it,,,i hate the increases also, hate it but buck for buck its the place to go,,,bj
<< <i>I'm still trying to figure out what the hell this is going to do for me. I usually have 3000 items listed (all formats, mostly store), about a 10% sell-through rate, and had built my business model around right-sized buying and selling (IE: buy at a good price, list at a fair price that if it sits for 6 months I'm not going to get killed). My initial feeling is that I'm going to be DOA when the changes go through. >>
My suspicion is that you won't feel this change at all. Your store price goes up from $15 to $50, but your listing fee will only increase by $.02. With 3000 items your fixed costs will go up by $95 a month, but your sales should increase with higher exposure.
Edit to add: Much probably depends on the size of your average sale (and, of course, the profit margin). If you're selling $8 cards then I think you're right; these changes will probably mean you're DOA. If you're selling $100 cards then I think you'll hardly feel them. >>
That's a massive increase in final value fees for auctions ending well over $25. It used to be 3.5% after the first $25.
If people thought there were too many auctions before...just wait. Sellers are going to want to pass on these added expenses, and the only way to do that is through a fixed price.
Sellers of cheap stuff will be largely unaffected; they may actually benefit if they've been starting their listings at .99. >>
Unless I'm reading this wrong it looks like store subscribers and getting the big bone, while smaller sellers are making out great. It looks like FVF's for smaller sellers are 9% with a $50 cap, while for store subscribers it's 8.75% up to $50, and 4% after that. >>
That's a cap of $50 in FVF per item, right? If so, that would only help them on really high end stuff.
For store owners, an auction that ends at $1190 will result in FVF of $50 (I think). Anything above that, and you're better off auctioning it off under an account that doesn't have a store. If I'm right, then sellers who occasionally auction off high end items (complete vintage sets for example) should have an alternate account without a store membership.
I still see no reason that sales will go up. Higher exposure is a planned effect, not a guaranteed effect.
As was mentioned earlier, many sellers on this site are also buyers and many will choose to leave both. Because of the "free listings" part, instead of items cluttering the pages with high BINs, it will now be cluttered with 99 cent crap, I would think even moreso. I would rather have a quality BIN priced higher than page after page of 88 Donruss listings, which will undoubtedly explode. Unfortunately, with every person this change helps, I think it hurts many more, time will tell.
Short term, the changes may be positive, but when ebay finishes screwing around, it will hurt everybody.
"One day ebay screwed the antiques market and I said nothing. Then they screwed the feedback system and I said nothing. Then ebay screwed the honest sellers, again I said nothing, ebay is screwing the little guy and I said nothing, now ebay is screwing me and there are not many people left to speak up" - Sellers who view this change as positive six months from now.
Maybe they've addressed this, but think of how difficult it would be to stop a burbank from listing 100 ten cent cards for a dollar under one account, then a hundred more under another, etc. As far as I know, sellers are allowed to have an unlimited number of accounts. Even if their policy prohibits this, people will eventually figure out ways around it and clutter the site with garbage for free.
Maybe they've addressed this, but think of how difficult it would be to stop a burbank from listing 100 ten cent cards for a dollar under one account, then a hundred more under another, etc. As far as I know, sellers are allowed to have an unlimited number of accounts. Even if their policy prohibits this, people will eventually figure out ways around it and clutter the site with garbage for free. >>
True, but at that point you do what I do, and that's to search with the highest price listed first. I never make it down to the $.99 crap, because there's nothing there I'm ever going to buy.
Maybe they've addressed this, but think of how difficult it would be to stop a burbank from listing 100 ten cent cards for a dollar under one account, then a hundred more under another, etc. As far as I know, sellers are allowed to have an unlimited number of accounts. Even if their policy prohibits this, people will eventually figure out ways around it and clutter the site with garbage for free. >>
True, but at that point you do what I do, and that's to search with the highest price listed first. I never make it down to the $.99 crap, because there's nothing there I'm ever going to buy. >>
I do that too, but this doesn't bode well for sellers who have previously done well with a high volume of lower end items (codyp2000 comes to mind). They were already buried in search, now they'll even more buried by sellers who aren't even paying any fees.
I'm not sure how this will effect people new to the site either.
Sellers need to minimize the occurrence of 1 and 2 ratings in all categories. If you exceed the allotted number of low detailed seller ratings, your rating and search visibility will be lowered.
For Item as described, you can have no more than 3 occurrences and no more than 3.00% of 1 and 2 ratings.
For Communication, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For Shipping time, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For Shipping and handling charges, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For low volume sellers: You are allotted 3 instances of 1 and 2 ratings for communication, and 4 or fewer instances for shipping time, item as described, and shipping and handling charges before your rating is lowered.
In 2010, the requirement will change so that low volume sellers can have no more than 3 instances of 1 and 2 ratings in all 4 categories.
//////////////////////////////////////
Focussing SOLELY on the impact to card-sellers, I really don't think the current price-hike is going to kill anybody.
The impact on other cats is likely to be substantial. That will reduce the crossover-buyers by a currently unknowable percentage.
The FALSE notion that "stores-in-search" will save us is likely to be quickly exploded during the rollout-tests that should start soon. If any cats benefit from "increased exposure," cards/collectibles will do so the least.
.............................................
This tidbit is not yet much applicabe to collectible sellers, but it will - if the rumors are true - soon become relevant.
A store on AMZN is $39.00. FVFs are fairly comparable.
Under the scheme announced today, a comparably-featured and stocked EBAY store would cost HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS more than an AMZN store does today.
..................
Folks Who Bite Get Bitten. Folks Who Don't Bite Get Eaten.
Sellers need to minimize the occurrence of 1 and 2 ratings in all categories. If you exceed the allotted number of low detailed seller ratings, your rating and search visibility will be lowered.
For Item as described, you can have no more than 3 occurrences and no more than 3.00% of 1 and 2 ratings.
For Communication, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For Shipping time, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For Shipping and handling charges, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For low volume sellers: You are allotted 3 instances of 1 and 2 ratings for communication, and 4 or fewer instances for shipping time, item as described, and shipping and handling charges before your rating is lowered.
In 2010, the requirement will change so that low volume sellers can have no more than 3 instances of 1 and 2 ratings in all 4 categories.
//////////////////////////////////////
Focussing SOLELY on the impact to card-sellers, I really don't think the current price-hike is going to kill anybody.
The impact on other cats is likely to be substantial. That will reduce the crossover-buyers by a currently unknowable percentage.
The FALSE notion that "stores-in-search" will save us is likely to be quickly exploded during the rollout-tests that should start soon. If any cats benefit from "increased exposure," cards/collectibles will do so the least.
.............................................
This tidbit is not yet much applicabe to collectible sellers, but it will - if the rumors are true - soon become relevant.
A store on AMZN is $39.00. FVFs are fairly comparable.
