Ebay Store Owners Get Screwed Again

[SatansProdigy]

Here's the letter from Bill Cobb I just received. And after reopening my ebay store. :roll: I'll have to talk it over with the wife, but I may end up closing it down. :cry:




Dear eBay Community Member,

Since its debut in 1995, the eBay marketplace has continually evolved to meet the needs of the eBay Community. For the most part, the behavior of buyers and sellers has naturally adapted to changing conditions -- over time, we've learned to allow the marketplace to direct itself as much as possible. On some occasions, though -- in the interest of the eBay marketplace's long-term vitality -- we've had to step in and implement new policies, introduce new formats, or make changes to our fee structure to create needed incentives for eBay members.

Put simply, we at eBay have two basic roles: to deliver the best overall value for buyers, and to maximize cash flow for sellers. As eBay has grown over the years, we've added various enhancements and tools to the site -- but in essence, our "products" are two types of listings:

Core listings (auction-style, auction-style with Buy It Now, and Fixed Price) deliver the signature eBay buying experience. For sellers, they're the fastest way to sell inventory on the Internet -- the only place where items typically sell within about two weeks.
Store Inventory listings were introduced in 2001 and intended as a low-risk way for sellers to display large amounts of product in their eBay Store. This format employs low insertion fees and higher final value fees to encourage an abundance of inventory on the site.
Amid all this change, one thing has remained constant: auction-style listings are the foundation of eBay. Auction-style and other core listings made eBay what it is today -- and they'll always be front and center on eBay.com. They account for about 91% of the gross merchandise value sold on eBay.com. But recently, we've been wrestling with some troubling facts:

Store Inventory listings now comprise about 83% of active eBay.com listings on average.
While eBay.com core listings typically sell in about two weeks, Store Inventory listings on average take 14 times longer to sell. In some media categories, Store Inventory listings take more than 40 times longer to sell than core listings.
And, when you compare our operations costs for an average Store Inventory listing and an average core listing - factoring in the duration of each - ur cost to host a Store Inventory listing is more than 50% higher than for a core listing. In fact, current Store Inventory insertion fees don't cover eBay's costs for hosting them.
It's vitally important -- to your business and ours -- that we maintain a healthy balance between listing formats on the eBay marketplace, and ensure that inventory conversion across the site remains strong. So we're taking action.

Today, I want to inform you of changes we're making to eBay.com -- changes intended to rebalance the overall eBay marketplace by further distinguishing the roles of core listing formats and our Store Inventory format. In short, we're improving the advantages of selling in core listing formats -- and taking action to manage the proportion of Store Inventory listings -- to ensure that the buying experience on eBay stays true to shoppers' expectations.

Core Listings
Core listing fees will remain unchanged. So for the vast majority of eBay sellers who use only these formats, their fees are not increasing.


And we'll be providing greater exposure for core listings on eBay Express. In late August, we'll begin displaying auction-style listings with Buy It Now on eBay Express for qualifying sellers. Also in late August, core fixed price and auction-style Buy It Now listings that qualify for eBay Express will be advantaged over Store Inventory listings.

Also, in response to the requests of many large sellers, we're raising the 10-item multiple listings limit to 15, effective Aug. 22.

Store Inventory Listings
For those of you who operate an eBay Store, we're making changes to Store Inventory listing fees, as well as to the on-site exposure we provide for this listing format.


We'll begin charging variable insertion fees for Store Inventory listings, as we do for core listings. Beginning Aug. 22, eBay.com Store Inventory format insertion fees will be tiered with an item's starting price.

These Store Inventory format insertion fees take effect Aug. 22, 2006:
Starting Price New Insertion Fee Current Fee
$0.01 -- 24.99 5¢ 2¢
$25.00 and higher 10¢ 2¢

Some Store Inventory format final value fees also will also increase, effective Aug. 22, 2006:
Selling Price New Final Value Fee Current Fee
$0.01 -- 25.00 10% 8%
$25.01 -- 100.00 7% 5%
$100.01 -- 1,000.00 5% (no change) 5%
$1,000.01 and higher 3% (no change) 3%

Please note that for current listings, the new final value fees will apply only after these listings are renewed.

