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

[getitnowindia]

EBAY INDIAS RECENT PRICE HIKE ON LISTING AND THE INCREASED SELLER FEES WILL BE FORCED ME OUT OF EBAY INDIA WEBSITE AND I AM PLANNING TO SELL IT SOMEWHERE.

IN INDIA THE SELLERS MARGINS ARE VERY THIN AND HERE THERE IS NO SCHEMES OR INCENTIVES FROM THE SUPPLIERS TO THOSE SELLERS.BY COMBINING THESE NEW FEES (LISTING FEE+ SELLER FEES)THE PRODUCT PRICE WILL NATURALLY INCREASE AND THE BUYERS CAN THEN EASILY BUY THE SAME ITEM FOM THE LOCAL SHOPS OR MAY REACH A GREY MARKET VENDOR.

I AM VERY SURE THAT SELLERS LIKE ME WHO CANT SELL NOTHING ON THE NEW PRICE CHANGE WILL BE OUT OF BUSINESS WITHIN A SHORT TIME.tHE ONLY MONEY ON THE BANK WILL BE USED TO PAY EBAYS LISTING FEES !!!!

i AM DECIDED TO STOP SELLING ON EBAY FROM APRIL 2007 ONWARDS.

WHY EBAY INDIA ARE DOING THESE KIND OF THINGS !!!!
ARE THEY MAKING HUGE MONEY. PLEASE DONT COMPARE US MARKITING WITH INDIAN STYLE.

PLEASE POST ALL YOUR REPLIES ......


GETITNOWINDIA FROM TRIVANDRUM,KERALA

[shree_krishna_gems]

Dear eBay Members,
I am really very surprised with the announcement that the limit for duplicate listings is going to increase from 5 to 10.

We seller were expecting to get the duplicate listings reduce to maximum extent but now it will going to increase.( eBay only aims at Money-Money and Money)

I remember in past we have to search many pages to see different items as one seller use to flood the page with same item heavily.

This policy of eBay is to make money and the buyer experience can go to HELL.

The genuine buyer will surely move to other sites as this will create a most irritating and disgusting experience for him.

Other Sellers who do not create duplicate listing more then 5 will also will badly effected as his/her item will not appear in the initial page fast and thus will result into reduction in sale.

Well LESS SAID THE BETTER.

But SAPANA JI can you please explain this ....?? How it will improve buyer experiance...

Best Regards,
Deep Agarwal.
Shree Krishna Gems

[sapana@ebay.com]

Hi pc_gaming_store & shree_krishna_gems,

I am sorry if you feel that this policy is aimed at upsetting our community.

In our interactions with the sellers, sellers asked for relaxation in Duplicate listing policy to get more flexibility in selling fast moving products. Sellers told us that since they know that they need to pay for listings, sellers shall be listting quality listings. Therefore the change.

Having said the above, we shall be closely monitoring the same and if at any point of time we feel that buyer experience is getting compromised due to the policy, we will not hesitate in rolling back the same.

On the revenue bit - As you would agree that eBay will make money only if our sellers make money and sellers will make money only when buyers have a great experience on eBay. Therefore buyer experience is paramount for us.

Once again apologies if we had inadvertantly upset you!

Regards,
Sapana

[cameras_n_such]

Hello PC Gaming Store and Shree Krishna Jewels,

eBay is a marketplace which supports many business models. Your model is of having a huge inventory of relatively slow moving products.

Other sellers like me have a very limited inventory of very fast moving products. We need to have as many listing as possible to showcase our products to as many buyers as possible. Our products sell on impulse and the more the visibility the more the sale.

Infact I have been asking for the ML raised to 15 which is the norm on eBay.com and other paid sites.

Some of you may be surprised to know that my current rate of sucessfull listings (sell through) rate is already 18% against the site average of below 2%.

Infact sellers with business model like me have been ready to pay upto Rs.10/- for each additional mulitple allowed.

We can always create benami ids and list our product dozens of times and still remain under the limit of 5, but we would like to abide with policies of the site in letter as well as spiirt.

