EBay cut fees in a bid to attract big retailers
August 21, 2008
EBay, the online auction site, has slashed its charges on items that have a fixed price. The site has alos been simplified. EBay are hoping to compete more aggressively with their main rival Amazon and to entice small businesses and large retailers.
The price changes come into effect on 24th September in the UK. EBay said the changes mean the “majority of sellers” will see their overall fee reduced. However fees will vary depending on the size of the item that’s being sold.
This move is an attempt by eBay UK to get a larger share of the growing online retail sites and to try and change the view that they are just an auction site.
The changes to the UK site were revealed on the same day as changes were introduced a different set of cost reductions for listing on the Buy It Now section of the US site.
EBay has estimated that around 178,000 people in the UK earn a secondary or primary living from buying and selling on the site.
The key change in the UK, is that for identical items, for example an iPod, sellers will now pay a flat fee for a single listing which can be used to sell as many items as the seller wants.
EBay are also changing when the sellers pay for the fee, so they only pay when an item has been sold.
A spokeswoman for eBay UK said “Currently a seller could pay as much as £1.30 to list a single fixed-price item for a maximum of 10 days. That will now come down to a flat rate of 40p regardless of the price of the item, and will be on the site for up to 30 days - up from 10.”
Those paying the highest premium anchor shop subscription monthly, the listing price will come down to 1p for up to 30 days and there will be no extra charge for limitless items. Although, the subscription fee for premium anchor customers will go up to £350 a month.
Lead analyst at Verdict, Nick Gladding said the overall change to the fees eBay receives would “be revenue neutral”.
He said “The main focus is to grow the site to appeal to retailers. At the moment, it is used by very few retailers and eBay sees potential in growing itself as a platform for anyone to buy anything.”
Research director at the market research company Hitwise, Robin Goad said brand recognition online is becoming more important and this is driving high-street retailer’s online sales. He added “You cannot afford to ignore eBay, but if you have a well-developed online presence it will probably be not so important [for high-street retailers].”
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The corporate greed machine keeps on churning … They killed those who made them moons ago. There are multitudes of alternatives out there. I use alsoshop.com myself and it works well for me. Due to feebays over commercialism, I have abandoned them, as they have I, and would never look back at the beast.