For more detailed information on these fee changes, please see our fee changes overview.

For some time, we've been working to identify the best way to display Store Inventory listings on the site. In the spring, we pledged to sellers that we would test a variety of ways to mingle their Store Inventory listings with core listings on eBay.com. We've tested several alternatives and these tests showed the ideal approach is how we're doing it today - that is, when a buyer's search returns 30 or less core listings, we display up to 30 Store Inventory listings. This is what we'll stick with going forward.

However, starting in about a month, we'll also include an unlimited number of Store Inventory listings after all matching core listings, when the buyer clicks the Buy It Now listings tab at the top of every search results page. When the buyer hasn't selected this option, eBay.com will display Store Inventory listings along with core listings as described above.

Half.com Listings Added to eBay.com Search Results
I recognize that sellers in the Books, Movies, Music and Video Games categories will have unique challenges with the changes we're making. As many of our media sellers have requested, starting in late August we'll again provide visibility for Half.com listings in core search results, by bringing back the Half.com listings merchandising feature we used previously (click here for an example). We're also exploring additional ways to promote Half.com listings in search results on both eBay.com and eBay Express.

How These Changes Affect You
I'm confident the actions we're taking are the right thing to do for the overall eBay Community. We'll more effectively deliver on our buyers' needs and expectations. And for sellers, these changes will ensure that eBay remains a differentiated and distinct e-commerce channel with fast inventory turnover.

I know there's a lot to digest here, and that you're probably most interested in quickly determining if and how these changes will impact your business.

A typical eBay Stores seller who uses Store Inventory format -- making no adjustments to his or her selling strategy following these changes -- will experience an overall fee increase of less than six percent, based on our analysis of all June selling activity. Of course, you need to clearly understand the impact on your business -- which could be greater or less than six percent. To get started, please visit the seller resources page or consult the Frequently Asked Questions we've prepared. Also, use your seller support resources in Customer Support. Our CS teams are fully prepared to help you understand the effect on your business, and discuss your options for adjusting your eBay selling strategy to minimize impact to your bottom line.

In addition -- to help eBay Stores sellers make informed decisions about any changes to their selling strategies -- we're making eBay Marketplace Research Basic available to them at no cost for eight weeks, starting today. Through September 19, eBay Stores sellers can use this data to compare selling formats or determine how best to price inventory on eBay. You can access eBay Marketplace Research here.

I'll be hosting a Community Town Hall discussion on Thursday, July 20th at 4:00 p.m. Pacific time, where I'll answer your questions. Please click here for more details on the Town Hall, or to submit a question in advance.

Sincerely,

Bill Cobb
President
eBay North America

[The Charlton Guy]

I saw that.

An increase to 10% for the Final Value Fee.

Add the listing fees, the monthly Store fees and don't forget 5% for PayPal and you're talking about close to 17-20% on each and every item.

It really does suck.

I can't complain too much though, cus I'm so dumb I only keep my Store open so I can have that funky Charlton Guy Banner...#creep#

Well, I'm with you SP, I'll be closing up my Store. If I were you though, I'd keep your current items up and running (at least until I can afford to buy a hundred or two...).

[Hoss]

Looks like it was fortunate that I shut down when I did! I'll be back with some sort of store or another, but probably not on eBay!

Man that's a large increase! I thought it was high already...I was paying over $100 a month in fees on eBay. That's already too much!

You guys can all feel free to sell here...Soon I am installing a new feature that will allow registered members to have their very own web page here on the Corral! All you need is a little HTML knowledge!

Hoss

[SatansProdigy]

CG: I won't be shutting down just yet. And from the way I understand it, the new fees don't come into affect until renewal ON or AFTER the 22nd. I may do a mass relist on the 20th or 21st just to screw em over. I haven't decided yet. If I don't feel like doing all that extra work, then I'll be shutting it down on the 22nd (along with MANY from what I'm reading on the ebay boards). YOu still have some time to stock up on cool comics! And I'll probably post here one last time a week or so before i close.

HOSS: I'll be looking at other alternatives as well. For now, I'll load everything up into Turbo Lister. This way I still have descriptions and pics I can just copy and paste from.

