Important Price Changes

[sapana@ebay.com]

Dear Members

At eBay, it has been our constant endeavor to improve our buyer and seller experience. Some initiatives we have recently taken in this direction are a new Home Page layout, Feedback 2.0 and improving feedback adoption through promotions like Cricket Mania. The new Home Page layout helps us showcase interesting inventory like 1Paisa auctions, whereas Feedback 2.0 is a result of frequent community feedback to incorporate more details in the Feedback system.

Providing our users with better value is also a key focus area, and we have tried to address this through introducing new features like "Markdown Manager" using which sellers can run discounted promotions in their shops, thus helping sellers showcase their offerings better and helping buyers find good bargains.

To achieve our twin objectives of better value and improved user experience, we are introducing a new Fee Structure for all categories.

Key changes are:

• All listings created on eBay India will be subject to new Listing Fees, revised Final Value Fees, revised Feature Fees and Seller Tools Fees. These new fees shall be applicable to all listings in all formats (i.e. BIN, Shop Inventory format, and Auctions) created on or after 11:59 PM IST on 31st March 2007

• Listing fees shall apply to all listings by sellers who have listed more than 20 listings on eBay

• No Gallery Fees will be charged, however sellers will need to select Gallery while creating the listing to avail the feature

• Listing Fees will be credited if your item does not sell successfully (including Unpaid Item) for the first time, but is successfully sold in the 1st re-list instance

• Fees associated with Services & Real Estate and Cars & Bikes categories remain unchanged

We understand that our sellers may need to make changes to their current business plan to accommodate these new fee changes. So, we encourage you to check the Managing your eBay Business Strategy, download the Fee Calculator, attend our Online Workshop on 23rd March, or use our Customer Support Resources to help you understand your overall listing strategy.

To learn more about these Fee changes, read our FAQ section. Your suggestions & comments are valuable to us and we encourage you to share your feedback with us on this thread.

We are aware that, as a seller, you have a choice of outlets through which to sell your products. We appreciate that you choose to do business with eBay. We will continue to work hard to ensure that our sellers and buyers continue to have great eBay user experiences.

Regards,

Sapana

[vedika_diamonds]

And one thing which i am sure of is that of all feedbacks you receive,
Happy lot will the old sellers,
while all new sellers are dissapointed.

this is a very narrow-minded approach, as if you do not want to add to your community.

[emailswarup]

Dear Sapana,

I AM SHOCKED. Re.1 per listing is too high for small sellers like me. Especially when the volume of sales are so low and there are so many Unpaid items. There should have been some free listing limit per week so that small sellers like me could still participate in ebay selling. I am always ready to pay higher Final Value Fees. Because that's something I pay after a sale. But such a listing fee will just compel a small low value seller like me to stop all listings.

I just checked that by this rule, for my 124 items , I have to pay total Rs. 663 as listing fees per month ( 4.33 weeks per month and not 4). Rs.590 as listing fees + Service tax of Rs. 73 as per new Service tax rates to be implimented soon. This is much higher than my present earnings per month from ebay. I think ebay do not want small sellers like me to operate thru the site else ebay should have provided at least some free listings per month, may be with higher Final Value Fees. So....... I have to stop listing from 1st April. I had become almost addicted to ebay, spending so much time everyday on the site. Its good that I shall have more free time for my family due to your policy change. Hope those supporting the fees change will have increased profit. Will have some sweet memories of the time spent on ebay. I had collected many gems and stamps just to bring more variations in my listings. I have to keep those in my collection box now. Anyway.... no point in spending more time & energy here when your management don't want us. Best wishes to all. .
Best Regards 😄
Swarup
Kolkata

[avery@ebay.com]

Hi – posting on Sapana’s behalf, since she is having some difficulty in logging on to the site.

Regards,

Avery


Hi systeminflow,

I agree that advertisements had made Baazee famous. However, if it was equally successful in translating the visitors into buyers is something we are not very convinced about. Internet buyers have a certain maturity cycle. A user who first comes to internet is mostly for communication needs like mail, chat etc. This is followed by need to search information. The third step in the internet user’s life is e-commerce. For a user to do e-commerce, he needs to have the basic comfort level with net. Doing high voltage advertisement might generate lot of awareness, but we believe that targeted advertising is more efficient in getting quality buyers. As I mentioned earlier, we will focus on getting quality buyers on the site by means that have given us good return and may or may not be conventional way of acquiring buyers.

Regards,

Sapana

[avery@ebay.com]

Hi – posting on Sapana’s behalf, since she is having some difficulty in logging on to the site. Regards, Avery


Hi shivarth,

On the FIRC front, unfortunately regulations are such that they do not allow us to issue FIRC to sellers. FIRCs can be only be issued by a bank. Since PaisaPay / eBay is not a bank it can not issue an FIRC. We receive foreign exchange through our Authorised Dealer, ICICI Bank. ICICI is ready to issue one FIRC in name of eBay for all foreign receipts by PaisaPay in the month. This would not solve our problem.

Last time we had requested ICICI to explore solutions to see if either separate FIRCs can be issued for every seller or let eBay issue the FIRCs. None of these options worked. I am aware that the PaisaPay team tried really hard to push it through, but unfortunately we will not be able to provide our sellers with the FIRC.

