New eBay Price Changes Spring 2010

Anyone who's been selling on eBay has probably heard that there are some big changes coming. What though will it mean for most sellers? Really it depends on what you sell and what level of seller you are. Let's break it down.

Small time seller: Great news! You can now list 100 items a month for free as long as the starting price is less than $0.99. That means all those small price items that barely seemed worth listing before are now worth it. Sure put up some old magazines or comic books somebody might actually buy some and if they don't it's no big deal because it's free.  Auction prices have also come down.

Media sellers: Nothing much has changed the $0.05 Fixed Price promotion will continue at least until the end of year. Now though we can also take advantage of the 100 free listings to dump lower priced items. The only problem is that I fear this will be the last year that this promotion will be available. I'm afraid it looks like eBay wants to all serious sellers to sign up for a store whether they want one or not. To me a store would just result in more work for me, more fees and no real payoff. A store really doesn't make sense for what I sell video game buyers don't have any brand loyalty they look for the game they want at the cheapest price.

Medium to high volume: Really whether it's good or bad will depend on the value of the added exposure given. Most high volume sellers have a store and under the old policy would pay $0.03 for store inventory listings with limited search exposure (store inventory only shows up when very few regular results appear or when the user enables searching for store inventory). Now all store inventory will be treated the same as Fixed Price items are now but at a much higher price. eBay has been highly publicizing a price of $0.03 for store listings but guess what you'll have to pay about $300 a month for that privlege by subscribing to an "Anchor Store". Most medium sized sellers will probably have to pay $0.10 plus 49.95 for a premium store. Let's say you list 300 items at $0.10 now you've spent about $80 just on listing fees. So those $0.10 listings really cost you $0.27 per listing when you add the subscription. Now maybe it will be worth it with the added search exposure but you have to remember that when the change happens a ton a store inventory will be switched to Fixed Price flooding the market with tons a listings. I believe this will effectively negate any positive effects from the added exposure.

That's my take on it I sell mostly video games so I'll be waiting to see what happens with the $0.05 promotion at the end of the year. If they going to try to force all sellers into the store option then this may be the end of my time on eBay. I simply don't have the time or resources to keep up a store. Let me know what you think the changes will mean do you feel good about the direction of eBay or not?

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