Under the scheme announced today, a comparably-featured and stocked EBAY store would cost HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS more than an AMZN store does today.
Maybe they've addressed this, but think of how difficult it would be to stop a burbank from listing 100 ten cent cards for a dollar under one account, then a hundred more under another, etc. As far as I know, sellers are allowed to have an unlimited number of accounts. Even if their policy prohibits this, people will eventually figure out ways around it and clutter the site with garbage for free. >>
Don't know now(Haven't check recently), but Burbank was already doing that, they had 100,000's of auctions, I think they have a special rate, maybe even free insertion
Looking for in PSA graded 1. 75-76 Topps Keith/Jamaal Wilkes in Psa 8+ 2. 1971-72 Trio stickers PSA 8+ 3. BSKB 1977-78 topps psa 10
Basketball Autos 1992 Courtside Flashback Action Packed HOF Autos(need elvin hayes,both bill bradley,and the 1st bill walton) 2001 and 2005 Greats of the Game UD=retro,epic,legends,legendary,generations and chronology 2006 Topps Style 1952 Fan Favorites Autos #/10 (Refractor Autos) Press Pass Legends
When looking at LARGE card sellers, the charts cannot be used to reliably determine annual-STR of inventory.
The numbers only note EBAY listings and do not, obviously, take into account that LARGE sellers may/do have dozens/hundreds of each card that is listed.
If a LARGE seller's listing closes it is counted as "bought" OR not bought. The fact that the listing had 100 of the same card "available" is not taken into account by the STR charts, even though only ONE card may have been sold.
...........
Also, LARGE card-sellers are mostly operating on contracts, the terms of which have little/no relation to the terms granted small/medium sellers. For this reason, the changes in search-returns are extremely unlikely to:
1. Encourage LARGE sellers to game the listing scheme.
2. Return larger/smaller search results for LARGE sellers than are currently returned.
...........................
I am running some current STR numbers on some LARGE card sellers and will post them when they are finished. (They are of little practical use to any of US, but they are still fun to see.)
Glad I don't have to list MILLIONS of dollars worth of cards, just to get a few-thousand dollars in sales.
Sounds like a classic case of a business being corrupted by having a virtual monopoly. They can (at least for now) jack up the fees as much as they want. After all, what are Ebay sellers going to do, threaten to take their business elsewhere?
<< <i>Sounds like a classic case of a business being corrupted by having a virtual monopoly. They can (at least for now) jack up the fees as much as they want. After all, what are Ebay sellers going to do, threaten to take their business elsewhere? >>
///////////////////////////////
Sellers may have a choice, if the trends continue.
PayPal can only save the empire's bacon for so long.
...........
eBay Traffic Declines in December as Amazon Surges to Record Levels
By Ina Steiner AuctionBytes.com January 18, 2010
Amazon experienced a 29% surge in unique visitors from September to December, according to data provided by Nielsen, while eBay experienced flat numbers for the last four months of the year. Amazon reached 66.472 million unique visitors in December, up 9% from November and up 8.8% from December 2008.
eBay is currently at 2005 levels in terms of unique visitors after peaking in 2006. As the following chart shows, eBay had topped out at 66.193 million unique visitors in December 2006 and hasn't broken the 60 million mark since August 2007. eBay had 51 million unique visitors to its site in December 2009, down 0.27% from November and down 11% from December 2008.
Amazon's page views increased 29% in December compared to November 2009, and rose 33% year-over-year.
eBay page views decreased 6% in December compared to the previous month, and eBay page views were down 9% compared to December 2008, the third consecutive year-over-year decline in page views for the month of December.
May 2009 has the dubious distinction of being the month with the lowest traffic for eBay in 2009 in terms of page views, and in fact, since we began tracking the metric in January 2005, when eBay had 11.8 million page views.
.....................................
Folks Who Bite Get Bitten. Folks Who Don't Bite Get Eaten.
Storm, I am pretty sure your goofbay numbers are way off in regards to burbanks sales. According to terapeak, burbank did $17,777 in the last 30 days. When i am looking at sales stats, I like to check out burbank, KHW (Kirk Welch), gamesandcards.com, 707 and a few others. All of these sellers use primarily fixed price sales and all have pretty strong margins. It gives you a good idea of sales possibilites without giving cards away...
www.sportsnutcards.com Specializing in Certified Autograph Cards, Rookies, Rare Inserts and other quality modern cards! Over 8000 Cards in stock now! Come visit our physical store located at 1210 Main St. Belmar ,NJ
Just another in a long line of eBay miscalculations over the past couple of years. eBay might be a ghost town before long in the vintage sportscard/memorabilia categories, but eBay execs could probably care less since it's probably a fraction of their business. I heard that some high rollers are getting ready to roll out a new website called grandslambids.com after they go through a testing phase. Supposedly, there are already thousands of sellers and bidders preregistered. eBay will probably still be the place to go for the shiny new overproduced stuff though.
...Storm, I am pretty sure your goofbay numbers are way off in regards to burbanks sales. According to terapeak, burbank did $17,777 in the last 30 days...."
///////////////////////////
It could easily be so.
There was no timed-out message, but that could be a glitch. (It took a long time to run on a fast machine.)
I'll run it once more, but I am pretty sure $17K is close to correct.
The FB does NOT comport with a number much below $17K.
They also seem to be selling more mid-priced/expensive cards than they were in the beginning.
Whatever the gross-sales, the STR is pretty low; as it is with EVERY mega-seller.
/.................
Folks Who Bite Get Bitten. Folks Who Don't Bite Get Eaten.
The old fees for stores quoted prices in 30 day insertion fee increments.
I don't see that noted on the new fee schedule. I'm assuming you have to pay a 0.20 insertion initially and then from that point forward you incur no additional fees. Of course the item would have to be listed 7 months before it exceed the cost of .03 cents every 30 days.
The old fees for stores quoted prices in 30 day insertion fee increments.
I don't see that noted on the new fee schedule. I'm assuming you have to pay a 0.20 insertion initially and then from that point forward you incur no additional fees. Of course the item would have to be listed 7 months before it exceed the cost of .03 cents every 30 days.
Am I making an incorrect assumption on this? >>
Sorry, No you aren't right, if you have a basic Store and pay .20 cents for a listing, you pay that for every listing, every 30 days. That's why my present listing model of 1400 is going to be 5-8 hundred, even with the Premier Store which I upgraded to today, .05 per listing per month will add up and make no sense on items below about $5 bucks for my model. I will be wholesaling about 400-500 items out after my 40 % off sales runs its course in the next week.
Neil
Actually Collect Non Sport, but am just so full of myself I post all over the place !!!!!!!
“Starting March 30, there will be just one Fixed Price listing format on eBay. Store Inventory Format listings will automatically become regular Fixed Price listings with the same duration and renew at the new rates—and surface in search results right along with all other listings."