Leave it to ebay to fuck up a decent thing. :roll:

[The Charlton Guy]

You guys can all feel free to sell here...Soon I am installing a new feature that will allow registered members to have their very own web page here on the Corral! All you need is a little HTML knowledge!

Hoss

#clap#

Can I open an Ice Cream Shoppe too?

[Hoss]

That would be cool! How would you keep the ice cream from getting all melty?

[The Charlton Guy]

With the Koolatron 12 Volt Freezer, Model #F-86!!! :-D

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a240/the-charlton-guy/arcti-kool-freezer-f-86.jpg

Battery powered, easily shipped (for only $37.50 with delivery confirmation). :-D

And I have those multi-colered sprinkly thingies to dip the cone in too! :-D

Only $1.50 per cone (with a $599.00 surcharge for the Koolatron). :-D

Buy one today! :-D

Buy two today (for only an extra $499.00 surcharge, this week only)! :-D

Available in Vanilla or French Vanilla! :-D

More flavors coming soon! :-D

[marvelguy]

Change is a-coming to ebay. I guess they aren't looking out for the little man, huh? Like Bats said in Identity Crisis, "Who benefits?", of course the big man. Even though I don't sell anything on Ebay but I buy things. Due to the increases, sellers will have to bump up their selling tactics somehow, may it be prices, reduced shipping, etc... Since ebay banned google pay service from their sites, there's a possibly another auction services will come into the picture. What about Yahoo Auctions? Who knows, only time will tell.

[SatansProdigy]

And know ebay is running 20cent listing days. Gotta love that.....Yahoo might be one way to go. I'll look into it. Read somewhere Google was thinking of implementing some kind of store feature on their site. Will look into that too.

[fulltimer56]

I think it would be great if Google would open a auction "house"! I also will be closing my store come the 22nd of August! But I might do what SP was saying a listing a lot of stuff on the 20th and 21th then close it!! :twisted:

I wonder if folks started email Google about it that it might light a fire under their butts and get something started?

Linda

[marvelguy]

It's a good idea to start auctions before the 22nd, but not to put ya'll down, wouldn't the FVF is raised afterwards?

[SatansProdigy]

MG the FVF doesn't raise until the next "renewal" of listings. If I'm reading it right, it sounds to me, like you could list before the 22nd and not have to pay the increased FVF until the next time the listings renewed/relisted.

[marvelguy]

I gotcha! So then, the new order changeth.

[SatansProdigy]

Or I could always triple my asking prices! Or run 1cent auctions with $20 shipping fees! Wouldn't that be fun?!?! #creep#

[The Charlton Guy]

Read somewhere Google was thinking of implementing some kind of store feature on their site. Will look into that too.

I am convinced that Google will soon take over the world.

Just as sure that they are going to blow ebay away when they do launch their Store/Auction feature.

I have heard that they are only sifting through the scenarios of inevitable lawsuits that ebay will launch when they do get things up and running.

I only hope that they don't use ebay's Listing Fee/FVF as a model.

Google is making SO much money from their other endeavors that hopefully their fees will be much lower, but only time will tell I guess.

[marvelguy]

Yep, Google's pay service is cheaper than Paypal. I think that's why Ebay banned them. Heck, at $400 some dollars per share fer Google. That's some strong cash. They have do something to keep the stock strong, hence the auctions. Just a hint.

[The Charlton Guy]

Found it...

Check this out:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3282

[The Charlton Guy]

And Linda, here's your petition:

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?ga05

[marvelguy]

Whoa! They already got the ball rolling, so to speak. Ebay is gonna be jealous.

[SatansProdigy]

Thanks for the link CG. Signed it just a minute ago!

[marvelguy]

Signed it too. Hope it helps.

[marvelguy]

Wow! What a hassle they turned out to be. Customer service is what make or break a company. Ebay has gotten so big that the people working there has taken it for granted.

I'll be there with ya'll in whatever you do. I got your back on this.

[fulltimer56]

I'll be there with ya'll in whatever you do. I got your back on this.

Me too, just keep us posted!!

Linda

[SatansProdigy]

Ditto Linda and MG! If you need any help, let me know.

Hey CG, do you have any plans to list your comics anywhere else?

