- This topic has 17 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 1 month ago by
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Let’s see;
Maybe with the new tax laws ebay will cut the listing fees to 20 cents instead of 30 they now charge, after all one big co after another is returning more money to the the people who made them so wealthy.Ebay with just a few strokes on the key board can increase their income by 1/3.
An interesting and accurate gauge of ebay stragety is evident in ebay’s easy path to create more wealth for the co.
Ex; From a 20 cent listing fee to a 30 cents, a 33.3 percent increase in fee charges in one stroke of the keyboard.
Image this times millions of listings everyday.
Not bad for just selling air after all they are only selling only selling “air” and as the late great Ross Perot said “air” should be free and no one should have the right to charge for it.
However someone figured out a way to do this by becoming a “middleman” and charging for free air and doing this legally but maybe not morally.
Everyone is entitled to a profit from which their own imagination can come up with.
However in the ying and yang of all dealings of huge co’s they have to create a positive return to the sellers by offering a new selling strategy to pacify or obviate the sting of such a move.
Take notice just more strokes of the keys on the keyboard and it all left up to the seller to rack their brains and absorb the increase and find a way to overcome another cut in their income.
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I think you said you’re new to this and I was wondering is eBay’s listings fees are slowing you down from listing all your items.
Unfortunately, I’ve never seen eBay or any other its competitors (Amazon, Etsy, etc) ever LOWER their fees. They add new services, but they dont give themselves a pay cut. I cant think of any large corporation that has done this.
With the new tax bill, Ive heard of some companies giving their employees a one time bonus. But have you heard of a company lowering their price because the company got a huge tax cut?
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What would you suggest ebay should do with the 20% tax cut they will be entitled to under the new tax laws.
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eBay has tons of overhead, tons of computers [cooling systems, power requirements, upgraded), staff, programmers, an ever increasing the wage for employees, data centers (buildings), offices, advertising, a global shipping program that does all the work for us, and more!
We get a great listing, shopping cart services, an entire database for us or what was sole to whom when, where and how much – phone support – buyer/seller mediation [to some extent], over 99% uptime
and your listing is exposed to 171 million active buyers!If you placed an ad in your local paper, it cost $45 and you get none of these features.
I dunno, I think the fees are very reasonable even without the lower per listing fee for stores.
Albee – think about this for a minute. 90% of us are getting income tax cuts during 2018. So do *we* lower our selling prices on eBay as a result? Just tossing out another perspective on the topic
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these are all the thing ebay can spend their 20% cut on–
my favorite suggestion is to have the same level customer service for all callers as the anchor support has. i know that would cost more to have more training, for sure.
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While it’s true that without sellers, ebay would have no money, it’s just as true that without eBay, I’d have no business. So it works both ways. My local auction house, at which my items would sell for vastly less than they do on eBay, charges a higher percentage than eBay to sellers (and a 20% buyer’s premium on top of it.) With eBay, I’m able to attract buyers from all over the world. Would my weird thrift store pottery and unsigned outsider art find a willing local buyer if I opened a brick and mortar store? Almost certainly not. In my mind, eBay is not at all a useless middleman but is rather doing me a service. And if they’re able to increase their profits by charging us a relatively painless 10 cents more per transaction, I’m not sure I can complain. I feel like my energy could be better spent improving my business and sourcing better items than by gnashing my teeth over listing fees.
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Joemezz’
The above is correct except for one more issue-stock holders-they need to be satisfied or else they will flee.
So ebay is obligated to produce profits every yr or else. How are these profits generated?
could it be more fees, maybe more hidden fees. After all it is the stock holders who make or break a co. esp. institutional investors, they really don’t if profits are realized by moral or immoral means as long as it is colord “green”.
Read some of the horror stories on the ebay forum under fees, it was an eye opener.There is a lot of opposition to the tax break for big co’s that maybe the tax break will be split up among stock holders instead directly helping the avg. person who made the co as big as it has become.
This tax break is huge it will be interesting to see what ebay will do for its sellers or keep it for themselves.
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This is interesting,
As President and Chief Executive Officer at EBAY INC, Devin N. Wenig made $15,941,192 in total compensation. Of this total $1,000,000 was received as a salary, $2,430,000 was received as a bonus, $0 was received in stock options, $12,500,033 was awarded as stock and $11,159 came from other types of compensation.
Could you picture him walking around a good will store buying shirts for a dollar and reselling them on ebay.
Maybe with the tax break he will spread some around for the sellers.
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i have to echo what others have said. ebay allows us and many other to make a living. lots of CEOs of huge internet companies (and any huge companies) are multi-millionaires and billionaires.
not sure what the problem is. you think it’s unfair? then don’t sell online. go sell at the local flea market or antique booth or your front yard.
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This morning I read this in an ebay forum.
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frequentc
Re: Horrible first selling experiance. (So many fees, scams, and bad customer service)
in reply to retrose1 Dec 25, 2017 3:32:20 PM
frequentc
Can we make this the home page of eBay … it’s one of the most honest things I’ve read on the site yet. Thank You.We are not paid by ebay to be here. We are unpaid volunteers and most of us are sickened by ebay’s money grubbing attitude and how the site is so buyercentric.
What happened to you probably happens to thousands of people every day. Not so much the fees, but the dispute system is shockingly geared to favor the buyer and not the seller. To be honest, an ebay employee came here earlier this year and informed us that ebay has hidden policies that can and will negate ANY written policy and ebay will never tell us what they are.
And to be honest, ebay lures newbie sellers with their banners about how easy it is to make money selling your extra high dollar items on ebay. And not telling the newbies that ebay will hold their funds, that electronics, cameras and high dollar designer items are the most highly scammed items here. Or putting a limit on what a newbie can list. They don’t because it appears that ebay wants the newbies to list their items without knowing the risks.