Read this and let us know if it "directly" answers your question.
I love how they say that FVF for fixed priced listings for the most part stayed the same, but the chart shows they raised it from 4 to 6 percent between $100-$1000.
I knew something was up 3 or 4 days ago when I came across some of my Store listings while doing my usual searches. Not sure how I am feeling about these changes yet, I will pour through the announcement this weekend and make a determination then. Some good points raised in this thread about moving Store listings to core searches... on the surface Store owners are probably thrilled, but something tells me the reality isn't going to be as great. It really depends on how unique and/or competitivey priced your items are I suppose.
Well, I just upgraded to Premium. I have 1660 items listed, mostly small dollar, so not really a choice. The new changes would have made it $320 in listing fees alone, compared to $83.00. Looks like I will need to trim some lower priced items, start more grouping them in lots.
The what should be lower commission fees and better search for me has me a little thinking this will be good. Knowing the history of eBay I understand it will likely be the doom of eBay and me.
Collecting PSA graded Steve Young, Marcus Allen, Bret Saberhagen and 1980s Topps Cards. Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
I think it upgraded a couple of my store features? Or at least I never noticed a statistics link on search words and page views before...not that I play with store options much. Can't remember the service ebay is using already, like Optilink....but it appears really messed up. It says no page views for me the last week...I did have a couple slow days...but I pretty decent weekend..not sure how that happened with no page views.
Collecting PSA graded Steve Young, Marcus Allen, Bret Saberhagen and 1980s Topps Cards. Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
Store fee: 15.95 goes to 49.95 (+34) Listing fees: .03 goes to .05 (.02) Average # of store listings running a month 3000 Cost to list store items $90 goes to $150 (+60)
So I'm looking at having to pay an additional 94 a month just to be able to continue what I'm doing on eBay, and hope that the increased sales brought about by the "store to core" search change increases sales (which, of course increases the $ eBay gets as well).
Lovely choice; pay almost $100 a month more to be able to continue to do business as I have been, or change my business model, find a new door to move my items, or sit on inventory. Not to mention whatever other changes eBay implements (that feedback change looks beyond scary, even for a top rated seller like me).
How much do you pay in commission a month schr1st?
I figure mine is like $180...so if I save 2% there....I think I will be close to break even, maybe $20-30 more, change a little of my format, maybe ahead? Their calculator says I am going to pay like $35 more....so I will guess $50 if I don't adjust. But it should be a break even all things considered.
The x factor in this and in the future is a little scary. I would hate to see eBay go.....more then has. You can still find cool sport cards and other collectibles every day right now.
Also, in your 3000 items, do you have many $25 or more. Those are $0.05 and $0.10 now...not $0.03. Might this say make your average now say $0.04....to $0.05? Your current model is likely close to mine.
Collecting PSA graded Steve Young, Marcus Allen, Bret Saberhagen and 1980s Topps Cards. Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
By commission, you mean FVF, right? If so, how is yours going to go down? Auction style FVF fees are going up .25%, and the store FVF are unchanged to increasing (if you figure in the change from $25 to $50 mentioned in this thread).
I only have a few (less than 10) items higher than $25 in my store. Those types of items I usually auction.
<< <i>How much do you pay in commission a month schr1st?
I figure mine is like $180...so if I save 2% there....I think I will be close to break even, maybe $20-30 more, change a little of my format, maybe ahead? Their calculator says I am going to pay like $35 more....so I will guess $50 if I don't adjust. But it should be a break even all things considered.
The x factor in this and in the future is a little scary. I would hate to see eBay go.....more then has. You can still find cool sport cards and other collectibles every day right now.
Also, in your 3000 items, do you have many $25 or more. Those are $0.05 and $0.10 now...not $0.03. Might this say make your average now say $0.04....to $0.05? Your current model is likely close to mine. >>
I know everybody's selling approach is different, but the 3 cent to 5 cent change for low end items doesn't really matter to me. I try to price things to sell within a certain timeframe. If something will sell for $6 in an average of 6 months, I don't expect any significant change if it's priced at $6.12. The buyer is paying that extra two cents, not me. Obviously, the longer a seller's turnaround time, the harder it is to recoup the added fees. I've looked at sellers' completed auctions (in the text only format) where most of the sales had been listed for a few years. That business model won't work now, if it ever did.
An item listed at $1.00 - $24.99 cost $0.03, this will go up to $0.05. Lets use a $12.00 PSA card.
Under the old fees, and ebay got 12% commission, or $1.44. On the new Premium, it sells and eBay gets 8% commission, or $0.96....$0.48 less. If it the item took 6 months to sell, 6 x the extra 2 cents a month = $0.12, so $0.44 - $0.12 = you save $0.36 over the old system.
I am sure I am missing something, but if you make 100 like sales a month, it should make up the new fees, if you do less then that, then you need more high dollar items to balance. A single high dollar sale could offset the new charge by itself, maybe a little more then offset. Like if someone buys a $1000 meteorite from me.
I am likely missing something.
Collecting PSA graded Steve Young, Marcus Allen, Bret Saberhagen and 1980s Topps Cards. Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
The problem I am having is that the hike is being sold as a value-added proposition. I don't see how it can be.
When stores were in CORE search-returns, they killed sales of CORE listings. At that time, 10M to 15M was considered a lot of listings. There are now 30M+.
When the new scheme kicks in, there could easily be 50M+ listings; ALL fighting for search-return space. In the time it takes to refresh the page, page one will be on page 30+.
......
The EBAY Pitch..........
"Only one Fixed Price format"
“Full search exposure” is key because starting March 30, there will be just one Fixed Price listing format on eBay. Store Inventory Format listings will automatically become regular Fixed Price listings with the same duration and renew at the new rates—and surface in search results right along with all other listings.
IMV, it's sorta true, but it is far from accurate.
In MANY categories there is absolutely no way that being returned "right along with all other listings" will have ANY special value. They will ALL be deep in the mix within seconds.
The "100 free auction" guys will further dilute any value the "equality scheme" is promising.
The ChiComs will POUR millions of listings in each day; further devaluing the "value added" that EBAY is promising.
.................
I am not going to do anything for a while, but I am strongly considering dumping all stores and using FP/10/30 for the first few weeks of the change.
I want some proof that "increased exposure" is not just a fantasy hook.
With traffic in the toilet and jammed search-returns, I want to see the "value-added" BEFORE I pay for it.
..............
EVERYBODY needs to be sure they kill ANY "special features" they have in their current store listings, BEFORE they upgrade; subtitles, templates, etc. Those features will be billed at non-discounted rates, on 3/30.
........
An EBAY CS-monkey told me that SM-Pro will become active as soon as you upgrade. If true, early adopters will get a few weeks to play with it at no extra charge; until 3/30.
