It looks like eBay has figured out a way to get sellers to pay a final value fee (FVF) on shipping charged for an item.  Today on their pages and in an email message sent to sellers we learn that eBay is not finished trying to alienate sellers as it tries to turn the auction site into a fixed price department store.

A change that will cause seller uproar this time is that in the Books, Movies & DVDs, Music, and Video Games categories (at least to start with more will be added) there is now going to be a maximum charge allowed for postage and handling.  eBay has indicated that this is one of the primary complaints of the buyers on the site and they are trying to make the buyer’s experience more pleasant so there are a greater number of conversions.   Translated this means they want more final value fees.

On the FAQ found many layers deep… There is a question posed asking what if my actual costs are higher than the maximum allowed… The response:

• ” When selling a bundle or quantity of items, you can use the shipping calculator to charge actual shipping charges
• When selling via fixed price, include all or part of the shipping cost in the item price
• When selling via auction:
  • Continue to list your item with the same start price and a shipping price at or below the maximum shipping cost. Many of our sellers have success with auctions, even at free shipping, because their item looks more competitive to their buyers.
  • If your actual shipping costs are higher than the maximum shipping & handling cost, start the item price higher to cover your shipping cost. This technique will minimize risk that you will lose money on shipping.
  • Move your item to fixed price and include all or part of the shipping cost in the item price.
  • If you are selling a bundle or quantity of items, you can use the shipping calculator to charge actual shipping charges”

Any time you include shipping costs as part of the cost of the item eBay wins.  These charges now become costs that they get to charge a FVF.   So now sellers will have the privilege of paying eBay a fee for not only the listing and the sale but also for the shipping of the item.

The posting goes on to encourage sellers to make shipping free and as an added bonus, Powersellers will get double the discount bonus on their FVF fees for the allowed time frame,  you’ll get free Subtitle upgrades AND higher search rankings with best match.  Don’t forget now that someone pays for shipping somewhere so most likely you’ve included it in the price of your product and NOW as an additional added bonus eBay gets to collect the FVF as well.

As a final KICKER (translated – bend over and lets see how far I can bury my boot) eBay will no longer allow checks and money orders as a form of payment. “Checks and money orders no longer allowed: Beginning in late October, we will no long allow checks or money orders as payment methods on eBay. Only approved electronic methods will be allowed. In January 2009, all accepted payment methods will be integrated into eBay Checkout. For buyers, this change means a more consistent and secure payment experience. For sellers, it means faster payment and fewer unpaid items. (Note this policy will not apply to Vehicles and some categories in Real Estate, Mature Audiences, and Business & Industrial).”

Since the smaller sellers typically do not have their own credit card accounts this means that eBay through their Paypal company will also get a piece of the payment activity. 

Again, all of these changes are under the guise of an improved experience for sellers and buyers.  I suspect there is some pressure in a poor economy to continue performing for investors as well and if they can put a positive media spin on increasing the ways they can gouge their sellers for more of their profit then more power to them.

I’d love to hear your thoughts of these recent changes…

The changes sellers are upset about include increased final value fees, sellers inability to post neutral or negative feedback about buyers, PayPal holding auction funds for up to 21 days on “risky” transactions, and the new search which apparently lists eBay’s “best” sellers first in the auction listings.   Many of the changes are in effect now and others are slated for roll-out in the future. 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=24X-SlDmqKI

I know I have been playing at other sites (I hope to review these soon) and I WILL probably be participating in this particular boycott.  Now I’m not a powerseller,  but just in the past month I’ve noticed that my fees are higher than they used to be even with the reduction in listing fees.   I’ve also noticed that even though I charge ACTUAL shipping charges, ship the day of payment or the next day depending on when an auction closes that my Detailed Seller Ratings as posted by my buyers are not high enough in those two categories to ever qualify for any discounts or preferential search treatment.  I’m guessing the key to these number is going to be sheer volume.  Something we smaller sellers don’t have the luxury of.

I do know one thing…I’m just tired of it all.  I want to go back to the days when things were simpler.  I want to be a smaller seller on eBay and be able to make a little money and not be treated like I am a waste of eBay’s time.  What are your thoughts?  Are you an eBay seller or buyer that is “moving on” to other options?   Let us know your thoughts…  Click on Comment!

The first thing that I did once I heard of the increase is I started making comparisons using my typical transactions.  I was calculating things manually until I found a great little tool over on Auction Bytes.   If you go to their eBay fee calculation page you can do it right on the screen or you can play the what-if games on your own PC by downloading it as an Excel spreadsheet.  For me I found that on my lower end items that I always placed Gallery pictures on I will save a bit.   Higher priced items is where I find the FVF kills me… of course that would assume that I SELL the items since the FVF only effects those I sell.  The real determining factor on whether this is an overall increase is based on your sell through rate.

