Much of my email from readers this month concerned the recent announcement from eBay that it will increase many seller fees on February 18, 2005. Since many business people use eBay’s online store system as their primary ecommerce point of sale, it’s no surprise that most of the emails I received were of the angry variety.
One email in particular caught my attention because it urged me to visit a website to sign an online petition protesting the fee hike. The email directed me to http://www.petitiononline.com/ebayfee/petition.html and upon further investigation I found that 22,548 digital signatures had already been collected (as of this writing).
Thank goodness not all of them had my email address.
This will be the fifth rate hike in as many years for the auction giant and should really come as no surprise. Price hikeÆ’s are a normal course of business. It was the size of the hike that has many sellers upset.
The rate hike involved the following fees:
Many of the emails I received pointed out that small sellers are making very little profit as it is so the increase in fees will only serve to drive these sellers completely out of the eBay business. Some sellers accuse eBay of purposefully trying to run them off, but I doubt that’s the case. eBay has no reason to drive away the small sellers, but that realization never occurs to those who feel they are being priced out of the market.
Not everyone is too concerned over the fee increase. Jim Cockrum, eBay Powerseller, publisher of “Creative eBay Selling News,” the world’s largest newsletter on creative eBay selling, and author of one of the best selling eBay books of all time “The Silent Sales Machines Hiding On eBay” has other opinions.
— http://hop.clickbank.net/?powerpak/silentsaleSmaller sellers will stop selling on eBay and try to sell somewhere else online. They will never have the chance to expand themselves on eBay.
Only time will tell if the predictions come true, but for the short term many smaller sellers are closing down their eBay stores and moving up the street to Yahoo.com.
Here’s to your success!
Small Business Q&A with Tim Knox
Copyright (c) 2005 Tim W. Knox
Tim Knox is a nationally-known small business
expert who writes and speaks frequently on the topic. For more
information or to contact Tim please visit one of his sites
below.
http://www.dropshipwholesale.net