Folks Who Bite Get Bitten. Folks Who Don't Bite Get Eaten.
I think the only listing features I have are photo related....those do not look like they are changing...right? Other then the 12 photos for no cost. In the past they were different in different catagories.
Collecting PSA graded Steve Young, Marcus Allen, Bret Saberhagen and 1980s Topps Cards. Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
Ebay is trying to prevent low dollar store items from consuming the listings. All of us do it; we have a $3 card and put a BIN at $5. It may not sell in a week or month but give it time and it will sell. Ebay is agressively trying to swap BIN's with auctions by increasing the price of BIN's and making auctions free! When you think about this rule change keep in mind Ebay's #1, themselves, by having an influx of auctions they are creating a faster revenue stream because auctions end faster then buy it nows, generally. Insertion fees are nothing compared to final value fees; this rule change will create more auctions and less buy it nows. In short, this helps the buyer not the seller.
"I am not going to do anything for a while, but I am strongly considering dumping all stores and using FP/10/30 for the first few weeks of the change."
I am doing radical changes now I guess. Some I perhaps should have done. I am ending pretty much all coin, postcard, stamp, first day cover, event cover and like auction. These will be grouped in lots.....likely should have been. They had a pretty good mark up, lots of work mind you, but listing cost is getting too close to buying cost on some items. I have ended ~200 items so far....guess thats enough for the night. It would be interesting to know how many auctions drop off the next week.
I am hopeful that I will save more money is fees then the fee hike and then I keep trying to tell myself that people will list tons of $25 Steve Young cards for $0.99 that I don't have.....or like examples to my other sets/collections.
The thing I hate about this the most is....having to redo my eBay selling format....again. It isn't easy to do this with 1000 plus items.
Hope for the best....plan for the worst.
Collecting PSA graded Steve Young, Marcus Allen, Bret Saberhagen and 1980s Topps Cards. Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
I can't find anything anywhere on Ebay that says the reoccurring fees for store items that go unsold will be $.20 PER month. . . If anything, it appears there will be the insertion fee and then no fee until the item sells.
If they were trying to eliminate the super cheap volume sellers, why offer 100 FREE .99 auctions? How many people will create secondary accounts just to take advantage of that?
<< <i>Ebay is trying to prevent low dollar store items from consuming the listings. All of us do it; we have a $3 card and put a BIN at $5. It may not sell in a week or month but give it time and it will sell. Ebay is agressively trying to swap BIN's with auctions by increasing the price of BIN's and making auctions free! When you think about this rule change keep in mind Ebay's #1, themselves, by having an influx of auctions they are creating a faster revenue stream because auctions end faster then buy it nows, generally. Insertion fees are nothing compared to final value fees; this rule change will create more auctions and less buy it nows. >>
If this is true, then i'm all for it. And i'm a buyer/mostly seller on ebay.
Morning, Still home sick, so will be tuning up things on my store again today. Did the upgrade to Premium yesterday. Put 713 items on deep (40 %) dicount, sold about 40, so things are moving. Today will be moving all my less than $2 items (Couldn't qualify for sale below about $2) that I think will sell to .99 auctions, and anything that I don't think will sell is going to be ended and then lumped together.
Couple of questions.
#1 Storm mentioned a big hit on the Subtitle thing, I think I have about a dozen of these floating around in my 1375 items, is there a away to find them with some sort, I certainly don't want to have to look at all 1375? #2 I don't think I have any of those Store feature things, but where in your Store do you find that, there is no tab perse for Features?
Thanks, all the info here is a help !!!
Neil
Actually Collect Non Sport, but am just so full of myself I post all over the place !!!!!!!
An item listed at $1.00 - $24.99 cost $0.03, this will go up to $0.05. Lets use a $12.00 PSA card.
Under the old fees, and ebay got 12% commission, or $1.44. On the new Premium, it sells and eBay gets 8% commission, or $0.96....$0.48 less. If it the item took 6 months to sell, 6 x the extra 2 cents a month = $0.12, so $0.44 - $0.12 = you save $0.36 over the old system.
I am sure I am missing something, but if you make 100 like sales a month, it should make up the new fees, if you do less then that, then you need more high dollar items to balance. A single high dollar sale could offset the new charge by itself, maybe a little more then offset. Like if someone buys a $1000 meteorite from me.
I am likely missing something. >>
Where does it say that the FVF for premium store memberships would be 8 percent?
My understanding is that the 8 percent FVF for store subscribers is only for auctions. On the fee chart, I don't see any mention of fixed price listings having lower FVF with premium membership.
Also, FVF are higher now in certain price ranges as the the rate jumped from 4 percent to 6 percent between $100-$1000.
For store sales in the "everything else" category in which cards fall into, the new FVF rates are - Amount from $1-50 12%, 50-1000 6%, 1000+ 2% for all 3 types of stores. If you sell electronics, media, etc. that aren't in the "everything else" category then the FVF rates vary across the 3 types of stores.
Yeah, I guess you guys are right....I knew I was missing something. Some fees are lower...but most look a little higher. Now when you sale something you need to figure in the variable scale of fees from eBay and Pay Pal, and the variable charge at the Post Office......great.
Using their calculator and the numbers I have been giving for my listings, I guess I am looking at a 5% raise, since the calculator likely favors eBay....7-10%. Not counting the changes I am making or will make....like I ended almost all the $4 and less items yesterday...which will help some...these now will go in lots.
Still, I think a person can work this and at least break even. Or at least someone like me with 1500 things listed. I imagine this is the death of the 200 item or less store seller.
Collecting PSA graded Steve Young, Marcus Allen, Bret Saberhagen and 1980s Topps Cards. Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
The old fees for stores quoted prices in 30 day insertion fee increments.
I don't see that noted on the new fee schedule. I'm assuming you have to pay a 0.20 insertion initially and then from that point forward you incur no additional fees. Of course the item would have to be listed 7 months before it exceed the cost of .03 cents every 30 days.
Am I making an incorrect assumption on this? >>
The auction listings will likely stay the same in duration. Meaning, they are not reaccurring now...but if you put list till sold, then you are choosing reaccuring.
Collecting PSA graded Steve Young, Marcus Allen, Bret Saberhagen and 1980s Topps Cards. Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
Comments
<< <i>anyone that has a card listed for more than 10% over VCP average should lose their selling privaledge.
Ebay is great but I just hate having to wade through all of the ridiculous BIN's. It started as America's online auction place and now it's America's largest clusterf@#$. >>
Agreed!!! Ebay needs to do something about all of the ridiculously high BIN items that just sits there month after month after month.
<< <i>I tend to think half these BIN sellers don't want to get rid of their stuff, anyway. If their cards sell, great. If not, they get to hang onto them, and that's OK too.
