I spoke to eBay PowerSeller Steve Grossberg last night. Steve heads the non-profit trade association IMA (Internet Merchants Association) and attended this week's Ecommerce Forum and had a chance to speak directly to eBay executives about the many changes the company announced on Tuesday.
Steve said he thinks the change to feedback are good, which is contrary to what I've been hearing from AuctionBytes readers. I'm intrigued, but I wanted to save further conversation for a podcast audio interview, so I'll be speaking to Steve again a few days from now and should have it to the website early next week.
Steve also made a really interesting point about the discounts that eBay is offering sellers. You can read about the discounts here. This is the gist of it:
If you are a PowerSeller and all four of your detailed seller ratings (DSRs) for the past 30 day period are 4.6 or higher, you qualify for a 5% discount on Final Value Fees
If you are a PowerSeller and all four of your detailed seller ratings (DSRs) for the past 30 day period are 4.8 or higher, you qualify for a 15% discount on Final Value Fees
Steve used an example of a seller who might push to get 4.8 DSRs and save $200/month with the new discount. He said that seller might instead raise his shipping and handling fee by 50 cents - forgoing the 4.8 rating (which is hard to attain anyway in the S&H DSR), and make an extra $1,200.
I don't know how realistic the specific numbers are, but I think the point is well taken. After I spoke with him, I thought about some of the other factors at play - eBay is favoring sellers with higher DSRs and low S&H costs in search. I'm sure Steve will have more to say on this topic, so keep an eye out for the full interview.
The conclusion I draw is that eBay has no real control over its sellers, and the carrot-and-stick approach it rolled out on Tuesday is not a guaranteed recipe for success.
As for sellers, it's going to be very uncomfortable over the next few months as they try to figure out how the new fees affect them and try to determine whether their listings are getting exposure in search. I hope to have lots of conversations with sellers and experts to share successful strategies with you.
