The price for inserting media like books, movies, music, and video games on eBay drops in response to angry seller feedback.
Lower insertion fees for the first three tiers of media categories give sellers a little relief, as they made enough complaints to prompt eBay to move quickly on that issue. But eBay will not back off its feedback changes.
Sellers can kick and scream all they want about the new feedback system, but that isn’t going to change. The best discounts for sellers from the Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) program means sellers will have to impress buyers on several points.
One of those points directly hits sellers in their wallets. Buyers can rate shipping and handling charges as one of the DSR factors.
As pointed out on the Bits Blog, buyers have long complained about huge shipping fees. Ebay’s Lorrie Norrington, President of eBay Global Marketplace Operations, said in a message from the company the changes focus on improving buyer trust in the marketplace.
A noble statement, but Norrington left out the other part of the shipping fees issue. Sellers routinely jack up shipping fees in order to skirt eBay’s Final Value Fees, which are a percentage of the closing price.
Shipping fees are not part of the Final Value equation, and sellers quickly realized they could offer an item at a lower price and make up some profits on shipping. If you ever wondered how a $6 shipping fee for a book manifested itself as a $1.38 stamp on an envelope, in an example I’ve seen, now you know where the other $4.62 ended up: in the seller’s pocket and out of eBay’s reach.
eBay will turn buyers into a de facto shipping police force through the DSR program. If sellers price shipping as a profit center, buyers who deal with those sellers may choose to knock the shipping cost portion of the DSR down in response.
A survey at Auction Bytes found sellers consider feedback changes as having the most impact on their business. 98.3 percent said this impact would be negative.
eBay did not have much of a choice but to finally act on buyer perceptions about high shipping fees making eBay a bad deal. Norrington said they will monitor the data associated with the program, and eBay will take action if buyer trust fails to improve.
