Comments | carengoodrich: A Boatload Of Ebay

carengoodrich

A Boatload Of Ebay

Jul 20, 2006 13:51

Ebay announced today they will raise the fees for Store inventory listings. Nowadays I sell only occasionally on ebay, so what they do doesn’t affect me much anymore. However, ebay’s moves are often a sign of the times so the choices they make are still of interest. Here's my take of their latest move:

Ebay used to be a free flowing river with a ( Read more... )

Comments 3

Ebay anonymous July 21 2006, 20:47:59 UTC

Caren - I think you have it just right with regards to ebay. Too bad, they had a good thing going and are now being crushed by their own weight. They have lost sight of the original reason they came into existence. Clint

Ebay renee527 July 24 2006, 21:04:28 UTC

Ebay used to be a cash-cow for me..but not so much anymore. I tend to just wait until the cheap listing days to put anything up. I have done the Ebay Store a few times (never for more than a month) and found it to be a bit of a rip-off. Just about everything you use on ebay has a fee attached and sometimes it's a per use fee.. and other times it's a MONTHLY fee. My average ebay fees used to be around $100-$125 a month (this was several years back when it was still a 'cash cow'.) As of late, my monthly fees are never more than $15 ... last month it was $8 and this month it will probably be even less than that. It just depends on whether or not, what I listed last week during their 2-day 20 cent sale, actually sells or if the items go dead in the water. They are fixed price listings, so they will either sell or they won't.. but I learned a long time ago that it's cheaper to go fixed price than 'auction' format with a reserve ( ... )

Re: Ebay carengoodrich July 25 2006, 15:55:21 UTC

Renee, yes it seems the auction format is almost dead. I have also found that fixed price BIN listings seem to be a better way to go these days. The whole thing is tragic, as you say.

In my opinion, the downhill slide started when ebay became a public company in 1998, and ebay's strategy became solely focused on earnings. They forgot that the millions of active sellers like you and I were the ones making the thing successful, not the shareholders.

Caren