There are currently many changes affecting sellers on eBay. This includes:
- Fee structure. There is a reduction in insertion fees and a hefty increase in final value fee. Some volume sellers will get discounts off the final value fee but only very large business will receive significant reductions in their fees. This fee structure is in place, discounts will appear on Aprils invoice for March listings.
- Sellers can no longer leave negative feedback for buyers. This is to stop retaliatory feedback and, eBay hope, will give buyers the opportunity to leave honest feedback for a transaction without fear. Due to begin in May. I think this fear is over emphasised, do people really worry about a red dot on a computer screen? Negative feedback may affect sellers (is the jury not still out on this one?) but how many sellers read buyers feedback? There are many voicing concern over this change but as I do not think feedback is important to buyers I don’t consider the change to be radical or much cause for concern.
- Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR) will determine if you receive a discount on your eBay fees and how high you are placed in their listing visibility. Under 4.5 in any category and you will not receive a discount and under 4.3 you will be placed at the bottom of listing visibility. These numbers could change at any time.
I have already changed to auto feedback when people pay. Thinking about it I should have done it ages ago, after all, a little trust can go a long way. After reading Seth Godin’s article on the honour system I am convinced it is the right decision.
Feedback, fees and others small things are always liable to change. Rising costs are, unfortunately, nothing new. The most important change is those little DSR stars. I have began to implement Channel Advisor’s advice on how to improve DSR rating that can be found summarised on Tamebay.
I don’t pretend to have any easy answers but, after I was feeling somewhat demotivated since the Christmas break, I find the changes on eBay has rekindled my interest in selling there . I’ll let you know how I get on.
Tags: , DSR, ebay, ebay.co.uk, fee increases, feedback, fvf, selling, seth godin, tamebay
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