Regards,

Sapana

[avery@ebay.com]

Hi – posting on Sapana’s behalf, since she is having some difficulty in logging on to the site. Regards, Avery


Hi shivarth,

Lets have a look at the promotion cost and what it does for a seller:

In an offline world, you give a print ad in newspaper or say distribute leaflets to popularise your shop. The expense is to spread your brand awareness. The success of the promotion will depend on various things like the messaging, timing of the message etc. It will not be possible for you to recover that cost from one product. Normally the promotion or marketing spend is budgeted as an expenditure in Profit n Loss and spread across various products sold.

Your eBay promotions are similar. You promote one product; however the visibility you receive is not restricted to one product. A user who comes to your one product and finds it interesting will probably land up on 'view other items from the seller' or on the promotional block at the bottom of the listing page. Thus it is not possible to assign the promotion cost to just one listing. In fact it is advisable to create a separate budget for marketing and use it on a planned basis. For example, if you have a marketing spend of 1000 Rs for a month, you can decide that every week you will spend 250 on promotion. On a weekly basis, you can decide that you will spend Rs 100 in featured promotion while 150 you will put up for products on 1 paisa auction. Similarly, you can set up your marketing expenses according to season. you may decide to promote certain kind of products during Valentine, while promote others during Diwali.

Regards,

Sapana

[avery@ebay.com]

Hi – posting on Sapana’s behalf, since she is having some difficulty in logging on to the site. Regards, Avery


Hi pc_gaming_store,

I appreciate your suggestion on adding more payment services to PaisaPay. At a given point of time, there are various things that a department can do. However, most departments focus on topics that they think will generate maximum value for our users. Over the last year the priority for PaisaPay was to strengthen the risk metrics such that minimum number of sellers face the chargeback issue. I believe they have done a good job on that front and over the last year charge-backs have significantly reduced. You might have yourself experienced the same. At the same time, few initiatives were taken to improve the processing time. The only one I can share on the boards are that the team started working 7 days a week. Many other things were done on the backend but can not be shared given the sensitive nature of the information.

This year the team’s focus is to improve the customer service and user experience for both buyers and sellers. They will be rolling out various initiatives in that direction in the later half of the year. This means that we might still not focus on acquiring new payment partners. However, we hope that our users will be benefited by the strategy in the long run.

Regards,

Sapana

[avery@ebay.com]

Hi – posting on Sapana’s behalf, since she is having some difficulty in logging on to the site. Regards, Avery


Hi new_jhelum_jewellers,

I understand that an old seller will have a knowledge advantage over a new seller. This will be true for any business where older competitor will know the ropes better. However, it will not necessarily mean that the new player is significantly disadvantaged. I believe what is really critical for a new player to succeed in any business is a level playing field. In the listing fee scenario, all sellers will have an equal opportunity and exposure for their products.

True, it will take you time to understand the business. Some tips on how you may increase your eBay knowledge is via research. Like any business market research helps, and on eBay it is easier since the data is available upfront. You can look at completed listings and see the successful ones, analyze them and emulate the best practices (Go to advanced search > type the key word> select completed listings).

Another research tool is eBay Pulse http://pulse.ebay.in/ <> that gives you a category based result on keywords that users are looking for. Also, your domain knowledge in the offline world will hold you in good stead even in the online world. Products that are fast moving in the offline world typically do well in the online world as well. As a new user, I would start small. Experiment with small ticket item (in case your risk appetite is low). Experiment with different formats like 1 paisa auction, normal auction and buy it now to see which one sells well. Link your related listings well with each other. If you are listing a ring, ensure that the listing has 2-3 other designs of ring as well as matching earrings. It might be advisable to set up a separate budget for yourself which you can use for your eBay expenses.

I hope you find the above useful. I also wish you all the very best and hope that you become a regular member of this community.

Warm Regards,

Sapana

[vedika_diamonds]

Dear Sapna,

I Am Still Not Convinced,

I Think if Ebay Needs to Bring the LISTING CHARGES,
Ebay should have Started with 25 Paisa or 50 Paisa intially,

Let Everyone Know Where thy stand and what new they need to do.

I am a Very Honest Jeweller From New Delhi, trying to sell at Ebay with the same degree of Honesty.Trying to Explore what all oppurtunties you people have to offer.

But this surely will make me think otherwise.

Thanks

[pc_gaming_store]

Hi Avery,

Looks like you have missed answering the first and most important question. No problem we shall ask it again:

Why has eBay not worked on re-introducting ABN AMRO payment option? In fact even today when you go to PaisaPay to make a payment it says:

"ABN AMRO is currently available. Please try again later"

Please try again later?

It signifies a temporary shut down like 2-4 hours or days.

It gives an indication to the buyer that he can come back later and the option will be available.

Why is eBay not honest and misleading buyers with that statement. When the payment has not been there now since God knows when why are you not removing that statement and just say that ABN Amro is not an accepted mode of payment anymore?

Could you now please define better your meaning of the phrase, "Please try again later"?

[jaipur_fashions]

Hello pc_gaming_store

Avery or Sapana wouldnt want to answer a question, of which they do not have an answer ....you keep on writing, they will ignore as if you've never posted the message .