eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

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AuctionBytes Blog
News and insight focusing on
ecommerce and the online auction industry
by Ina Steiner, Editor of AuctionBytes.com

September 28, 2008

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

By: Ina Steiner

Sun Sept 28 2008 22:57:26

For those UK merchants willing to pay £349.99/month in Stores (Shops) fees, insertion fees for 30-day, multi-quantity fixed-price listings are 1 pence. For £49.99/month, merchants pay 5 pence in listing fees, and for £14.99/month, merchants pay 20 pence (10p in the media category). Very low-volume sellers would skip the monthly fee, and pay 40p to list items.

The new plan for BIN fixed-price listings (no more Store inventory format in the UK) is described in Monday's AuctionBytes NewsFlash article. Let us know what you think of such a fee structure, and whether you would welcome it in the US.

Comments (22) | Permalink

Readers Comments

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Marty

Sun Sep 28 23:20:28 2008

My problen is over the years, I have html breadcrumb trails in all my listings, to see similar items, to get tag on sales, and those are all using store html url addresses, if the stores went bye bye, so would all my 3000+ links that would all have to be replaced, yikes....

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Ed

Mon Sep 29 00:26:13 2008

But Ina ....

You're a mainly US focussed site, and it's no use posing this question to US sellers because they're not eligible for those lowered fees if they have a US (or CA) shop subscription.

At 8:36am on Thurday last week, eBay UK finally came clean after weeks of intense questioning, and admitted that overseas shop subscribers would get no shop-level based insertion fee discounts.

Even Brits, with British seller accounts, but living overseas with overseas shop subscriptions, cannot get them.

We have an anchor shop on one of the Asian sites, and instead of paying 1p per listing on UK, we now have to pay 35p (40p less VAT) which is double the insertion rate for the same listing type on the US site.

What this will do, is exclude the vast majority of non-resident sellers and force them to switch to the US & CA sites.

If you thought the UK was swamping North America before the visibility cut in Spring 2007, you should be preparing to get completely buried by the Asian sellers switching to dot com now.

The UK's current No 3 position for size in the eBay world will probably fall too, and that will likely lead to fee increases for UK sellers as the Richmond gang struggle to keep their bonuses.

Ed

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Mechelle

Mon Sep 29 00:33:27 2008

Did you notice how they are tying the paypal account with having a higher level store?? Basically you can't buy this store product if you don't buy our self admitted junk PayPal product.

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Henrietta

Mon Sep 29 02:32:03 2008

Now lets do some translation:

Shop/Store fees

Anchor £349.99/month = $638.26/month (today)
Featured £49.99/month = $91.15/month (today)
Basic £14.99/month = $27.33/month (today)

Listing Fees FP30

Anchor 1p = 2c
Featured 5p - 9c
Basic 20p - 36c

No store 40p = 73c

As always there are caveats:
# All listings must start at £0.99 or greater. Sellers are not permitted to start a listing in Buy It Now format for under £0.99 ($1.80)
# If your item does not sell or IF YOUR BUYER DOES NOT PAY, you will not be eligible to get a relist credit for your insertion fees.

FVF is 9.9% of first £49.99 ($91) and then 5.9% of the balance up to £599.99 ($1094)

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Andrew Titcombe

Mon Sep 29 04:46:56 2008

I am a UK seller but WHY would I list on eBay at £349 a month to get 1p listings when I can get FREE listings on Amazon UK for under £30 a month
My listings on Amazon achieve higher unit prices than similar ones on eBay so why would I list at all on eBay even for FREE?

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Andrew Titcombe

Mon Sep 29 04:47:21 2008

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Bob

Mon Sep 29 06:39:48 2008

I believe eBay's plan is to eventually dissolve Stores altogether. Stores lead to sellers with less anonymity and sellers who begin to get a "brand" awareness from customers...these sellers are in a better position to leave eBay and become competitors.

eBay wants to go back to the time when buyers bought "from eBay" rather than the way it is becoming that buyers buy "from Seller X ON eBay." With less branding and more anonymity comes less of a chance of name recognition by customers and less of a chance that the seller can gain enough experience and knowledge to break away from eBay and become a direct competitor.

eBay is sick of grooming competitors while getting lower fees (stores vs core). Despite the problems eBay has and faces, there is no - and will be no - threat to their standing as the online auction leader anytime soon. The same cannot be said about online retail in general. eBay knows that it is no longer the leader in ecommerce and no longer has a monopoly as the largest multi-seller retail site.

eBay is trying to shed the sellers that they know eventually will leave, and trying to do it before the can get large enough to be an immediate threat.

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: love it

Mon Sep 29 07:40:52 2008

I agree with Bob. SIGN me up.

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: drew11

Mon Sep 29 07:57:48 2008

Sellers have developed their own brands ON because the Ebay brand is garbage right now. For most people "Ebay" = fraud, phishing emails, poor customer service, etc.

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Mitzi

Mon Sep 29 09:47:20 2008

I agree with Bob also, I think this change has many benefits for eBay, and we all know that eBay is all about benefiting itself these days. No store means much less ability to brand yourself, and a harder time for buyers to check out all the items you have for sale.

