2017 Spring Seller Update Reminder

[alan@ebay]

Hello,

Please use this thread if you have any questions or wish to discuss today's announcement. 

Thank you. 

[mam98031]

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@jzq2468 wrote:

The reduction of the top rated plus seller discount from 20% to 10% virtually eliminates the incentive for sellers to be top rated.

To maintain top rated status,  sellers must bend over backwards to please buyers and it will be no longer  worth it.  I will probably eliminate the RETURNS ACCEPTED

ang go with NO RETURNS and skip the piddling 10% discount.

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@jzq2468

Speak for yourself please as I completely disagree as I know many others do as well.  While I agree that the reduction in the discount for listing that qualify for TRS+, I strongly disagree that it eliminates the incentive to be TRS.  The benefit of shipping discounts alone are far more important than the TRS+ discount IMHO.  So be careful and make sure you fully understand what is affected if you choose to let your TRS status go as you may be just costing yourself money that you wouldn't otherwise lose if you have a complete understanding of the program and facts.

You CAN let the TRS+ listing status go because the reduction in discount isn't worth it for you WITHOUT losing your TRS status.  They are NOT one and the same.  You could change your handling time to a couple days and your return policy to 14 days and still retain TRS status.

[Anonymous]

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@bob4676 wrote:

I've been an eBay seller for 2 decades. I'm hoping that eBay still sees us as partners, not merely as transitory customers. Every year seller's costs go up, and lately, the number of promotions, particularly listing promotions, go down.

If there are only dwindling profits to be had, how does eBay think that will be an incentive to grow our businesses??

I wouldn't mind the rates going up, if it was balanced out with increased free listings.

In fact, why charge for listings at all? It's the comissions and store fees that makes eBay the most money. If we sell more, everybody wins, and we all know that the more listings out there, the more sales that are generated.

I'd love to have an anchor store, but my sales won't allow it. Sales are not doing that great since the recession. Just as sales were going up, the promotions stopped.

Is eBay finished offering free listing promotions for good? Free listings encourage business growth. Other promotions are not all that useful really. Give me something real for my increased fees!!!

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Hi @bob4676 - Listings promotions aren't going away and I appreciate your feedback on this! While we can't say for certain when the next one will be for your account, keep an eye out for your next invite. In the meantime, I suggest giving auctions a try. You're credited all insertion fees on auctions when they sell and it could help you save some $ while making some $!

[lamplust]

Try changing your shipments to standard shipping. Late shipments are not from handling time or tracking uploaded in time. It is from the first scan to when it is delivered. Like First Class shipments are valued at being delivered within 3 days, even though it is a slower shipment than priority. Check over your business policies and shipping methods. Make sure you have standard shipping (1-9) days, or something comparable.

[jaybird333]

I calculate that with the reduction of discounts from 20% down to 10% I'll lose at least $100-$150 a month, $1,200-$2,000 a year.  So...can someone tell me the benefits I'll be receiving for such cost?  (I surely have not put a finger on it .... ) 

[petgirl85]

Thank you for the information!

[hobbies630]

Ebay's stores have doubled in costs and the free listing have gone down except for the Big Anchor

Store and it increased to 10,000 free listing a month, but I tried to get 5000 listings when they were free in my Anchor store but as a sole person there was no way I could get 10,000 or even 5000 done so I dropped to a lower store at twice the previous cost and now I only get 1,000 free listing and pay twice as much as before. My Ebay costs are at 23% with no discount as I can not charge the $2.95 to my customers just so they have tracking when they might have only purchased one cent (Lincoln Cent)

I charge between  $0.50 to $1.25 depending on the price of the coin(s). Any item over $25.00

I will send with tracking.

[transparensee]

To my knowledge, China subsidizes shipping costs for exports, not the USPS.

[mam98031]

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@jaybird333 wrote:

I calculate that with the reduction of discounts from 20% down to 10% I'll lose at least $100-$150 a month, $1,200-$2,000 a year.  So...can someone tell me the benefits I'll be receiving for such cost?  (I surely have not put a finger on it .... ) 

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@jaybird333

 Yes, the more sales you have the harder the impact on the sellers.  Which is what I said a few times before.  The larger the seller the harder the impact.  To lose $100 to $150 in the TRS+ discount your monthy Gross sales would be on an average between $16,500 and $24,500 monthly.

[rockz1101]

..."It's insane for the small time seller who does it for a hobby." ...

If selling on eBay is a "hobby", then it must be FUN to sell on eBay, right??
Success depends on the type of hobby and the level of profit a hobbyist wants or expects for their efforts, all VERY subjective, and probably not all
"hobbyists" are part of eBay's bigger picture.

Smaller sellers: what constitutes small seller to eBay, too little collected in sellers fees? too time consuming with customer service interventions? or ???
Then there's the "incompetent" sellers, they cost us all.

Bet eBay development has an economic metric that has to be achieved on a very
specific timeline. Remember, nothing is " written in stone" and change may be good for some and not for others. Less discounts may not be a bad thing, and may make the
marketplace for serious sellers, who offer all the recommended selling features,
and will help keep eBay competitive in the eCommerce marketplace.