We univocally welcome the raising of limit to 10 MLs and further request that this limit be enhanced to the international limit of 15 as soon as possible.

[amitava123gems]

Hi,
I thought I shall keep quite.What eBay india is aiming at is very clear.They are targetting domestic sales.But half of my buyers are international buyers.I know what items they target.So my future strategy has to be modified.And I shall start working on a different marketing module from next month.
I shall prove my system works.I shall go on targeting international buyers.I know how to survive and progress.It is not the question of less junk listing or more junk listing.The particular item and its visibility only matters.If you depend on their system,the buyers have to have a magnifying glass.
Hope you understand.
Thanx,
Truly,
Amitava

[sapana@ebay.com]

Hi amitava da (amitava123gems),

You rightly said – “particular item and its visibility only matters”. The whole idea behind listing fee is that the visibility of quality products will increase, serious sellers with domain knowledge in the category will take over, buyer servicing will improve because seller is serious and he knows his products. All this will ultimately lead to improved buyer experience.

On changing the duplicate listing policy – You might remember that earlier eBay had the policy of allowing 10 duplicate listings. However, some sellers started gaming the system by doing duplicate listings, thereby capturing more of real estate than sellers who were not doing multiple listing. This created an unfair advantage for some sellers.

In the listing fee scenario, the seller will be far more judicious about what he lists. Even if the policy allows him to list 10 products, he will list only 1 that can be sold or have potential demand for. Lets take an offline example for the same – If a retail store keeper knows that Sony TVs sell more than Onida TVs during Diwali season, he will promote more Sony in his shop. In such season even if Onida offers him extra discount, he will continue to promote Sony, because he will get better returns from Sony. It is a simple game of return on investment and most sellers here understand that if returns are not there, they will not make the investment. Thus duplicate listing policy will actually help sellers sell fast moving inventory, instead of sellers using it as a tool to create unfair advantage for some.

Also, I am glad you have figured out the strategy you plan to follow from April onwards. I think it is a smart way to operate and all sellers should have a strategy for themselves. I wish you all the best and as always, looking forward to hear your experiences.

Warm Wishes,
Sapana

[amitava123gems]

Thanx sister,
I shall sure share my experience with guys close to me like I have done in past.
I can only say that you will not get instant result.But you will definitely be in the desired track after a month or two.
I am bad at computer,but I understand market pulse.So,I wish you very bright days ahead.
Thanx,
Truly,
Amitava

[affordindianart]

I have decided 2 not list items from today due to "New Listing Fees".
This is not a small issue; I was planning to add more than 500 items to Ebay and I would end up paying upfront Rs 1700/- (300x5 and 200x1) with sale or no sale.

Cheers!
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[sapana@ebay.com]

Hi affordindianart,

I went through your listings and saw that you are mainly dealing in paintings. Then i did a completed item search on Art category to see what kind of paintings sell on eBay India. I noticed that there is little demand for paintings in India. Most paintings that were sold were sold to international buyers. Also, the subject of paintings that had sold were either religion or bollywood. There were a couple of gemstone paintings also. Given this scenario, you may consider evaluating following strategies:

Check out demand on international sites: You can do so by a completed listing search in any international site (Advanced search> choose the category> checkbox completed listings only). Once you see the kind of products that are being sold, list a few products on international sites to gauge the response.

Understand the buyer demand behaviour in India: If a buyer in India wishes to buy a painting, where does he go? What are the factors he looks at before buying a painting. Is the artist important, or is it the painting subject? What kind of subject is more popular with Indian audience. On understanding this, you may then choose to list a few products on site with a mix of auction and Buy it Now. In order to get greater exposure, you may also want to try out few products on one paisa free shipping block. To participate in the promotion, you may find details here.

I understand that as in any business it will take some time to figure out the best strategy for your eBay business. You may also want to explore other product lines, some immediate examples in my mind are items related to paintings like paint brushes, canvas, various kind of drawing papers etc. You will need to ahve a good sourcing for any of the above. I hope that you will find the above helpful and do not hesitate to post back for any clarification.

Regards,
Sapana

[touchnshine]

.... I am really
disappointed with this new listing fees.