Major Changes to eBay Fixed Price Fees: Discussion

eBay's Lorrie Norrington today announced big changes in the fees charged for listings in the Fixed Price format. The details of this announcement can be found on many other sites which I will link to at the bottom of this post. Suffice it to say that there are numerous variables by category, increased Final Value Fees, and a convoluted mess where understanding the changes is concerned.

Rather than detailing the changes here, I would like to share with you some of the discussion being generated by these changes. What are eBay sellers and buyers saying and what are their first thoughts and reactions? I roamed the eBay message boards and found some interesting comments.

Regarding the new policy banning checks and money order payments and the switch to electronic payments (PayPal, ProPay, merchant accounts) only:

"Well as a buyer, this puts me out of the game.

I used to have a Paypal account......the first time I used it, I had unauthorized charges on my credit card.

Got that mess straightened out, & didn't use Paypal for 6 months. Made a second Paypal purchase......& had unauthorized charges again. At that point, I told them to stuff it, closed Paypal & used just M.O.

I have 100% feedback. I have never paid anything late (I've sent M.O.'s overnight mail, just so they were there in the time required to pay). I've left maybe 2 dings in my entire shopping career......both to sellers who never sent what I paid
for.

This is the thanks I get for being the type of buyer the sellers want??????????? If I treated the shoppers at Target like this, I'd be fired on the first incident.

There's a lot of people like me who just don't have a credit card,for whatever reason.......or it's just for emergencies. But we are not good enough to shop here."

The Media category will be hit especially hard with the fee changes. A 15% Final Value fee will apply and sellers will now have a cap on how much they may charge for shipping. One angry longtime seller, with 10051 feedback, states:

"I ship many books and LPs! This is ABSURD!!! They're going to put me OUT OF BUSINESS!

Example Books/Antiquarian & Collectible they say $4.00 MAX! Do they know how HEAVY those old books are??? Most are thick hardcovers with GLOSSY paper pages and cost $4.00 alone, NOT TO MENTION PACKING SUPPLIES USED, DELIVERY CONFIRMATION, SIGNATURE CONFIRMATION, YOUR TIME, OR GAS TO POST OFFICE.

LPs (record albums). I PAY $1.00 PER LP MAILING BOX, PLUS BUBBLE WRAP AND A 3mm POLY BAG that cost approx. .30 each, plus MY TIME, AND GAS! I don't ship "all" my LP's MEDIA mail but when I do, I charge $4.99 and I either break even or LOSE at that cost!

But....some records are too nice to risk sending media (in with heavy books to get broken) so I ship them PRIORITY WITH DELIVERY CONFIRMATION. That can be $5.50 PLUS MY MATERIALS!

Ebay is NUTS to tell US our max shipping.They are COMPARING US to large Web sites S & H costs but ebay is forgetting! that those huge sites (Azon, etc.) buy shipping/packing supplies in HUGE BULK QUANTITIES. I can only get 50 to 100 at a time. And they have their EMPLOYEES packing for them.

I too, sell on Azon but I only pay a flat fee per month + 15% but I don't have to spend all my precious TIME TAKING PHOTOS, hence I don't complain about only getting reimbursed $3.99 for shipping a book when I sell one on their site."

More discussions:

"Yesterday you were all complaining about zero visibility, do you think that is going to change ? Ebay Cherry picking Paypal's opposition on site could and should raise flags on the Anti-trust and monopoly front."


"Why doesn't ebay just invent a computer chip full of policies and make a policy that sellers must have this surgically inserted into their brains before being allowed to sell on eBay?

Then we would just plug our brain into the USB port and download the new policies into our brain daily.

Hey, it would save TONS of time, instead of time reading and studying and discussing new policies, basically on a daily basis!

Just THINK eBay! You could "require" a cost of $29.95 from each seller and get richer!"


Final Value Fee's Sky Rocket AGAIN


"I would suggest that all sellers that do not agree with this new policy of not acceptting checks or money orders, file a complaint with the U.S. Attonery General Office. As far as I know, through out the U.S. that Cash, Checks, or MO are considered legal tender in banking industrys. If ebay is not allowing a seller to accept legal tender, that might be considered against the law."


"I just find the wording in Norrington's statement to justify electronic payments inappropiate. Why not just say as of this date EBAY is accepting paypal propay cc only. Why blame sellers or buyers for an executive decision to bring more money into both EBAY and PAYPAL?"



The above is just a small sampling of what eBay members think about these latest changes to eBay's fee structure and the accompanying policy changes.