These are different selling times, more so than ever before.
Brick and mortar businesses are closing down or downsizing in larger numbers, Google search the topic.
It's predicted one of the first workplace jobs to be ENTIRELY replaced with robotics, will be cashiers. You can already find several chain/big box stores with self-checkouts.

Google is testing a non-online real physical shopping environment, where every thing you choose to purchase is all electronically monitored and recorded once it leaves the shelf. Payment is all electronic. No employees, you go in, pick out what you want and JUST leave the store. They are still experimenting with this concept, so far reports are favorable.

Electronic payments, currently, no different than what eBay and PayPal do for eBay sellers and buyers.

With eBay, the smart ethical seller will recalculate, stay creative PLUS be the cashier
and give personal, not robotic customer service.

[media_men]

Wanted to weigh in on the upcoming May 1st Ebay policy update (increased fees, halving of the final value credit fee for top sellers). Can someone at Ebay explain to me how it makes sense to increase seller costs and how these policy decisions will help the Ebay Brand? You can try to cover this up by ebay branded shipping supplies (if they are useful to or a reseller or even in stock to ship) or promotions, but for those that don't care about these fluff features, it's just another significant hit to being a top rated seller.
Additionally, top rated sellers go through a lot of $ and inventory resources (product storage and inventory measures) as well as being diligent about shipping on time. They also deal with many unreasonable buyer demands (especially returns issues) just so they can protect that top seller status. What this policy change ( in essence) means -- is that Ebay doesn't value the level of service that top rated sellers provide to the end customer. I've spoken with a number of Ebay top rated sellers who are similarly concerned. We've had discussions about reducing our Ebay listings exposure, increasing our shipping & handling time on our listings, returns handling and other measures that might negatively affect the ebay buyer.
Some sellers might like the shipping supplies or might like to promote, that's fine. Instead of forcing this shortsighted policy upon everyone, Ebay should be providing top rated sellers the choice. Stay with the current program .....or .... sign up for the May 1st policy changes.
This policy (if implemented as described) will wind up hurting the Ebay brand, not help it.

[recycle-shop]

100% agree that a solution to provide videos should be in place before the 'active content' ban is implemented. Videos are extraordinarily important to us and a huge boost to customer information about our product.

[recycle-shop]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@miss_minutes wrote:

Wait a minute.... we are being punished 4% for not meeting the e-bay minimum performance standards..? I'm not really complaining because im a TRS and I always following their performance standards but that just seem extremly unfair to smaller sellers. 

So essentially, they are shrinking the TRS benefits + taking away incentives for sellers to exceed performance standards... making it harder for smaller sellers to sell + make money + become better sellers because of less visibility as compared to bigger sellers..

All this will do is push all the smaller sellers + community out of eBay and only allow the bigger sellers to stay. And they wonder why Amazon is winning lol, no protection on the sellers part. 

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I see this a little differently.  The take away of 1/2 of the TRS+ discount will be harder and more expensive the larger the seller is.  For small sellers it will be easier to let it go as it may only mean they lose less money.  So a seller that is TRS+ seller without a store could lose up to $10 a month for every $1000 worth of gross sales.  Or if you have a store you could lose about $6.15 per $1000.  So the larger you are the more it will hurt.

From my point of view this is much more impactfull to larger sellers.  While I understand the concern over this change and I don't like it.  I just don't think some or looking at this correctly.  I've said this many times before on various threads, I think Ebay needs to buckle their belts as when this comes to be in effect, they will see a whole bunch of sellers change their selling structures.  Due to it only being a reduction in their FVF discount they will change their handling time to push it out a little and change their return window to 14 days.  Those sellers will no longer qualify for TRS+ discount for doing such a thing, but the will still retain their TRS status as long as they comply with the other rules for the program.  And that is important since there are some good benefits to be TRS.

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That's pretty much our situation. Decreasing the discounts removes most of our incentive to continue adhereing to TRS+ listings. We'll likely change our "handling" time to 2 days and back the return period off to 14 days. 10% off fees isn't enough to make up for the expense/hassle of supporting next-business-day shipping and 30 day returns.

[jaybird333]

No...you assume wrong.  I do not sell $16-24K monthly....  I sell vintage jewelry, whose fees hit right around 10% per sale when we add in the shipping.    So...lets scale that sales volume back almost half...  I sell around $9500-$12500 monthly.  Every single one of my sales are one-of-a-kind items.....no easy re-lists for me, thats for sure!  And...to even make it more time-consuming and mind-boggling...my average sale is around $20 each...about 400-600 individual sales monthly!   Yes, I put a whole lot of time into eBay....and the reduction of a couple hundred bucks monthly hurts big time. 

[recycle-shop]

Now if they'd only allow promoted listings in my category, I could actually take advantage of the credit...

[recycle-shop]

I would have loved to see this Seller's Update provide specifics on that "We are increasing our spend on SEM and Google ads by $______ with this increased revenue this provides" or similar.