@bargainbigly wrote:
eBay did not raise direct fees. They raised fees indirectly however:
- Service metrics - indiscriminately applied to unlucky sellers who receive more return abuse than their peers. Penalty for being unlucky (or selling clothing or electronics) 55% increase in seller fees.
- Sponsored Listings - If you don't use them you will get absolutely zero traffic. Average trending rate we see around 7%. This obviously varies by category.
- Shipping price increases - Not eBay's fault, but it kinda is because they have a ridiculous contract and they don't pass on any savings to sellers. If you ship 50,000 priority packages in a year (contract) the discount is around 50%. We heard Amazon's UPS contract is 83% off retail. That gives you and idea of just how much eBay makes selling labels. 7% average across the board so far? How much discount is shared with sellers? Nothing.
- Damaged reputation - Make no mistake. Once a company gets a reputation as a "melting ice cube" there's no recovering. Ask Sears & Roebuck.
My understanding of the earnings call was this: We can't turn this thing around, so let's all just profit as much as we can while the ship sinks slowly over the next 5 - 10 years.
Time to move on, nothing to see here....
Yes, this is why earlier, I said rather than "fee increases", it might be better to think of this as "cost increases". Because the "eBay fee" itself may not have changed. But you're being charged in many other places.
As you say there's issues with Service Metrics. But those of us in Motors know it's even worse. Because the entire motors site is considered 1 big category! This means you are NOT being compared to "Peers". People who sell solid components, or components that do not have any vehicle fitment at all, are being compared to other sellers whos products are internal to the engine and either have a high failure rate or are difficult for customers to fit correctly.
How is it fair for someone who sells ignition coils, which have a 2% defect rate as per the top manufacturer in the world, when the Motor category "peers" supposedly have under 1% defect rate to stay out of "Very High"? This means it's basically impossible to sell ignition coils alone without getting a FVF penalty.
I've discussed this with CSR's before. They read off the information they're trained to tell sellers when inquiring about the service metrics: "Well it's considered fair because you're being compared to peers who sell in your category". So which I responded "Motors is a site, not a category". And there's nothing they can even say at that point. I had one tell me to contact merchant support through email to get it amended if we have evidence it's not fair. Well, the evidence is in the Ignition Coil defect rate that major manufacturers advertise alone. But does eBay take action...?
Furthermore, it's unfair as it's determined by "opened cases" rather than "Decided cases". It makes no sense that you could have a list of dozens of false SNAD where the customers admit it and you still get the penalty.
Sponsored listings is another thing that, as you say is NOT optional in many categories. The telling thing is this; whenever you call up eBay and inquire about sales, the first piece of advice they give you is to use sponsored listings. It's the only change they can recommend that they are confident will have an increase in visibility. It's not like sellers WANT to lower their profit margins, or to pay more for each sale. People use this feature out of necessity. Because if you don't, your competitors will have an advantage.
Regarding shipping fees, they already admit if China loses their discounts they will give them a deeper discount. This proves eBay is getting better rates than they are giving US sellers. Want more proof? Inquire about the eBay fulfillment system. They use their discounted rates as incentive for joining the program.
I do worry about eBay's future, especially since they're not honest about the problems they're facing. I won't believe there's no way to turn it around, but honestly, at this point they truly need to begin taking it seriously and taking drastic action or else it won't turn around.
mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
