eBay to Offer Reduced Fees for Social Sharing

by: Silver Ice King

ROFLMAO - why would anybody drive business to their Ebay store when they can make the sale outside of Ebay and pay zero fees?  They would not be violating ANY of Ebays attempts to dig deeper into the Sellers pockets by selling on their own through social media.  Ebay must really be feeling the effects of Sellers leaving their platform and selling on  their own platform or maybe even on Facebook and are desperate to get something out of these sales they are losing.  Ebay has NEVER offered savings on any sale on their site as it has ALWAYS been dig deeper and deeper into their pockets.  I would never ever move a purchase from offsite onto Ebay so that the buyer then has Ebays protection of allowing the buyer to steal my items and then get their money back because Ebay only cares about their bottom line.

Ebay should have made some of these type changes ages ago but all they care about is showing growth to Wall Street and now all of that is starting to backfire on them.  Also the buyer will probably save more buying off the other site as most Sellers would not qualify to have to charge the buyer Sales Tax which Ebay naturally will tack on as they are required to do so.  What Ebay also does not mention or bring up is the fact that they get a percentage reduction on the sales tax from almost every state so they will also be making money on that.  This move is nothing but pure desperation to try and at least get something out of a deal that they are already losing.

I hope that all Sellers realize that by not taking it through Ebay and Mangled Payments that their risk factor for being scammed will go down considerably!!!

by: Snapped

If sellers are now paying eBay extra for eBay to cross promote their inventory, and paying extra for eBay to ‘protect’ them from some of the eBay process-created fraud and abuse, and working for free to constantly re-revise listings to create an inventory catalog FOR eBay, and now, eBay wants sellers to market and push their OWN traffic to eBay, then….

despite the fact it’s a virtual fire sale of a ‘deal’, just exactly what are any FVF’s buying anymore? It isn’t for all their heavy thumbed unnecessary assistance in shipping, sellers are already taxed on that. It can’t be admini$trative. eBay fees the bejeebers (with interest!) out of MP to finance their rake and take monitizations there.

So yeah, one can take an educated SWAG (with a round for the house) about where the coins collect, but the whole point of ‘using a venue’ is to leverage the traffic it supposedly endemically brings.

So what’s it say when one is charged ‘more’ to even see it, compelled without compensation to cater to it, and then desperately wooed to BYOB if you please? Especially considering all the other pleasantries doing business with eBay entails.

Tom Sawyer had nothin’ compared to these boardroom bandits.

by: Rexford

I use MY social media to drive sales to MY website.

by: The End

It's the Wave of the Future folks !
Nice Private eCommerce websites.
Where we can treat our customers like the Gold they are.
And block the moronic....
MMmmm, it's almost like the smell of fresh cut grass....

by: Ric

eBay sellers need to remember that their partner has never offered a benefit that they did not eventually reduce or eliminate down the road.  
* They offered sellers coupons for shipping materials, then scaled them back.
* They offered Top Rates Sellers discounts and scaled them back.
* They enticed sellers to open stores and get free listings and scaled them back.

The list of giveaways and subsequent takeaways is endless where eBay is concerned, and they wonder why sellers are abandoning their marketplace faster than fee increases can hide the reality.

eBay will offer a fee discount now, then after sellers have brought traffic to the site, they will reduce the discount.  Shortly after that they will eliminate the discount entirely, and you will be right back where you started.

Smart sellers will use Social Media as a lever to escape eBay by driving traffic to their own more profitable website - not to drive traffic to eBay where even the discounted fee rate for a successful conversion is ridiculous.  

by: DTSM

Ebay already has something similar when you are a EPN affiliate partner. We drive traffic from social media and make commissions from ANY sale (whether it is our products or somebody else's). We make enough in commissions to pay for our eBay fees so the net result is we sell for no charge.  

by: I Must be Crazy

I think one can take this as tacit acknowledgement on the part of eBay that social media is taking a big chunk of sales away from the site. They are darn near giving away the store in order to encourage people to direct traffic to eBay. Now I don't see anything wrong with that but....what happens once that buyer gets there?

If it is anything like the way eBay "redirects" buyers that click on your listing from Google, they will hijack the buyer and show them what eBay wants them to see. That is why the "reward" is linked to FVF and not on a straight per click basis. Chances are your referred buyer will never buy your item. And how would I know if a buyer purchased through my social media referral versus through eBay? I need to trust eBay will give it proper credit?

I don't know. If I were to go to those lengths, I would just refer them to my own site.

by: toolguy

@Silver Ice King

eBay's concerned with losing "Buyers" not sellers!

Sellers are a dime a dozen, but buyers are what pay the bills!

To this day I still find what I want or need on eBay, no shortage of merchandise. . . .

by: toolguy

@Ric

"They enticed sellers to open stores and get free listings and scaled them back."

A basic store used to get 250 free listings.