I'm downloading my listings into Turbo Lister as I type this (gonna take awhile....over 2000 items!) and will then decide what to do. I'm leaning toward just shutting it down and continue to run just my auctions. Bidville has a decent price on storefronts, but I don't see much action happening. Yahoo Auctions, I believe, has a store option, but I don't know if I'm allowed to list there anymore.

[The Charlton Guy]

I'm going to start listing my comics here in the Ol' Corral.

Give me a couple of days to get things rolling, but I may just list one tonight to get things moving.

I think Hoss has a few tricks up his sleeve too, if we can get him to stop shoveling goat manure long enough to get things moving... :roll:

[Hoss]

That's right CG! I do have a few things in mind. Nothing fancy really, but I think a great FREE opportunity for our members who sell comics. If we can just get the word out, I think that this would be a good opportunity for some of the sellers to save some $$ on fees at eBay...or at least tide you over until Google is ready with thier auction dealy.

[The Charlton Guy]

Right on brother.

Let's list up a storm here and see how it goes.

I'll be rolling with a huge Superman and DC collection soon.

[marvelguy]

Lately, I've been looking thru some Superman covers from the 60's and 70's on GCD. Makes me want to get some of these books, especially the Neal Adams covers.

[fulltimer56]

I love the Neal Adams Superman covers. I could kick myself for selling mine issues back last year! :x Of course I'm working on buying more to replace them. Of course it will most likely take me forever to get them all!!

But that's all part of the hunt, ain't it!! :cool:

Linda

[SatansProdigy]

I did some quick (very quick) number crunching on my store.
Right Now:
2000 store listings= $40 a month plus $15.95 store fee.

After the 22nd:
2000 store listings=$100 a month plus $15.95 store fee.

This a is a rough estimate and doesn't take into acount anything over $25 (which would have a .10 listing fee under these new rules).

Where the hell do they get a 6% increase????

I've been trying to put a positive spin on this. Trying to come up with ideas. What if I stop accepting Paypal? Then I lose a lot of business, especially my overseas customers and right now they are 65% of my business. What if I raise prices? Ebay has become a huge online garage sale. That would put me at a disadvantage to the other million or so sellers who have their items marked at next to nothing. What if I removed everything under $5 and over $25? I did some number crunching on this and it still didn't work out for me. So now what? Take my store somewhere else? I have a large customer base and could easily send out emails inviting them to visit my new store. But then what about payment options? Do I accept Paypal on an off-ebay site? If not, that brings me back to my first point.

I've put a lot of time and effort into the ebay store and now it looks like I'll be closing it down. I'm still mulling things over, but if I do decide to shut it down, I won't be waiting till the 22nd. I'll do it before the 15th so I don't have to pay for another month of store fees.

Anyway, just "talking" things out. Please ignore as you see fit! LOL! :wink:

[cluelesscomicnewbi]

I shut my store down last time they increased the store fees, I just knew they would try it again. I had really hoped that another viable alternative would have come out of it, but it didn't. Maybe this time? I've signed up to sell on Bidville a while back, but I'm afraid to because of the lack of traffic. I really wish there was competition out there to control eBay's greed.

Also, as a buyer of mostly lower priced items, this really ticks me off, because I almost always add stuff from the seller's stores to what I buy in auctions, or more often, I just buy multiple items from stores. With these fee increases, I'm afraid I'm not going to see the cheap "add-ons" like I do now.

[SatansProdigy]

CCN: I used to have a store on Bidville and did pretty well with it. Granted nowhere near what my ebay store did, but then I never put much effort into promoting the Bidville store. I figure I could use the money I'd be saving from ebay and do some kind of promotional campaign.

I've pretty much decided I'm shutting down the store. It's not cost effective for me. I'll probably be shutting down before the 15th of August, before the store fee rolls into my account.

Has anyone been listening to Bill Cobb on the Town Hall meeting? I was getting too pissed off to listen to him anymore. Sure wouldn't mind punching that jackass in the face.

[fulltimer56]

Just a lot of double talk and I don't care what he says, it's GREED pure and simple!! All ebay is worried about is making the numbers work for THEM!! I'm glad I sold my few ebay shares last year!! I'm now looking into Google!

