eBay listing sale
Ever since eBay announce in January that its new fees would take place, there have been a number of disgruntled sellers, many leaving eBay for good, or at least shutting down their stores. Several new Yahoo Groups were formed, including Greedbay and overstockers (which had previously been something else). People have posted protest auctions including one with a resignation letter by CEO Meg Whitman and a pen, which was shut down at least twice, only to emerge a third time, though I don't know the final disposition.
I joined those two above mentioned groups and I also signed a petition that had ~12,000 signatures on at the time I signed it. For a time, the media's attention was drawn to the story and USA Today wrote an article quoting members of Greedbay and some of the members were passing around the reporter's email address trying to keep the story alive.
Many have planned a boycott of eBay from February 18 to February 25. Although I applaud their actions and have started to look to other venues, including Ioffer.com and Overstock which seems to be the most promising, I am more pragmatic about it and know that eBay is for now still king of the hill and I won't be closing my store or officially participating in the protest. If I don't list, it would only be because I was not listing anyway, rather than that I was officially participating in a protest.
Apparently the loss of sellers, bad press and falling stock prices have cause eBay to take notice as president Bill Cobb send out a letter to eBay members claiming to have spent a lot of time listening to members, especially about the fee increase (Duh, they were pretty brutal. Like eBay is surprised there would be this kind of reaction?). He defended the increases saying "While we stand behind our decision to increase final value fees on Store Inventory Format listings - because they make sense for items that list with insertion fees of two cents - I know this increase has been difficult for some of our sellers" and offering tow minor concessions to sellers: the month of May will be free to all sellers who operated a store in April and $0.25 insertion fees for items listed $0.99 or under. And tomorrow PST (it is already today in my time zone), 5 cent listings on most insertions.
The 25 cent concession is pretty feeble since many items on eBay only get one bid, thus selling at the opening bid and thus cannot be listed without a higher opening bid or a reserve, which would mean they would not be eligible for this reduction and one month alone hardly make up for a drastic monthly store increase (In fact, I think I was supposed to get a free month when I signed up in May, but they started charging me on June 1, I think, only a few days after I signed up. Not a month later.) The combination of monthly and final value fee increases was what was so brutal. One or the other alone might not have been so bad. And also, this is where I believe eBay is acting as a monopoly, as in a competitive environment, they would not have been able to raise fees so drastically. Clearly, they think they have a monopoly.
But at least Bill Cobb did say eBay will offer long overdue phone support to store owners. Apparently, members who had the phone numbers were not supposed to share it as eBay in its classic paranoia didn't want anyone to call them. Also, they have promised real email support, not just canned answers.
Also the 5 cent sale will help as I had planned to list some items last night (2/13), but decided to wait until today.
I joined those two above mentioned groups and I also signed a petition that had ~12,000 signatures on at the time I signed it. For a time, the media's attention was drawn to the story and USA Today wrote an article quoting members of Greedbay and some of the members were passing around the reporter's email address trying to keep the story alive.
Many have planned a boycott of eBay from February 18 to February 25. Although I applaud their actions and have started to look to other venues, including Ioffer.com and Overstock which seems to be the most promising, I am more pragmatic about it and know that eBay is for now still king of the hill and I won't be closing my store or officially participating in the protest. If I don't list, it would only be because I was not listing anyway, rather than that I was officially participating in a protest.
Apparently the loss of sellers, bad press and falling stock prices have cause eBay to take notice as president Bill Cobb send out a letter to eBay members claiming to have spent a lot of time listening to members, especially about the fee increase (Duh, they were pretty brutal. Like eBay is surprised there would be this kind of reaction?). He defended the increases saying "While we stand behind our decision to increase final value fees on Store Inventory Format listings - because they make sense for items that list with insertion fees of two cents - I know this increase has been difficult for some of our sellers" and offering tow minor concessions to sellers: the month of May will be free to all sellers who operated a store in April and $0.25 insertion fees for items listed $0.99 or under. And tomorrow PST (it is already today in my time zone), 5 cent listings on most insertions.
The 25 cent concession is pretty feeble since many items on eBay only get one bid, thus selling at the opening bid and thus cannot be listed without a higher opening bid or a reserve, which would mean they would not be eligible for this reduction and one month alone hardly make up for a drastic monthly store increase (In fact, I think I was supposed to get a free month when I signed up in May, but they started charging me on June 1, I think, only a few days after I signed up. Not a month later.) The combination of monthly and final value fee increases was what was so brutal. One or the other alone might not have been so bad. And also, this is where I believe eBay is acting as a monopoly, as in a competitive environment, they would not have been able to raise fees so drastically. Clearly, they think they have a monopoly.
But at least Bill Cobb did say eBay will offer long overdue phone support to store owners. Apparently, members who had the phone numbers were not supposed to share it as eBay in its classic paranoia didn't want anyone to call them. Also, they have promised real email support, not just canned answers.
Also the 5 cent sale will help as I had planned to list some items last night (2/13), but decided to wait until today.
posted by Chatbots AI at 10:14 PM
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