Hello,
Recently some big business have been folding up on eBay.com. Simillarly a lot of big time sellers of eBay.in have quit listing on the site (my earlier post - Kahan gaye woh log).
So it got me thinking why cannot a business become big and yet be sustainable on eBay?. The reason which come to my mind is the socialist / communist attitude of eBay in the name of level playing field. No matter what is the size of your business, you still pay eBay at the same rate. There are no economies of sale in doing business on / with eBay. The seller paying a measly FVF Rs.100/- pays at the rate of 5% and a seller paying out Rs.1 lakh also pays the same rate of 5%.
No other business works that way. The communist countries like USSR worked that way but they all imploded. This is not the capitalist way. The more business you generate the more your reward should be.
I have an interesting suggestion regarding the fees structure levied by ebay - against the 5% - 2.5% levied at present.
My suggestion is:
All users would pay - 5.0%
A bronze power seller would pay - 4.5%
A silver power seller would pay - 4.0%
A gold power seller would pay - 3.5%
A platinium powerseller would pay - 3.0%
A titanium powerseller would pay - 2.5%
This would help in the following way.
1) Sellers with higher sales and good customer satisfaction levels would pay less and less as they acheive more sales but eBay will keep earning the same.
2) Seller would not sell the same products with mulitple ids as they would not get volume discounts.
3) The PowerSeller program will have some meaning - currently all you get is a fancy logo against your id and phone support (which I have not used even once in last 3 months)
4) Seller would have incentive to give better customer service to attain / retain the 98% positive ratings required for the powerseller status.
5) High Value product sellers would automatically come under the gold plus powerseller status and would not pay more than the current fees.
Suggestions for such a fee structure is invited from all PowerSellers.
I know such a radical fee structure is not immediately possible at the global level however this can be implemented in the Indian market where business and FVFs are still very low compared to the global eBay business.
Other competing ecommernce sites are offering such attractive fee structure to sellers and doing enormous amount of business. These site which routinely have a fee structure of 15-20% are ready to offer a discounted fee of even 5% to high volume merchants. This enables the high volume merchants to give very attractive offers the like of which are not available today on eBay.com. The price leader today is no longer eBay but other sites.
Just a few examples -
Product Price on eBay.in - Sauna Belt Rs.450/- (rated seller) - Other Site Rs.400/-
Standard Headphone on eBay RS.250/- Other Site Rs.250/- free mouse
Cheapest Digital Camera on eBay Rs.1200/- - Other Site Rs.880/-
Cheapest Digital Camera with LCD Display
and memory card slot on ebay - Rs.4000/- 0ther site Rs.2750
All above prices are inclusive of S&H. I could only take BIN on eBay for comparission purpose.
I had to post this on the Selling on eBay India Board as the Powerseller board has very low usage.