This isn't what Ebay wants and I don't blame them. Don't clutter up the site with items that have no chance of selling. It frustrates buyers, and IMO removes legitimacy from the site. >>
Interesting (and I hope related) observation. I have a party store directly across the street from my house, and a few months ago I was over there BSing with the owner about the liquor business. He told me that the goal for liquor stores is to completely turn over their inventory once a year. Now, obviously a brick and mortar retail outlet is usually (but not always) going to need a better sell through rate than an online vendor, due to the higher fixed costs, but I wonder how many Ebay stores come anywhere CLOSE to a sell through rate like that. I would guess far, far less than 1%.
Edit to add: For instance, take OCSI. They have free shipping, reasonable prices and so forth, and yet sell through about 3% every 15 days. This translates to moving about 55% of their inventory every year. And that just has to be near the top end for sportscard stores on Ebay, at least from a sell-through perspective.
There are 3 types of stores - basic(15.95), premium(49.95), anchor(299.95).
The basic will cost 20 cents per item to list. The premium will cost 5 cents. The anchor will cost 3 cents.
So based on the number of items you list in your store, it will make sense to either stay at basic, or upgrade to premium or anchor.
Depending on number of store items, the new premium or anchor store cost plus listing fees, could cost you less to list your stuff than you're paying now.
The final value fees for "everything else" stores will be the same % across all 3 types of stores.
Upgrading to a premium store will make sense for many sellers currently at the basic level.
Nick
Reap the whirlwind.
Need to buy something for the wife or girlfriend? Check out Vintage Designer Clothing.
<< <i>I'm still trying to figure out what the hell this is going to do for me. I usually have 3000 items listed (all formats, mostly store), about a 10% sell-through rate, and had built my business model around right-sized buying and selling (IE: buy at a good price, list at a fair price that if it sits for 6 months I'm not going to get killed). My initial feeling is that I'm going to be DOA when the changes go through. >>
My suspicion is that you won't feel this change at all. Your store price goes up from $15 to $50, but your listing fee will only increase by $.02. With 3000 items your fixed costs will go up by $95 a month, but your sales should increase with higher exposure.
Edit to add: Much probably depends on the size of your average sale (and, of course, the profit margin). If you're selling $8 cards then I think you're right; these changes will probably mean you're DOA. If you're selling $100 cards then I think you'll hardly feel them.
<< <i>
<< <i>I'm still trying to figure out what the hell this is going to do for me. I usually have 3000 items listed (all formats, mostly store), about a 10% sell-through rate, and had built my business model around right-sized buying and selling (IE: buy at a good price, list at a fair price that if it sits for 6 months I'm not going to get killed). My initial feeling is that I'm going to be DOA when the changes go through. >>
My suspicion is that you won't feel this change at all. Your store price goes up from $15 to $50, but your listing fee will only increase by $.02. With 3000 items your fixed costs will go up by $95 a month, but your sales should increase with higher exposure.
Edit to add: Much probably depends on the size of your average sale (and, of course, the profit margin). If you're selling $8 cards then I think you're right; these changes will probably mean you're DOA. If you're selling $100 cards then I think you'll hardly feel them. >>
<< <i>
<< <i>link
That's a massive increase in final value fees for auctions ending well over $25. It used to be 3.5% after the first $25.
If people thought there were too many auctions before...just wait. Sellers are going to want to pass on these added expenses, and the only way to do that is through a fixed price.
Sellers of cheap stuff will be largely unaffected; they may actually benefit if they've been starting their listings at .99. >>
Unless I'm reading this wrong it looks like store subscribers and getting the big bone, while smaller sellers are making out great. It looks like FVF's for smaller sellers are 9% with a $50 cap, while for store subscribers it's 8.75% up to $50, and 4% after that. >>
That's a cap of $50 in FVF per item, right? If so, that would only help them on really high end stuff.
For store owners, an auction that ends at $1190 will result in FVF of $50 (I think). Anything above that, and you're better off auctioning it off under an account that doesn't have a store. If I'm right, then sellers who occasionally auction off high end items (complete vintage sets for example) should have an alternate account without a store membership.
As was mentioned earlier, many sellers on this site are also buyers and many will choose to leave both. Because of the "free listings" part, instead of items cluttering the pages with high BINs, it will now be cluttered with 99 cent crap, I would think even moreso. I would rather have a quality BIN priced higher than page after page of 88 Donruss listings, which will undoubtedly explode. Unfortunately, with every person this change helps, I think it hurts many more, time will tell.
Short term, the changes may be positive, but when ebay finishes screwing around, it will hurt everybody.
"One day ebay screwed the antiques market and I said nothing. Then they screwed the feedback system and I said nothing. Then ebay screwed the honest sellers, again I said nothing, ebay is screwing the little guy and I said nothing, now ebay is screwing me and there are not many people left to speak up" - Sellers who view this change as positive six months from now.
Maybe they've addressed this, but think of how difficult it would be to stop a burbank from listing 100 ten cent cards for a dollar under one account, then a hundred more under another, etc. As far as I know, sellers are allowed to have an unlimited number of accounts. Even if their policy prohibits this, people will eventually figure out ways around it and clutter the site with garbage for free.
<< <i>I don't like the 100 free listings at .99.
Maybe they've addressed this, but think of how difficult it would be to stop a burbank from listing 100 ten cent cards for a dollar under one account, then a hundred more under another, etc. As far as I know, sellers are allowed to have an unlimited number of accounts. Even if their policy prohibits this, people will eventually figure out ways around it and clutter the site with garbage for free. >>
True, but at that point you do what I do, and that's to search with the highest price listed first. I never make it down to the $.99 crap, because there's nothing there I'm ever going to buy.
<< <i>
<< <i>I don't like the 100 free listings at .99.
Maybe they've addressed this, but think of how difficult it would be to stop a burbank from listing 100 ten cent cards for a dollar under one account, then a hundred more under another, etc. As far as I know, sellers are allowed to have an unlimited number of accounts. Even if their policy prohibits this, people will eventually figure out ways around it and clutter the site with garbage for free. >>
True, but at that point you do what I do, and that's to search with the highest price listed first. I never make it down to the $.99 crap, because there's nothing there I'm ever going to buy. >>
I do that too, but this doesn't bode well for sellers who have previously done well with a high volume of lower end items (codyp2000 comes to mind). They were already buried in search, now they'll even more buried by sellers who aren't even paying any fees.
I'm not sure how this will effect people new to the site either.
"...Upgrading to a premium store will make sense for many sellers currently at the basic level...."
////////////////////////////////
VERY true, but there is a potential wrinkle.
If one gets a few nasty buyers and/or a smart-competitor, one will be moved
back to basic AND the new fee structure will CRUSH one.
A MASSIVE hike in fees will be AUTOMATICALLY assessed to premium/anchor
sellers who fall "below standard."
.............................................................