We now get 1000 free listings, is that "scaled back"?

by: Geetar

Noooooooooooo Way!

Let me get this straight, The customer comes to me, then I send them to ebay so they can charge me a fee for what I sell to that customer????

I know there are some very ignorant people out there but? Really?

by: pace306

“Sellers are a dime a dozen, but buyers are what pay the bills!“

That’s all true - except that it’s not.

Sellers pay bills, buyers pay for purchases

Sellers pay fvf on shipping not buyers
Sellers pay for stores not buyers
Sellers pay (mostly) for shipping buyers don’t

There would be nothing to buy it it’s wasn’t for sellers- eBay isn’t Amazon with its own inventory

Respect the people that pay the bills!

by: toolguy

"Sellers pay bills, buyers pay for purchases"

Sellers pay the bills with BUYERS money!

Are you sure you're in business for yourself?????????

by: toolguy

Just to let all of you in on a secret.

Buyers are way more valuable to a business than sellers are!

Just ask, eBay, Amazon, eCrater, Etsy or Mercari.

In those board meetings all they care about is bringing in the buyers, sellers are secondary. . .

by: toolguy

I can see why eBay is doing this.

I find myself more and more searching Facebook marketplace daily for that rare Leatherman tool I don't have in my collection yet.

And there's no Facebook fee for selling or buying on that platform.

by: iheartjacksparrow

@Toolguy - I wouldn't say buyers are more valuable than sellers. Without sellers, what are buyers going to buy? If all sellers left eBay tomorrow, buyers would have nothing to spend their money on. As Pace correctly points out, Amazon has its own inventory, so they don't need outside sellers as much as eBay does. But eBay thinks that for every seller that leaves their platform, there are dozens more waiting to come onboard. That rationale seems flawed, because if there were all these people so eager to sell on eBay, why haven't they already started? What are they waiting for? It's not like there's some kind of mandate that when you turn 18 you start selling on eBay. Younger people for the most part aren't interested in eBay, and the older sellers are getting disgusted and leaving.  

by: pace306

"Sellers pay the bills with BUYERS money!"

Well if you were REALLY in MP - then you know that statement is false.

You pay your bills (shipping/store fees etc) regardless of whether or not eBay has payed you - just read about it in any of Inas columns.

This place is FILLED with people complaining about just that.

"In those board meetings all they care about is bringing in the buyers, sellers are secondary. . . "

Comparing all those sites to Amazon is a false equivalency.

Amazon and ONLY Amazon has its own inventory - the others just ride on sellers coat tails.

What will you sell your precious buyer if you have no goods?

by: lancecorp

Tool - make up your mind - in one thread you talk about going to buy everything off Amazon because you are so PO'd at Ebay - in this thread you talk about finding everything you want on Ebay. The constant hypocrisy is why no one takes you seriously.

by: toolguy

@lancecorp

Amazon?

I don't ever buy anything on Amazon!

A few years back I had a free 1 year of Prime, it's the only year I ever bought anything off Amazon except in the year 2001 I bought a router off Amazon.

Otherwise it's less than 10 items over the past 20+ years.

eBay seems to think they are short buyers not sellers as they are offering sellers a discount to bring in BUYERS from social media.

My so called "hypocrisy" is your imagination. . . .PS: Just because I can find what I want on eBay doesn't mean I don't shop in other places. I like looking for those killer 1/2 price on new item deals. The deals are out there for those who seek them out no matter what web site it is. . .Right now I'm looking for a Leatherman Crunch, they cost $109 but are out of stock, the secondary market has them for $150 right now. I only want to pay $60 for a new one. . .I'll find it.

by: pace306

Tool

As an individual, you can make any decision you desire about buying or NOT buying on Amazon.

Whether you do or not - has nothing to do with the MILLIONS that do - all day, every day.

The bottom line is - Amazon WANTS 3P sellers, the other sites NEED 3P sellers - HUGE difference.

Getting back to the topic here - I question more and more, everyday why eBay deserves ANY FVFs at all at this point.

The have shifted so much of the work onto sellers - theres not much left that they actually do.

Sellers source the goods
Sellers list and describe the goods (creating a catalog for free that eBay licenses and makes money from)
Adyen does the payments
Sellers do the shipping
Sellers handle returns and CS

So whats left for eBay to do??

by: Marie

Sellers are not going to sell on Ebay if there aren't enough buyers coming through to make it worthwhile.  While some say that the Sellers pay the fees on Ebay and that is actually literally true, The buyers pay the seller for those fees in the prices they pay for the products purchased.  Sellers use that money to pay Ebay.

It is the same argument for the cost of the inventory any seller purchases.  The seller pays that vendor too, but any seller that is trying to make a profit knows that you must consider the cost of the product and ALL the fees when you are determining your sell price for the buyer.  And hopefully some profit too.

Without Sellers buyers will not come, without buyers sellers will not sell.