DRASTIC increases in selling fees for Clothing & Accessories

kcmtpf

kcmtpf

kcm1535
O.G.
Apr 1, 2008
303
0
#1
There has been some talk on the forum today about how eBay sent a seller email update earlier today, containing in part some info about how fixed-price listing fees will be cheaper going forward.

However, what they NEGLECTED to mention in the announcement (I only realized this when I clicked through the links and read the fine print) is that they are actually DRASTICALLY INCREASING the Final Value Fees (the fees that are charged when an item sells) for fixed-price listings as well.

What does this mean? Well, I did the math, here are some examples...

If you sell a $100 bag - FVFs used to be $6 (6%), now they will be $11 (11%)
If you sell a $250 bag - FVFs used to be $11 (5%), now they will be $24 (10%)
If you sell a $500 bag - FVFs used to be $20 (4%), now they will be $47 (9%)
If you sell a $1000 bag - FVFs used to be $38 (4%), now they will be $92 (9%)

For those of us who tend to sell higher-end bags, the incremental FVF cost will more than outweigh any savings from cheaper listing fees (since the max savings there is <$4 per listing).

And this is all before the Listing/Insertion fees and PayPal fees! :cursing:

See here for more info (scroll to the bottom under "Clothing, Shoes, & Accessories":
http://pages.ebay.com/sell/August2008Update/BasicFees/
(Note: These new fees only seem to apply to fixed price listings ... auction FVFs appear to be staying the same)

I find it EXTREMELY disingenuous that eBay mentioned only the "good" fee change, and omitted any mention of the "bad" fee change in its seller communication. Do they think we're idiots? I'm frankly very insulted. Shame on you eBay! :tdown:

These fee changes take effect 9/16. Ladies, I suggest you dig through your closets and start listing any expensive bags that you've been thinking about selling! I know that I for one am headed to my closet right now to reevaluate my collection...

Sorry if there is a thread on this already, I scanned the eBay forum and didn't see one...
 
#4
What ebay fails to realize is that increasing the fees so much is going to close the secondary market. The sellers on ebay buy at a discount or buy limited edition products. Most sellers in my opinion have set amount of money they want to make on these items. They therefore add the amount they want to make, as well as the fees from ebay and paypal to the cost of the item and sell at that price. If the FVF are increase by 5% on items over $1,000 there won't be very many bags over that price bracket on ebay any longer. The margins just won't be there!
 
#7
The final value fees for a fixed price item that sells at $1500 (a reasonable price for a high end bag) are going from $45.13 to a whopping $101.50!
Plus listing and Paypal fees.

So in reality, eBay is moving AWAY from fixed price and more towards auction format. Not the other way around. I was fooled too at first, but once I dug deeper, I realized that like most things ebay, they tried to spin it the other way and make it look like they were doing the sellers a favor at first glance. This is VERY bad news for those who sell designer goods and list in fixed price format currently.
 
#8
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:
 
#10
these fees are insane for an outfit that says it's not responsible for all the fakes they allow to be traded. as both a buyer and a seller i could get behind fees if there were some kind of real effort to assure the authenticity of goods - but how can they tell us they're 'just a platform' and yet increase fees to these levels?

a traditional auction house will get about 15% of the hammer price from both seller and buyer - but they take authenticate, catalog, photograph and market the goods. it feels like ebay is trying to get a piece if this type of action without providing any of the corresponding services.
 
#14
dressage queen said:
i think you can actually make your BIN cost the same as your auction start price, which would get you out of fixed price FVFs.
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean - you wouldn't get much out of setting your BIN price lower just to avoid the FVFs, right?

I think the best way around this will just to be using auction format using a high starting price, rather than using fixed-price format at all... Perhaps this is what you meant. Only downside is that you wouldn't get the impulse buyers, since all auctions have to run the full duration... (though I suppose you could always wait until someone bids on your high-start-price auction, and then end the auction early)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Back