Requirements for above standard sellers:
Sellers need to minimize the occurrence of 1 and 2 ratings in all categories. If you exceed the allotted number of low detailed seller ratings, your rating and search visibility will be lowered.
For Item as described, you can have no more than 3 occurrences and no more than 3.00% of 1 and 2 ratings.
For Communication, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For Shipping time, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For Shipping and handling charges, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For low volume sellers: You are allotted 3 instances of 1 and 2 ratings for communication, and 4 or fewer instances for shipping time, item as described, and shipping and handling charges before your rating is lowered.
In 2010, the requirement will change so that low volume sellers can have no more than 3 instances of 1 and 2 ratings in all 4 categories.
//////////////////////////////////////
Focussing SOLELY on the impact to card-sellers, I really don't think
the current price-hike is going to kill anybody.
The impact on other cats is likely to be substantial. That will reduce
the crossover-buyers by a currently unknowable percentage.
The FALSE notion that "stores-in-search" will save us is likely to be
quickly exploded during the rollout-tests that should start soon. If
any cats benefit from "increased exposure," cards/collectibles will
do so the least.
.............................................
This tidbit is not yet much applicabe to collectible sellers, but it will -
if the rumors are true - soon become relevant.
A store on AMZN is $39.00. FVFs are fairly comparable.
Under the scheme announced today, a comparably-featured and stocked
EBAY store would cost HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS more than an AMZN store
does today.
..................
<< <i>"...Upgrading to a premium store will make sense for many sellers currently at the basic level...."
////////////////////////////////
VERY true, but there is a potential wrinkle.
If one gets a few nasty buyers and/or a smart-competitor, one will be moved
back to basic AND the new fee structure will CRUSH one.
A MASSIVE hike in fees will be AUTOMATICALLY assessed to premium/anchor
sellers who fall "below standard."
.............................................................
Requirements for above standard sellers:
Sellers need to minimize the occurrence of 1 and 2 ratings in all categories. If you exceed the allotted number of low detailed seller ratings, your rating and search visibility will be lowered.
For Item as described, you can have no more than 3 occurrences and no more than 3.00% of 1 and 2 ratings.
For Communication, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For Shipping time, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For Shipping and handling charges, you can have no more than 4 occurrences and no more than 4.00% 1 and 2 ratings.
For low volume sellers: You are allotted 3 instances of 1 and 2 ratings for communication, and 4 or fewer instances for shipping time, item as described, and shipping and handling charges before your rating is lowered.
In 2010, the requirement will change so that low volume sellers can have no more than 3 instances of 1 and 2 ratings in all 4 categories.
//////////////////////////////////////
Focussing SOLELY on the impact to card-sellers, I really don't think
the current price-hike is going to kill anybody.
The impact on other cats is likely to be substantial. That will reduce
the crossover-buyers by a currently unknowable percentage.
The FALSE notion that "stores-in-search" will save us is likely to be
quickly exploded during the rollout-tests that should start soon. If
any cats benefit from "increased exposure," cards/collectibles will
do so the least.
.............................................
This tidbit is not yet much applicabe to collectible sellers, but it will -
if the rumors are true - soon become relevant.
A store on AMZN is $39.00. FVFs are fairly comparable.
Under the scheme announced today, a comparably-featured and stocked
EBAY store would cost HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS more than an AMZN store
does today.
.................. >>
<< <i>I don't like the 100 free listings at .99.
Maybe they've addressed this, but think of how difficult it would be to stop a burbank from listing 100 ten cent cards for a dollar under one account, then a hundred more under another, etc. As far as I know, sellers are allowed to have an unlimited number of accounts. Even if their policy prohibits this, people will eventually figure out ways around it and clutter the site with garbage for free. >>
Don't know now(Haven't check recently), but Burbank was already doing that, they had 100,000's of auctions, I think they have a special rate, maybe even free insertion
1. 75-76 Topps Keith/Jamaal Wilkes in Psa 8+
2. 1971-72 Trio stickers PSA 8+
3. BSKB 1977-78 topps psa 10
Basketball Autos
1992 Courtside Flashback
Action Packed HOF Autos(need elvin hayes,both bill bradley,and the 1st bill walton)
2001 and 2005 Greats of the Game
UD=retro,epic,legends,legendary,generations and chronology
2006 Topps Style 1952 Fan Favorites Autos #/10 (Refractor Autos)
Press Pass Legends
"...Storm, what are the insertion fees for Amazon?..."
//////////////////////////////////////
The AMZN Scheme
IF they get bold and invite "collectibles," they will attract MANY disenchanted EBAY sellers.
BUT...........
There are LOTS of strict rules - tighter than EBAY - for AMZN sellers.
They don't like nonsense and they are harder to convince of your "innocence" than EBAY is.
The traffic is HUGE.
medved STR tracking
The charts are a good estimator, but NOT perfect.
......
When looking at LARGE card sellers, the charts cannot be used to reliably determine
annual-STR of inventory.
The numbers only note EBAY listings and do not, obviously, take into account
that LARGE sellers may/do have dozens/hundreds of each card that is listed.
If a LARGE seller's listing closes it is counted as "bought" OR not bought. The
fact that the listing had 100 of the same card "available" is not taken into account
by the STR charts, even though only ONE card may have been sold.
...........
Also, LARGE card-sellers are mostly operating on contracts, the terms of which have
little/no relation to the terms granted small/medium sellers. For this reason, the
changes in search-returns are extremely unlikely to:
1. Encourage LARGE sellers to game the listing scheme.
2. Return larger/smaller search results for LARGE sellers than are currently returned.
...........................
I am running some current STR numbers on some LARGE card sellers and will post them
when they are finished. (They are of little practical use to any of US, but they are still fun
to see.)
Glad I don't have to list MILLIONS of dollars worth of cards, just to get a few-thousand dollars
in sales.
..................................................
The few LARGE ChiCom sellers that are not under a proprietary contract will be demanding
such deals IMMEDIATELY.
Those that are denied special deals will use multiple accounts to game the new changes.
The site will be so FULL of carp that "increased exposure" for the rest of us will have a value
of LESS THAN ZERO.
.................
If card buyers continue to think of EBAY first, I am not seeing any real downside to the changes.
Buyers pay ALL fees and sellers will simply bump their prices, if need be.
..................................
As somebody noted above, the "free" auctions will:
1. Require price/value calcs to determine their usefulness.
2. Likely require the use of multiple accounts for store-keepers to benefit from the "free" stuff.
/////////////////
//////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////
Here is a 30-day goofbay on burbanksportscards:
edit: goofbay results were not correct.