I would imagine any fee structure that they come up with will end up costing sellers more money as well...

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: steve

Mon Sep 29 10:33:18 2008

I did not think I could hate this company anymore than I already do.

I actually saw this coming when the head of Stores resigned and went to Ancestry.com

Ebays greed knows no end. It will be their downfall. The company has no loyalty to the sellers who built the company. I think the Hoe would auction his own mother on eBay if it would please the stockholders.

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Gaz

Mon Sep 29 10:43:01 2008

Amazing isn't it?

This blog post's been up for approaching 24 hours and only 10 replies, most almost 1-liners.

... ahh, but then the topic is about fee increases on the UK. Never mind, ignore it, it's just about some little island or other on the other side of the ocean, it doesn't affect America.

WAKE UP AMERICA !!!

eBay are testing this on UK and Germany and Italy and France and Spain and Australia. All the Asian country sites are offering their residents the full range of FVF discounts from DSRs if they list on those 6 sites too.

STAND BY TO BE INVADED AMERICA !!!

YOU'LL HAVE IT TOO NEXT YEAR and your shop subscriptions and BIN insertion fees will sky rocket. That's if anyone still has a shirt on their back to sell by then.

Until then, think how visible you'll be when competing with the Oriental Hordes.

Revelation of St John - "And Lo, a huge army arose out of the East and marched westwards and battle was enjoined at Auctiongeddon".

Flak jackets on yet?

No?

Then, Run away - dig a hole - HIDE !!

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: zeak

Mon Sep 29 11:06:42 2008

GAZ GO COMPLAIN ON PSU i dont want to hear that carp on this site

stupid move by ebay it would just make more sellers turn to alternatives

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Jeff

Mon Sep 29 11:11:45 2008

Remember the last time eBay went nuts and raised Store prices in the US? People left in waves. Today we are back where we started with store prices somewhat affordable (I don't mind paying higher fvf).

If they do away with stores this time...I am done, as I am sure many are.

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Loops

Mon Sep 29 12:50:07 2008

I believe alot of sellers have moved to Core. The Stores is still good for those items that are slow movers that have little chance of selling but compliment the site.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: mindelec

Mon Sep 29 15:53:04 2008

@gaz

i think the silence and one line answers are more a sign of resignation. ebay will do what it wants and all the comments and complaints don't mean a thing to them. it's just "noise".

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: EventHorizon1984

Mon Sep 29 18:49:12 2008

> i think the silence and one line answers are more a sign of resignation.

Many saw this coming a year ago, and planned accordingly. We're certainly not going to give eBay a heads up on our plans. And neither will other sellers.

If you haven't worked out how eBay's changes will affect your selling and buying, Start.

While you still have options.

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: steve

Mon Sep 29 19:00:46 2008

By Zeak says "GAZ GO COMPLAIN ON PSU i dont want to hear that carp on this site"

Zeak, do you own this site now? I think it is still a free country last time I checked. Gaz makes some good points. This country has turned into a nation of whimps so it is refreshing to hear someone speak up.

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Ed

Tue Sep 30 10:43:24 2008

Hi Ina

Thanks for the new article today, especially the queries to Richard and Usher.

Where does the Richard you spoke to work? His surname is one I'm not familiar with, though I know there are several "Richards" working at eBay UK.

Please keep the pressure on for a response, there's an ad-hoc group of expatriate sellers out here, in SE Asia, that are just walking around like zombies after last Thursday's back-stabbing by the UK team.

Currently the prime strategy is to shift shop stock onto the free-to-list eBay sites out here, and use in listing links to pull buyers to those sites, which also erases the $1.00 / GBP 1.00 minimum pricing (and on some sites, lets us run item prices of less than US $0.01 = good for the powerseller qualification ... Feedback manipulation? Noooo - it's within eBay's rules!).

In tandem with that, we'll be listing strategic products onto US and EU countries at a fraction of what the UK wants us to pay, and all of us will be watching the cheap listing day announcements very carefully - we expect UK to begin excluding non-resident sellers from those too.

If our strategy picks up momentum, UK will lose, and US will gain, more than a few thousand expat PowerSellers' listings. That's only the number we know of, but with at least a dozen journalists also in the group that communicate regularly, the word is going to spread like wildfire out here, and the non-PS's will be joining that migration.

Although sounding a bit like Ezekiel (or whoever it was) in the wilderness, Gaz (above) is right - the Chinese hordes WILL switch from listing on the UK to listing on the US. Hope you're all ready for it?

Ed

eBay Offers 1-Pence Listings in the UK

by: Susan

Tue Sep 30 15:14:51 2008

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this change translate to higher fees in the way of needing to pay high store fees (all up front)rather than paying up front fees for each listing.

Also, this makes the $.35/listing for 30 days requisite otherwise, unless you pay a big price for a big fees.

So smaller sellers will loose visibility with their store items without paying big fees for a bigger store. (?)

Am I correct with this?

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