Linda

[marvelguy]

You mean you gonna get some Google shares? Wow! You must have some lottery winnings here, huh?

[SatansProdigy]

That would be cool Linda! Hope you get 'em!

I decided to take advantage of the 20 cent listing and transfered a couple store items to fixed price format. I'm hoping to get a few more people into the store before I shut it down. Maybe I can clear some stock out.

[fulltimer56]

Hi MG,

You don't have to win the lottery to buy Google shares!! I have a guy (friend of the family) who has been buying and selling stock for me for over 30 years now. I even have ONE (1) share of IBM stock he bought me back in the late 60's (Yes, I was a teenager and I bought it using babysitting money)!! I have a nice little (catch the word LITTLE) portfolio (sp) that he has been working up for me. I can't retire on it but it's nice to have!!

Linda

[SatansProdigy]

So does anyone have plans to go to alternative sites? I know Hoss wants to start something here at the Corral, which would be cool. But most of my business isn't in comics. As I said, I was checking out Bidville and might drop some items there. I was also checking on Homestead and Citymax. Both have good pricing packages and features. Anyone else have ideas or plans?

[chaosus]

I'm definately going to start listing some stuff I want to get rid of here at the Corral.

I just have to do some scanning, make a list, and try to figure out what I want for stuff in either cash or trade.

Any interest in a Complete N/M Runs of books like X-Factor, Alpha Flight, Excalibur?

Gary

[cluelesscomicnewbi]

Speak of the devil, I just got this email from Bidville. Seems someone is taking advantage of eBay's store increases :wink:

Dear KATZ99MI,

Bidville is pleased to remind our membership that Featured Storefront owners
pay no Closing Costs (Final Success Fees). That's right! If you
have a Featured Storefront,
not only are the listing fees free, but you pay nothing for your
successful sales.

And, you can list and sell in our Auction format for free also. All
for as little as $99 per year.

If you haven't tried a store yet, what are you waiting for? Don't
put up with other sites
that constantly increase your fees despite record revenues. Sign up
now and start saving loads of money.

This offer is guaranteed to stay in effect for as long as you choose to
maintain your store. Choose the three month membership option and
you are Fee Free
for at least three months. Choose the 12 month option and that's one
year of NO FEES!

For further information, please visit the following link:
http://stores.bidville.com/storefront/fees.html

Thank you for continuing to grow with us.

The Bidville Team
http://www.bidville.com


This email was sent to you because you registered at Bidville.com to
receive timely information and email.
If you do not wish to receive any further emails from Bidville,
please log into your account and change your
email preferences. If you are not a registered Bidville Member, this
email did not originate from Bidville.com.
It may have been forwarded by someone else. We only send this
newsletter to registered members.

Bidville, Inc. 20283 State Road 7, Suite 400 Boca Raton, FL 33498

[btdhome]

Bidville seems a familiar format, but again...

What kind of traffic does it get.
I'd never heard of it till now.

I'm gonna ask a couple of Bidville store owners and see if I get a response.

[Greg]

I had never heard of it either until it was mentioned here. So I went and checked it out, but it still looks pretty small.

[btdhome]

I think maybe a combo of the two or more sites might work.
Pull people over to the cheaper store after gaining their interest on an ebay sale??
I could spend a lot less and take home the same profit it I could pull that off.

I do like bidville's format though, very similiar to eBay's. Might not put off an eBay customer, plus it has a shopping cart.
And that $100 special really has me thinking.
No listing or final value fees for that year.
Hmmm.

[btdhome]

Checked out wagglepop.com today.
A virtual clone of eBay.
Only been around for a couple months though.

Normal costs = less than $10
$9.95 basic store
0.01 listing
0.01 gallery
0.03 FVF

With their new Smartpro program...
If I understand it right for $9.95 a month you get...
basic store + No listing fees or FVF's.

The newness of the site concerns me though.

[fulltimer56]

I just checked it out and at this time there are only 18 comics listed. And again you have to go though Collectables to get to comics!

I went ahead and set up my user name just in case and I'm going to go back and check it out more and just might list a few items.

Linda

[btdhome]

Linda, right now I'm not looking for a site that'll have great traffic and sales because of it.
I'm more searching for somewhere to get my inventory on-line and pull my eBay customers to it.
I just wish they'd quite with the stupid site names though!
Wagglepop?
Bidville?
jeez!