D's: 50P,49S,45D+S,43D,41S,40D,39D+S,38D+S,37D+S,36S,35D+S,all 16-34's
Q's: 52S,47S,46S,40S,39S,38S,37D+S,36D+S,35D,34D,32D+S
74T: 241,435,610,654 97 Finest silver: 115,135,139,145,310
73T:31,55,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,80,152,165,189,213,235,237,257,341,344,377,379,390,422,433,453,480,497,545,554,563,580,606,613,630
95 Ultra GM Sets: Golden Prospects,HR Kings,On-Base Leaders,Power Plus,RBI Kings
<< <i>Sounds like a classic case of a business being corrupted by having a virtual monopoly. They can (at least for now) jack up the fees as much as they want. After all, what are Ebay sellers going to do, threaten to take their business elsewhere?
///////////////////////////////
Sellers may have a choice, if the trends continue.
PayPal can only save the empire's bacon for so long.
...........
eBay Traffic Declines in December as Amazon Surges to Record Levels
By Ina Steiner
AuctionBytes.com
January 18, 2010
Amazon experienced a 29% surge in unique visitors from September to December, according to data provided by Nielsen, while eBay experienced flat numbers for the last four months of the year. Amazon reached 66.472 million unique visitors in December, up 9% from November and up 8.8% from December 2008.
eBay is currently at 2005 levels in terms of unique visitors after peaking in 2006. As the following chart shows, eBay had topped out at 66.193 million unique visitors in December 2006 and hasn't broken the 60 million mark since August 2007. eBay had 51 million unique visitors to its site in December 2009, down 0.27% from November and down 11% from December 2008.
Amazon's page views increased 29% in December compared to November 2009, and rose 33% year-over-year.
eBay page views decreased 6% in December compared to the previous month, and eBay page views were down 9% compared to December 2008, the third consecutive year-over-year decline in page views for the month of December.
May 2009 has the dubious distinction of being the month with the lowest traffic for eBay in 2009 in terms of page views, and in fact, since we began tracking the metric in January 2005, when eBay had 11.8 million page views.
.....................................
Specializing in Certified Autograph Cards, Rookies, Rare Inserts and other quality modern cards! Over 8000 Cards in stock now! Come visit our physical store located at 1210 Main St. Belmar ,NJ
...Storm, I am pretty sure your goofbay numbers are way off in regards to burbanks sales. According to terapeak, burbank did $17,777 in the last 30 days...."
///////////////////////////
It could easily be so.
There was no timed-out message, but that could be a glitch.
(It took a long time to run on a fast machine.)
I'll run it once more, but I am pretty sure $17K is close to correct.
The FB does NOT comport with a number much below $17K.
They also seem to be selling more mid-priced/expensive cards
than they were in the beginning.
Whatever the gross-sales, the STR is pretty low; as it is with EVERY mega-seller.
/.................
The old fees for stores quoted prices in 30 day insertion fee increments.
I don't see that noted on the new fee schedule. I'm assuming you have to pay a 0.20 insertion initially and then from that point forward you incur no additional fees. Of course the item would have to be listed 7 months before it exceed the cost of .03 cents every 30 days.
Am I making an incorrect assumption on this?
Topps Heritage 2001-Now
Topps Heritage Blue Autos (2016-2022)
<< <i>Just so I'm clear on this:
The old fees for stores quoted prices in 30 day insertion fee increments.
I don't see that noted on the new fee schedule. I'm assuming you have to pay a 0.20 insertion initially and then from that point forward you incur no additional fees. Of course the item would have to be listed 7 months before it exceed the cost of .03 cents every 30 days.
Am I making an incorrect assumption on this? >>
Sorry,
No you aren't right, if you have a basic Store and pay .20 cents for a listing, you pay that for every listing, every 30 days. That's why my present listing model of 1400 is going to be 5-8 hundred, even with the Premier Store which I upgraded to today, .05 per listing per month will add up and make no sense on items below about $5 bucks for my model. I will be wholesaling about 400-500 items out after my 40 % off sales runs its course in the next week.
Neil
alma1960..........
Only one Fixed Price format
“Starting March 30, there will be just one Fixed Price listing format on eBay. Store Inventory Format listings will automatically become regular Fixed Price listings with the same duration and renew at the new rates—and surface in search results right along with all other listings."
Read this and let us know if it "directly" answers your question.
fees
......................
.............................
.................................
I am getting a VERY bad feeling about some of the fine print.
Folks not paying attention are going to get some surprises.
EBAY should make MILLIONS on the confusion.
............
Those 2-cent subtitles will be billed at $1.50 each on day one of the subscription.
Snorto~
The what should be lower commission fees and better search for me has me a little thinking this will be good. Knowing the history of eBay I understand it will likely be the doom of eBay and me.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
Store fee: 15.95 goes to 49.95 (+34)
Listing fees: .03 goes to .05 (.02)
Average # of store listings running a month 3000
Cost to list store items $90 goes to $150 (+60)
So I'm looking at having to pay an additional 94 a month just to be able to continue what I'm doing on eBay, and hope that the increased sales brought about by the "store to core" search change increases sales (which, of course increases the $ eBay gets as well).
Lovely choice; pay almost $100 a month more to be able to continue to do business as I have been, or change my business model, find a new door to move my items, or sit on inventory. Not to mention whatever other changes eBay implements (that feedback change looks beyond scary, even for a top rated seller like me).
I figure mine is like $180...so if I save 2% there....I think I will be close to break even, maybe $20-30 more, change a little of my format, maybe ahead? Their calculator says I am going to pay like $35 more....so I will guess $50 if I don't adjust. But it should be a break even all things considered.
The x factor in this and in the future is a little scary. I would hate to see eBay go.....more then has. You can still find cool sport cards and other collectibles every day right now.
Also, in your 3000 items, do you have many $25 or more. Those are $0.05 and $0.10 now...not $0.03. Might this say make your average now say $0.04....to $0.05? Your current model is likely close to mine.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
I only have a few (less than 10) items higher than $25 in my store. Those types of items I usually auction.
<< <i>How much do you pay in commission a month schr1st?
I figure mine is like $180...so if I save 2% there....I think I will be close to break even, maybe $20-30 more, change a little of my format, maybe ahead? Their calculator says I am going to pay like $35 more....so I will guess $50 if I don't adjust. But it should be a break even all things considered.
The x factor in this and in the future is a little scary. I would hate to see eBay go.....more then has. You can still find cool sport cards and other collectibles every day right now.
Also, in your 3000 items, do you have many $25 or more. Those are $0.05 and $0.10 now...not $0.03. Might this say make your average now say $0.04....to $0.05? Your current model is likely close to mine. >>
I ran a second goofbay on burbank to look for a better STR.
I used 60-days, but a few of the items in FB are not in the return.
Items Sold: 0.47%
Total Value Sold: $6523.28
Total Value Shipping: $336.00
Total Value Not Sold: $1,868,656.72
goofbay
..............
I suspect the dollar#s are likely off, but the STR may be pretty close.
