eBay has announced few changes in its pricing strategy, planning more incentives for free shipping and updates seller standards. Reduction in insertion fee in listing came into existence from Sep 16, 2008. Plan of free shipping incentives for sellers and changes in final value fees comes into effect from October1, 2008. Updated seller standards will come into effect from November 1, 2008. Prior to this, eBay has made changes to its fee structure and seller standards in February, 2008.
eBay Changes in prices, incentives, final value of fee and seller standards
As the busiest shopping season of the year approaching, some bold changes are made by eBay to make sales more effective. The following are the changes made by eBay for improving the sales.
Reduction in Insertion fees
Insertion fee for fixed price listing in media category and all other categories is just $0.15 and $0.35 respectively from September 16, 2008, with just $0.05 for using the pre-filled item information. eBay extended the duration of listing the inventory to 30-day duration from 7 days, with an option of automatic renewal. The changes are made to only fixed price listing categories but not to the auction-style listings.
Free or reasonable shipping incentives
When shipping is offered free, all sellers have an option to use the subtitle for free of worth of $50 per listing, which comes into effect from October 1, 2008. This offer is also applicable for competitive categories and media categories within the specified limit. Final value fee discount will be doubled to 40% for the eligible PowerSellers from October 1, 2008 as an incentive for shipping. Free shipping with items can boost the sales.
Final value fees for fixed price listings
Final value fees are affected by the reduction in insertion and shipping reductions for fixed price listings. Earlier for the products under listing has 8.75% of final value fee for fixed price listing. After the reduction in insertion fees, the final value is decreased to 6% for computers and networking listings and increased to 15% for Media category listings, 12% for rest of the categories of final value fees for price range of $1.00 to $50.00.
Updated seller standards with minimum DSRs
New minimum Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) is way for improving the customer experience further for everyone in eBay. From 1st November 2008, sellers should have a score of 4.3 across all four DSR categories, in order to list in the site, over 30 days or 12 months period depending upon the volume. Minimum score is decreased to 4.3 from 4.5 when compared to February 2008, across all four DSR categories.
Though the eBay decreased the risk for sellers upfront by reducing the insertion fees on fixed price listings, it increased the final value fees significantly for the same listings, which may put sellers to re-think on their decision of continuing the business with eBay.