Which is why I advise that newbies should only list $35 items until they get enough recent selling feedback as the dollar value of the item they want to list. Had you done that OP, you would have seen what the fees were, gotten used to the shipping costs and possibly gotten a scammer to deal with and have much smaller numbers to deal with rather than the over $500 you have to deal with now.
And to be honest, I am worried about that $3000 camcorder bundle you sold. If you have a problem, come here first. But don’t spend the money just yet, you might have to give it back.
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there are thousands of posts on the ebay forums just like that. people think ebay is out to get them and ruin their businesses. if you think that too, which is sounds like you do, you should be posting over there and not on this forum. we exist so that sellers can trade info and experiences, not complain that ebay charges too much (though it’s fine if you think that) and is out to get them.
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We sellers don’t own the company.. The stockholders do. We are customers.
If Ebay wanted to share the wealth, they would probably declare a dividend, to give back some of the tax savings to the stock holders.
You can always buy stock if you want to share in the profits.
Nobody is forcing anyone to buy or sell on Ebay. There are more and more places to sell goods these days, from Craigslist to Offerup/Letgo to swap meets. If the fees are prohibitive, sellers will move on. Believe me, if that happens Ebay will rethink things.
The bottom line is profits. That is why Ebay is in business… the rest is just conversation.
Good luck with your sales…
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albee, You say: “…all left up to the seller to rack their brains and absorb the increase and find a way to overcome another cut in their income.”
That is what we do, That is business.
If marketplace fees go up, we figure out how to adapt.
If shipping rates go up, we figure out how to adapt.
If buyer expectations increase, we figure out how to adapt.
If competition increases, we figure out how to adapt.
If demand for our products change, we figure out how to adapt.
If our inventory sources close, or change their pricing structure, or move, or make other changes, we figure out how to adapt.
And on and on…OR….
we can complain about the terrible injustice of it all.
USMC: Improvise, adapt, overcome.
It works for the Marines, it works for business people too.
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If you believe that eBay is doing something immoral and extortionate (becoming wealthy for charging people for “air” while providing zero benefit), it sounds like you’d be more comfortable selling at another venue such as a swap meet or flea market. As others have said, nobody is forcing you to sell on eBay. They don’t have a monopoly. You aren’t being exploited.
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Albee,
It sounds like you have experienced the sticker shock of business, selling online, and selling on ebay. Unfortunately, what you are seeing is the expression of “it’s just business” in action. The bottom line of business is revenue, profits, conversion rates, continued sales, proper market positioning, being and staying competitive in this global market, knowing who they are accountable to and why, bringing in and retaining customers, keeping up with and/or setting trends, and partnerships, and/or independent contractors (which we as sellers are). Independent contractors are not considered part of the business and have no company rights and/or benefits but instead the rights and benefits of independent contractors.
Yes, there are areas of ebay that need to be improved upon due to ebay’s inconsistent consistency in policy and practice. Yes, they have fees that seem to push the limit if you stop to list them all – final value for each item sold, individual fees for each enhancement done inside of a listing, store fees, fees if one goes over their listing limit, promoted listing fees/percentage rate (if one chooses to use promoted listings which is becoming almost mandatory in order to compete) etc. The question becomes – is selling on ebay right for you?
While online selling was once a trend, it is now a mainstay and expanding rapidly especially with more and more brick and mortar stores closing. While ebay has areas to improve on, if you choose to go to another business/selling format you will have to once again decide if that business/format works for you. The greatest power for change is you. You will have to decide what level of investment you wish to invest in someone else’s company. You will have to decide when and where to have a voice of change with no expected outcome but of having voiced your opinion. If you wish to voice your opinion, you can inside of the main ebay page and the seller’s hub. If something isn’t working state the facts only and not your opinion or emotional reaction. Top rated and Top-Rated Plus Sellers and/or those with the highest-level store have a particularly strong voice with ebay. If I recall correctly, ebay changed what and who they advertise below a listing due to feedback from their top sellers. They went from advertising other company’s comparable items to the ones being sold on ebay by top rated sellers due to feedback by top rated sellers.
If you are going to remain in the world of business and/or remain selling online, you will need to decide if the world of online business works for you, if you are open to diversifying if one platform does not meet your needs, and if the level of adaptability required meets your needs and expectations.
I think MyCottage succinctly summed up business adaptability.
If marketplace fees go up, we figure out how to adapt.
If shipping rates go up, we figure out how to adapt.
If buyer expectations increase, we figure out how to adapt.
If competition increases, we figure out how to adapt.
If demand for our products change, we figure out how to adapt.
If our inventory sources close, or change their pricing structure, or move, or make other changes, we figure out how to adapt.
And on and on… -
AdventureE
First of all—thank you for taking the time to explain it all without personal feelings or childish attack like answers.
I see the difference here now and that is because everything I would be selling are things I paid full price for in my two businesses for more that 35 yrs. and not items I would look for in good will or the usual places that re-sellers look for items to sell, and belive me I think it is great idea to develop that skill and make it work but I don’t have to do that.
The world of selling on ebay would not do for me, their high percentage take may be ok for re-sellers but my stuff is what I paid full price over the yrs when I needed them and I am not willing to give them away.
Ever since my active duty time was up from the army reserves and I started my working life I discovered that It was not in my nature to take orders from some boss telling what to do or having to sacrifice a part of what I was earning to some character sitting in an office figuring out ways to live off my energy.
To get a feel for what sellers are going through and maybe learn more I actually went to a good will, looked around and bought a few items. One was a pair of nike sneakers, I researched the sneakers and discovered the fakes out there and the consequences of trying to sell them.
I promptly threw them in the garbage and learned a lesson.Al
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