Some numbers for everyone.

on 07/21
eBay comic stores
388 pages (x25) = 9700 stores
Mile High had 188853 listings
Second highest had 91465 listings

as of this morning, 07/29

375 pages = 9375 stores
Mile High has 160237 listing
second highest has 79387

So far eBay is gonna make a killing, but it's still early yet.

[fulltimer56]

It looks to me that Mile High might be letting their listing fall off and that 2nd highest one is way down. Plus looks like the stores are starting to close down too.

I'm just not worrying with it right now, I am in the process of getting ready for my nephrew/god son's wedding which is going to be in Virginia Beach, Virginia and we (my Mom, my sister & me) have got to be ready to leave here on Wednesday afternoon. And I'm still looking for shoes of all things.

Oh yeah, this wedding is also a fancy get together!! Lord, I don't think I have worn a dress and not a long dress at that, since I got married back in 1990!! :shock:

Linda

[btdhome]

Have fun and be careful Linda.

Update on eBay comic stores.
as of 08/01
Mile High = 140777
second place = 84272 (actually up, last minute listings?)
store pages 373 (x 25 = 9325)

[SatansProdigy]

I haven't had an item in my store sell for 2 days. And my auctions I have running are doing terrible! Ugh. I know the US (maybe elsewhere?) is going through a nasty heat wave right now. Means more people are at the beaches and pools and not in the house. But I haven't done this poorly in a LONG time.

On the store front, I've pretty much made up my mind where I'm going. Bidville looks decent, the only problem is they don't have an invoicing system. I can easily work around that. I'll be signing up for Google Payments soon, and try to cut back on Paypal payments, but the buyers will determine that.

I'll keep running the auctions on ebay and drive my customers to bidville. I usually run 150 or so auctions a week. I think I'll be cutting that back to about 60-80 per week. Maybe less.

[SatansProdigy]

Ouch! I just had the WORST week in a very long time. After fees, I'm looking at about a $20 loss for this week. Here's hoping next week is better!

[btdhome]

Me too!
I sold only 70 items from the last 30 days.
Usually closer to 300-400 or so.

All kinds of talk about this on the eBay discussion boards.
Most everyone feels its a search issue.

I know my stuff doesn't come up in search all the time.

[btdhome]

update;

as of 08/10

Mile High = 166797
2nd = 80656

eBay comic stores = 371 pages (9275 shops, a loss of 425).

I think once the initial shock wore off, most sellers realized the costs wouldn't really effect them till after mid-August for listing and mid-September for sales.

Looks like quite a few are packing their stores out and having big sales till the price change.

[btdhome]

an 08/22 update.

Mile High = 184910
2nd = 131820

eBay comic store pages = 359

Of those stores only the first 40 pages have over a hundred comic items for sale, so that's about a thousand sellers or so in our catagory.

Looks like the bigger stores took advantage of the rates pre-22nd and had a lot of listings ready to go. Gonna' be really interesting to see these numbers over the next month.

[yarmak]

SatansProdigy
you guys in the States are lucky!
we over ar feebay AUS are for stores
being charged
10c - to 50c a listing
store up from $9.95 to $14.95 - up 50%
FVF up almost 100% from 5.25% to 10%


Dave
:x

[btdhome]

actually a US store listing starts at .05 with a FVF of 10% and a $15.95 monthly charge.

Still tracking the effects as of 09/25

Mile High = 149032
2nd place = 19769

355 pages of stores with at least 1 comic listed.

Looks like they lost about 33 pages of store (25 per page) or $13,158 in monthly store charges.
Listing down abour 140K from just the top 2 stores.
280K at Old rate = $8400 / 170K at new rate = $10200

Overall they lost about $11K in monthly income from the comic biz,
BUT!! This doesn't take into account the higher FVF, so probably are breaking even overall.

[Hoss]

There are noticably fewer comic supplies sellers. I just opened my new store and there were dramatically less competitors from the time I closed in July. That's good I guess, but I did have to raise my prices slightly. I really don't know how some of those guys are doing it! A lot of them added extra shipping, but still the profits have got to be low on some of those sellers. Since I started with a fresh ID, the going is going to be harder to initially, but we're going to stick with it for the long term. If the store pays for itself each month and leaves a few extra bucks it's all good!

