Does it even make sense to have an ebay store anymore?

#2
Let's look at this analytically
$15 = 42.9 listings for 30 days.


As you say, for most of us, the store doesn't make sense any more.
Unless they are willing to give us Vendio style perks.
 
#3
Not only that, but they really kill you in FVF's on store listings! I was recently relisting something for a specific buyer, and ran the numbers to do a regular fixed price listing or put it in my store. While I would have saved about $2 on the front end to list in my store, the FVF's were $7 more! I believe this article mentions that FVF's will be raised as a part of these new changes, so everyone should get ready to be hammered with much larger fees on the back side of their sales!
 
#4
Keep in mind that the new fvf for fixed prices items is quite high. I think in some cases they will end up being higher than the fvf in a store. The problem is that there is so much less exposure for your items in a store.
 
#5
I may have missed something in the details but my math works out this way. My higher ticket items currently cost me $1.50 to $4.00 to list in a fixed price format for 7 days. eBay’s new structure will be $.35, regardless of price and last almost 4 times longer. That sounds like a deal.

They mentioned that their fees will be moved to the FVF, but I have not seen any additional changes from the ones they did a few months ago, so it continues to sound like a deal. Of course, that could change, but it still seems to average out to a 10-12% cost. If PayPal is used, my costs go to 15-20% but from having had several ‘bricks and mortar’ stores that still looks like a deal, considering I might have 100 customers in the physical store each day and eBay brings me millions.

I use fixed price to drive business to our eBay store and our About Me page to drive business to our off-eBay sales efforts. I also use the contacts we have made from 3,500+ sales to build a nice e-mail list. I know their interest based on previous sales, so it is well defined.

To continue or open an actual eBay Store requires some other considerations. Do you have enough product to support the monthly fees, as well as listing and FVF charges? 50 items of high value items might only take one sale a month to pay for it, but if you are only selling one item a month, it may not make sense. Currently we have 644 items in our store and 35 auctions driving business to the store, but I believe we opened the Store after we built up about 50+ items to put in it . They were not all high dollar items and ranged from $1,000 to $1.99.

Sales from the Store started the first month and have always paid for being open. The listing ranges $0.03 to$0.20 for us, with higher FVF and lower visibility, but our merchandise is constantly out there. It used to surprise us that items would come off auction with no bids and we would put it in our store for 4 times the price and it might sell in days. Go figure! Some people do not like auctions, some people were not on line when it was for sale and there are probably hundreds of other reasons why it did not sell originally.

OK, I am done with my rambling. Sorry it took so long.
 
#6
ebayguy....what you are missing is that ebay is raising the fvf for fixed price exponentially. For sellers of high end goods (meaning about $1000+ per listing) in the Clothing, Shoes and Accessories categories, the fvf fees will more than double for a fixed price listing.

Any fixed price high-end listings I have, will move to auction style with a 'buy it now' that is $1 higher than the auciton opening bid. There is no fee increase for auction style listings.

I too run about the same number of store listings anchored by about 35 auction style listings to draw traffic, and based on my preliminary calculations, I will continue with that formula. It won't be justifiable for me to close the store and move to fixed price. I have to consider as well that with an ebay featured store, I have automated many of my tasks and without a store, I will have to do my invoicing, notifications, feedback, etc manually.
 
#7
I am not being argumentative when I ask, but where did you find the change in FVF? I chose not to go into law because all the wording gets be confused at times. I apparently missed it.
 
#8
IT seems the fvf for clothing and acessories are going to be the highest!!!! Doesn't that figure.
My dh and I were trying to figure out what it will cost and it is scary how high the ebay and paypal fees will be - and then of course all the buyers want a great deal because it is ebay.
 
#9
eBayguy said:
I am not being argumentative when I ask, but where did you find the change in FVF? I chose not to go into law because all the wording gets be confused at times. I apparently missed it.
Click to expand...

http://pages.ebay.ca/sell/August2008Update/BasicFees/

Scroll to the bottom of the page for the Clothing, Shoes and Handbag cats.
You might want to check out this thread too -
http://forum.purseblog.com/ebay-for...ing-fees-for-clothing-accessories-344977.html

The ONLY categories these changes affect positively are the Computers & Networking, Cameras & Photos, Electronics, Video Game Systems, Books, Music, DVDs & Movies and Video Games categories.
 
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#11
ebayguy -
Yes the fixed price listing fees are going down and you will be able to list a fixed price for 30 days but.......be sure to look at the back end. eBay is also increasing the final value fees exponentially. For example, the final value fees for a fixed price item that sells at $1500 (a reasonable price for a high end bag) is going from $45.13 to a whopping $101.50!

Here is how it looks for a fixed price item in the Clothing, Shoes and Accessories category which sells for $1000+ -

Current: 8.75% of the initial $50.00, plus 3.50% of the initial $50.01 - $1,000.00 plus 1.50% of the remaining closing value balance ($1,000.01 - closing value)

Changing to: 12.00% of the initial $50.00, plus 9.00% of the initial $50.01 - $1,000.00 plus 2.00% of the remaining closing value balance ($1,000.01 - closing value) :wtf:

Just be sure to do the math before jumping on the fixed price bandwagon. For most of us here, it's not a good thing.
 
#12
No - they tack on more and more fees these days and sometimes charge you for things that you shouldn't be charged for. Personally, I only sell on eBay every now and then when I have something that I really just never use. I don't think that a storefront would make sense unless you have a huge amount of things to sell.
 
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