More information about this announcement, which will affect ALL eBay buyers and sellers in one way or another, can be found at the links below.

eBay's 8/20 Announcements Discussion Forum

AuctionBytes Blog

My Blog Utopia


So what do you have to say about eBay's newest bombshell? Is it Good, Bad, or are you Indifferent? And are you waiting for the other shoe to drop based on eBay's habit of releasing news that causes a great stir and then sneaking in other major changes, hoping nobody will notice?

100s Lose Money While eBay and PayPal Do Nothing

One of the biggest sellers on eBay Australia has not delivered possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise to his buyers. Complaints were made to eBay weeks ago yet this seller's account remained active. Why didn't eBay shut it down? What was PayPal doing while this was going on?

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

"In the past three months ebusiness-supplies sold over $1 million worth of goods. It is the seventh biggest Australian eBay user in terms of the number of items sold.

eBay was made aware of complaints about the seller weeks ago but did not disable the user account.

Over 450 eBay users who bought items from the seller - often at a price seemingly below cost - have left the company negative feedback in the last 30 days."

PayPal Australia managing director, Andrew Pipolo claims that those who paid the seller using PayPal "will be entitled to refunds through a new fund set up specifically to deal with this incident."

A new fund? Where was all the PayPal buyer protection which eBay leads buyers to believe is already in place? If it exists, why the need for a new fund? And what about those who didn't use PayPal in their transaction with this seller? Many Australians do not like or trust PayPal and may be left hanging with little or no recourse.

If this is what eBay calls "safe trading," I want no part of it. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident.

Additional Note: For a glimpse into some of the reasons why eBay members in Australia dislike PayPal, read the article from apcmag.com titled "eBay boss: 'not offering PayPal is like buying heroin.'"

UPDATE: Andrew Pipolo explains why they initiated the "new fund" referenced above, "We're actually not liable for it but it's something that, because of the circumstances of this particular seller, the impact on such a large number of buyers, we've made the decision to make a fund available to cover the expense. "

Ah Ha! It certainly sounds like he is admitting that the Buyer Protection eBay and PayPal are so fond of bragging about isn't much good, doesn't it?

Additionally, the number of buyers affected appears to number in the thousands, according to the abc.net.au transcript linked directly above.

Why I Blog About eBay

You may wonder just what I have against eBay.

When I first started selling on eBay, I checked out the eBay discussion boards and my education concerning the real eBay began. A lot of information about what goes on can be found there. When there are glitches on the site; when changes happen; when the site appears to have been hacked (more on this below); what the latest scams are... the boardies are always the first to know these things.

Unfortunately, a lot of the information one can find on the discussion boards never seems to make it to System Announcements or General Announcements so many eBay members remain unaware. Many of us who have seen too much think that isn't right so we blog about it hoping to get the word out to more people. Others upload informational and consumer awareness videos to YouTube.

So what have I seen happen on eBay? The list is long but one of my earliest issues with eBay's methods came about because, one at a time, several buyers turned up on the New to eBay message board looking for help after being scammed in a ponzi scheme. eBay was offering them no useful assistance at all. Board regulars had to inform these people about where to go and what to do in an effort to get their money back. I was still naive enough at that time to be stunned at how little eBay did for these people.

That was only the beginning. I continued to help new members and, as I became somewhat jaded about eBay, I found myself getting reported to LiveWorld frequently for telling people the truth. I got many warnings from the moderators as did others who thought the truth was more important than spinning the eBay party line.

If someone new asked questions about selling on eBay, we were expected to tell them that all was rosy. If we tried to tell them about the fees or how slow sales were, we got reported or the trolls came out to shoot us down, malign and mock us. Board wars and battles are common on eBay.

I can't begin to tell you how many people were reported or even suspended from the boards for talking about the incident that took place on eBay's Trust and Safety board when a hacker calling himself Vladuz posted hundreds of eBay user names along with accompanying personal and financial information, including passwords and credit cards numbers. eBay tried to sweep it all under the rug and maintained, for quite some time, that those of us who had seen this were imagining things.

Right now there are probably thousands of sellers who have no idea that they are paying for product listings on eBay that are nowhere to be found in a Search. eBay hopes that they will remain ignorant. I experienced that myself when an item that I was trying to sell could not be found even though I was the only seller with that particular item at the time. A search of the exact title would not bring it up in a search. This goes on all the time and it's getting worse all the time. Buyers think they are seeing everything that is available for sale on eBay but this is not reality.


Speaking of buyers, how do they feel about the new eBay? I intended to link to a buyer complaint on the eBay stores discussion board posted yesterday. But apparently, the thread was killed by Live World. Fortunately, I have a screenshot. Click the Image below to enlarge.










These are just a few examples of things that have happened on eBay and continue to happen which should NOT be swept under the rug. I am just one of many eBay members and former members who think it's important for people to be educated about the true eBay with all its warts.