E-Bay will Start Charging Aussies More
Auction Listings
E-Bay Australia will start charging its users double on some auction listings to push sellers away from second-hand auctions to list new items.
Starting Sept.22, eBay Australia will not charge insertion fees for the first 30 items listed for auction. Instead final value fees will increase from 5.25 percent to 7.9 percent. The first 30 items will be capped at $49.95 which is the same as the final value fee for professional sellers with eBay stores.
The changes mean more fees for users who are not professional sellers. A $600 item before the changes will only charge the seller $22 in fees, $3.50 for the insertion fee plus an $18.40 final value fee. After the changes take effect, there will be no insertion fee but a final value fee of $47.40.
eBay Australia told sellers the fee changes are aimed to encourage more professional and business sellers to list more Buy It Now items in stores. It will also allow eBay to differentiate between professional and consumer retailers.
In addition to the fee changes, eBay Australia will require sellers who want to list multiple items in one listing to open their own eBay store, be a PowerSeller or be registered as a business. Other changes will be raising the price of Featured Plus to $49.95 for all listings up to 14 day duration and will also raise Good Til Cancelled and 30 day listings to $149.95. Eventually Featured Plus will be phased out to give more importance to Best Match, which is eBay's preferred mechanism to get their popular items recognized in search listings.
The company said that it believed future growth would come primarily from Fixed Price formats such as Buy It Now, which is the most commonly used format on the site.
"Through their higher engagement with the site, consumer sellers are among eBay's best buyers, therefore encouraging them to sell more keeps them actively engaged and buying on the site which benefits other sellers," eBay said in a statement. The fixed price format will help reduce risk for consumer sellers by removing the insertion fees.
eBay Australia spokesman Daniel Feiler said the changes weren't made to raise eBay revenue.
"We've got an issue on eBay and that is simply that most people associate us with auctions and second hand when actually the majority of our business in 2011 is fixed price buy-it-now items from retail or business sellers," Feiler said.
"On the consumer side the big issue that the consumer has when they sell on eBay, the biggest barrier to them listing, are the insertion fees, so we're getting rid of the insertion fees.
"But to afford us to do that we have to increase the final value fees. We net out neutral on this one."
The new fees will be run on a trial basis and will be made permanent if they meet sellers' needs.