Here are the current store fees: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/storefees.html
An item listed at $1.00 - $24.99 cost $0.03, this will go up to $0.05. Lets use a $12.00 PSA card.
Under the old fees, and ebay got 12% commission, or $1.44. On the new Premium, it sells and eBay gets 8% commission, or $0.96....$0.48 less. If it the item took 6 months to sell, 6 x the extra 2 cents a month = $0.12, so $0.44 - $0.12 = you save $0.36 over the old system.
I am sure I am missing something, but if you make 100 like sales a month, it should make up the new fees, if you do less then that, then you need more high dollar items to balance. A single high dollar sale could offset the new charge by itself, maybe a little more then offset. Like if someone buys a $1000 meteorite from me.
I am likely missing something.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
/////////////////////
I don't think so. It's likely about right.
The problem I am having is that the hike is being sold as a value-added proposition.
I don't see how it can be.
When stores were in CORE search-returns, they killed sales of CORE listings.
At that time, 10M to 15M was considered a lot of listings. There are now 30M+.
When the new scheme kicks in, there could easily be 50M+ listings; ALL fighting
for search-return space. In the time it takes to refresh the page, page one will
be on page 30+.
......
The EBAY Pitch..........
"Only one Fixed Price format"
“Full search exposure” is key because starting March 30, there will be just one Fixed Price listing format on eBay. Store Inventory Format listings will automatically become regular Fixed Price listings with the same duration and renew at the new rates—and surface in search results right along with all other listings.
IMV, it's sorta true, but it is far from accurate.
In MANY categories there is absolutely no way that being returned
"right along with all other listings" will have ANY special value. They
will ALL be deep in the mix within seconds.
The "100 free auction" guys will further dilute any value the "equality
scheme" is promising.
The ChiComs will POUR millions of listings in each day; further devaluing
the "value added" that EBAY is promising.
.................
I am not going to do anything for a while, but I am strongly considering
dumping all stores and using FP/10/30 for the first few weeks of the change.
I want some proof that "increased exposure" is not just a fantasy hook.
With traffic in the toilet and jammed search-returns, I want to see the
"value-added" BEFORE I pay for it.
..............
EVERYBODY needs to be sure they kill ANY "special features" they have
in their current store listings, BEFORE they upgrade; subtitles, templates,
etc. Those features will be billed at non-discounted rates, on 3/30.
........
An EBAY CS-monkey told me that SM-Pro will become active as soon as
you upgrade. If true, early adopters will get a few weeks to play with it
at no extra charge; until 3/30.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." Dr. Seuss
dumping all stores and using FP/10/30 for the first few weeks of the change."
I am doing radical changes now I guess. Some I perhaps should have done. I am ending pretty much all coin, postcard, stamp, first day cover, event cover and like auction. These will be grouped in lots.....likely should have been. They had a pretty good mark up, lots of work mind you, but listing cost is getting too close to buying cost on some items. I have ended ~200 items so far....guess thats enough for the night. It would be interesting to know how many auctions drop off the next week.
I am hopeful that I will save more money is fees then the fee hike and then I keep trying to tell myself that people will list tons of $25 Steve Young cards for $0.99 that I don't have.....or like examples to my other sets/collections.
The thing I hate about this the most is....having to redo my eBay selling format....again. It isn't easy to do this with 1000 plus items.
Hope for the best....plan for the worst.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
If they were trying to eliminate the super cheap volume sellers, why offer 100 FREE .99 auctions? How many people will create secondary accounts just to take advantage of that?
<< <i>Ebay is trying to prevent low dollar store items from consuming the listings. All of us do it; we have a $3 card and put a BIN at $5. It may not sell in a week or month but give it time and it will sell. Ebay is agressively trying to swap BIN's with auctions by increasing the price of BIN's and making auctions free! When you think about this rule change keep in mind Ebay's #1, themselves, by having an influx of auctions they are creating a faster revenue stream because auctions end faster then buy it nows, generally. Insertion fees are nothing compared to final value fees; this rule change will create more auctions and less buy it nows. >>
If this is true, then i'm all for it. And i'm a buyer/mostly seller on ebay.
Still home sick, so will be tuning up things on my store again today. Did the upgrade to Premium yesterday. Put 713 items on deep (40 %) dicount, sold about 40, so things are moving. Today will be moving all my less than $2 items (Couldn't qualify for sale below about $2) that I think will sell to .99 auctions, and anything that I don't think will sell is going to be ended and then lumped together.
Couple of questions.
#1 Storm mentioned a big hit on the Subtitle thing, I think I have about a dozen of these floating around in my 1375 items, is there a away to find them with some sort, I certainly don't want to have to look at all 1375?
#2 I don't think I have any of those Store feature things, but where in your Store do you find that, there is no tab perse for Features?
Thanks, all the info here is a help !!!
Neil
<< <i>With 3000 items, I assume you use mostly store.
Here are the current store fees: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/storefees.html
An item listed at $1.00 - $24.99 cost $0.03, this will go up to $0.05. Lets use a $12.00 PSA card.
Under the old fees, and ebay got 12% commission, or $1.44. On the new Premium, it sells and eBay gets 8% commission, or $0.96....$0.48 less. If it the item took 6 months to sell, 6 x the extra 2 cents a month = $0.12, so $0.44 - $0.12 = you save $0.36 over the old system.
I am sure I am missing something, but if you make 100 like sales a month, it should make up the new fees, if you do less then that, then you need more high dollar items to balance. A single high dollar sale could offset the new charge by itself, maybe a little more then offset. Like if someone buys a $1000 meteorite from me.
I am likely missing something. >>
Where does it say that the FVF for premium store memberships would be 8 percent?
My understanding is that the 8 percent FVF for store subscribers is only for auctions. On the fee chart, I don't see any mention of fixed price listings having lower FVF with premium membership.
Also, FVF are higher now in certain price ranges as the the rate jumped from 4 percent to 6 percent between $100-$1000.
Using their calculator and the numbers I have been giving for my listings, I guess I am looking at a 5% raise, since the calculator likely favors eBay....7-10%. Not counting the changes I am making or will make....like I ended almost all the $4 and less items yesterday...which will help some...these now will go in lots.
Still, I think a person can work this and at least break even. Or at least someone like me with 1500 things listed. I imagine this is the death of the 200 item or less store seller.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
<< <i>Just so I'm clear on this:
The old fees for stores quoted prices in 30 day insertion fee increments.
I don't see that noted on the new fee schedule. I'm assuming you have to pay a 0.20 insertion initially and then from that point forward you incur no additional fees. Of course the item would have to be listed 7 months before it exceed the cost of .03 cents every 30 days.
Am I making an incorrect assumption on this? >>
The auction listings will likely stay the same in duration. Meaning, they are not reaccurring now...but if you put list till sold, then you are choosing reaccuring.
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.