I'm still going to open a OsCommerce store eventually, but the eBay store is it for now!

Hoss

+

[fulltimer56]

Hi Hoss,

Why did you set up a new ID for your new store? You had GREAT feedback on you other ID and you could had just changed your name?

Linda

[Hoss]

Hi Linda,

I actually permanently closed my previous account. I figured I wouldn't be back ever. Boy was I wrong! I know those first few feedbacks will be hard, but it's a great challenge!

I had over over 400 positives and 100% on the old one and I'm hoping to do it all again with this new one!

Hoss

[habib]

Hoss!

Even though you closed your Hosscocomics ebay account out your feedback is still shown. Maybe you can create a link on your auctions for people to look at your feedback and have a quick little explaination why you closed the account. Just a thought!

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=hosscocomics

[Hoss]

thanks for the tip Habib!

Has anyone noticed the new Sponsored Links appearing on some of the eBay pages.

WHY ON EARTH would you try and drive customers away from your sellers?! Surely the profits generated from the ads can't be better than the profits generated from sellers? This one just doesn't make any sense.

[fulltimer56]

thanks for the tip Habib!

Has anyone noticed the new Sponsored Links appearing on some of the eBay pages.

WHY ON EARTH would you try and drive customers away from your sellers?! Surely the profits generated from the ads can't be better than the profits generated from sellers? This one just doesn't make any sense.

We are talking about eBay, right?? I really haven't seen alot on ebay that makes since for awhile now!! I'm still going to sell on ebay but only with auctions (which is what they wanted) but no way what I use to. I'm going to start working on my store over at http://www.Bidville.com and link it into my new ME page on ebay so maybe I can steer some business that way too. Who knows?

Linda

[Hoss]

Remember Linda, I'll give you a link here as well!

[btdhome]

a final update on all this mess.

Mile High has almost 200,000 listing, but most are auctions over store inventory.
2nd highest down to 20K or so.

Store numbers are still about the same overall.

But... when searching and browsing store listing, I see that the starting prices are about double what they were before.

All the penny listing are gone, almost everything is $2 or higher, with only a couple of sellers selling cheaper, and they usually charge $4 - 6 for shipping.

So...while the selection seems to be about the same, ebay making the same money as before (or more), but collectors are screwed out of twice the money (at least for low dollar purchases).

[marvelguy]

Another thing about low numbers on Ebay. Last year, around the time that Feebay increased their monopolist fees. There were quite many lots with the words 70's comics lots, Marvel Bronze, bronze lots, you get the idea. You get lots and lots of pages, now it's like 1 or 2 pages each. Ebay really has wiped the floor of the middleman.

Hey, where the heck is Google Auctions? They went and bought Youtube? What were they thinking? Lawsuits on Youtube video infringements will distract them for a long time.

[yarmak]

Hi SP
Ebay AUS the stores went up from $9.95 to $14.95
the final value percentage rose from 5.25% to 10%
10c listings rose from 10c to 30c for items 1c 99c
over 99c to $19.95 to 50c a listing

and now we have this
Policy
To improve the safe payment options available to buyers, eBay will require sellers who register after 17th January 2007 to accept at least one of the preferred safe payment forms of either PayPal or a merchant credit card facilities, in their listings.

Other additional payments options, which are currently permitted onsite, may also be provided. Please be aware that this requirement will be enforced starting mid March 2007.

over here in AUS it is against the law to allow full line forcing which is


Full line forcing involves a supplier refusing to supply goods or a service unless the intending purchaser agrees not to:

* buy goods of a particular kind or description from a competitor
* resupply goods of a particular kind or description acquired from a competitor
* resupply goods of a particular kind acquired from the company to a particular place or classes of places.

there was a mass walkout the last price rise myself included there will be more over this - ebay have shot themselves on this one
I also have noticed a significant drop in items and quality of items on ebay AUS over the last 2 years

Unless this is all a publiciy stunt of course trying to force down the share price of ebay for a buyer buyback?

Dave