In just my brief playing around with the numbers and reading the announcement a few things came to mind

• eBay is going to be a venue with a lot more STORE items because they’ve lowered the prices for insertion… the FVF is still killer but you can at least get your items out there for people to see.
• The seller that is going to take the biggest hit is the higher value sellers with the larges amount of sell through.  
• Because the insertion fees were lowered the up-front risk is less and therefore I expect we will see the volume of items increase giving the buyers a better selection.   Perhaps eBay is trying to re-attract buyers with selection?
• Reserve has become expensive on the lower end items so you will see many more items that were previously reserve priced either NOT listed at all, or listed with a higher opening bid.  I suspect this will reduce the number of .99 cent starting prices that sellers often use to create a “buzz” around their items.

As I said previously you will need to decide if the changes are for the better or worse for you in your situation.  I know they will cause me to change how I list, and I think to some extent what I list as well.  Perhaps I will actually start looking at and USING some of the alternative auction sites that are out there…

Alternatives… YES there are alternatives to eBay.   Why not take a look at some of the following:

ePier , BidVille, HiBidder, WeBidz

If you’ve got experience with these or others please share!

I did create an Auctiva account and for the most part things seem to be relatively simple.  They do image hosting, have auction templates and a scrolling list of your eBay items.   What I didn’t see was how the process works with your buyers and what the post auction management and reporting are like.   I’m looking for your insight folks.   In a previous post I made I was looking for seller software.  No one had any suggestions to offer.  Certainly there must be someone in the blog community that is a seller on eBay and has recommendations.

I have been a seller on eBay for a number of years and have dabbled a little bit with books on Amazon.  What I am looking for now is some GOOD auction management software.    I’ve tried quite a few different things in both the online and local environments including: Merlin, Auctionwatch, Auctionworks, Mr.Lister, and Shooting Star among others.   In all cases they each had features that were great but for this casual eBay seller I was finding they were or became too expensive to run, or they just didn’t have what I needed to do the types of auctions I wanted to perform.

So lets get into that… What kinds of auctions do I run?  I think this is critical question to ask when you are determining the software that you want to run.  For example if you have an item or two and you only sell those items do you need to have the full blown package complete with inventory management?  I’d guess not but then each seller likes to run things differently.

My items include:  flea market and estate sale items, collectibles, home decor (50-60 items that can be stocked, ordered and drop-shipped), overstocks and returns, basically a real eclectic mix of things.

For me the critical things are:

1.  An inventory management system.   I have many items that I have in multiples that can be re-ordered, and others that are of the one time purchase variety.  Because I am a “data hound” and I never know when I might be able to get the items again I want to be able to keep track of all of the inventory and then list to the auction sites from my available inventory to sell.  I also want to be able to run a “storefront” for the item that I currently have in stock.

2.  Seamless integration with the auction site’sg checkout including integration with Paypal.  I don’t want my buyers to wonder what is happening in the checkout process.  I don’t want them to be redirected to some OTHER place and wonder if they are being spoofed.  

3.  At a glance status or dashboard would be nice.   I want to know how all of my auction are doing… Not only the ones that are running, but the ones that are complete.  Am I waiting on payment, do I need to ship, am I waiting for checks to clear, do I need to post feedback, has feedback been posted for me, etc??

4.  Scheduled listing.  I don’t want to have to babysit the process of listing items.   If today I want to list 30 items for sale I’d like to be able to schedule which of those items I would like to list and on which auction venues and just forget about it.  

5.  Financial reporting.   I need to know what the items cost (from my vendor) , the listing fees (auction venue) , the selling fees (Paypal, auction venue), the selling price (buyer), shipping charges charged, shipping charges paid, packaging materials, insurance, etc. etc. etc….  I need to be able to know if after all is said and done with an item whether there was any profit made on the item and if so how much.   An export of this P&L information would be helpful to other accounting software like Quickbooks as well.

6.  Image management.   I don’t necessarily care if there is hosting of images but the ability to upload, delete, and include image links in the auction listings would be important.  For any item there could be any number of pictures and being able to tell the items story with pictures is extremely helpful.

7.  Flexible auction templates.  I would like my auctions to look professional and include a lot of “standard information” like return policy, shipping policy, terms and conditions, etc.. but I would also like the flexible information to be fully integrated so that the auction as a whole looks like one complete “flyer” of information.

8.  Storefront.  I’d like to run my own based on what is in my inventory.   Just because it isn’t on auction doesn’t mean I won’t sell it.  I’d like to make all of my in-stock items be available to buyers.  Preferably as part of my auction management solution, not as part of the auction site.  (ie.  Not a fan of eBay Stores)

So what have you all found that can help me out here?   I’d be interested in links to reviews, your own personal choices and observations, any information you have at all..