As part of its Spring Seller Release to be announced later today, eBay is making changes to fees in an effort to revitalize auctions and bring shoppers back to the site. The timing of the new auction fees coincides with the launch of Sotheby’s on eBay (see related story in today’s newsletter).
The biggest impact will be on media sellers – eBay is eliminating the special insertion fee for fixed price listings in media categories. That means instead of paying 5 cents per fixed-price listing for Books, DVDs & Movies, Music, and Video Games listings, sellers will pay 30 cents per listing (after their free monthly allotment). That’s a 500% increase.
In what could be considered counter-intuitive, eBay is increasing certain auction-related fees. Its reasoning – to encourage sellers to use the most effective listing format and durations.
The good news: beginning in May, eBay will provide credits for insertion fees for auction listings that sell. It will also eliminate the fee for extending an auction duration to 10 days.
But at the same time, eBay is instituting a $1 surcharge for 1- and 3-day durations.
eBay will also increase the fee for using a Reserve Price on auctions to the greater of $3, or 2% of the reserve price (minimum price that must be met for your item to sell), with a cap of $100.
eBay is also adjusting the monthly allotment of free listings for all sellers. For sellers with an eBay Stores subscription, the monthly allotment of free listings will be dedicated to fixed price listings, and, for listings in Collectibles categories, sellers will receive 100 additional free auction-style listings per month.
Stay tuned for updates about the Spring Seller Release on the EcommerceBytes blogs.
Update: Here’s the official March 17th eBay Spring Seller Update announcement.
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