Earlier today eBay announced their new fee structure along with other policy changes that will affect all sellers.

In most cases, by the time you read this, you will probably already be aware of the details of the changes eBay will be implementing over the next few months, so I’m not going to go into detail regarding them. If you aren’t already aware of what will be involved you can get the details by reading recent posts at The Auctionbytes Blog, eBay Strategies, or My Blog Utopia.

For what it’s worth, here are my initial thoughts about the upcoming changes.

Fee Restructuring

For the majority of sellers overall fees are going up. There’s nothing new with that and it should have been expected. It happens every year. If you are selling on eBay in a serious fashion you should be treating it as a business. Any business, no matter what it is, faces increased costs of doing business. They should be expected.

The sellers most likely to feel the effect of these increases are those who primarily sell low-priced items, the mega-sellers listing thousands of items each week, and and those with very low sell-through rates.

Most people selling the kind of items talked about on The Auction Rebel should be realizing net profits that are sufficient to absorb these increases without it having a major impact on your business. If I’m making a $50, $100, $300, or more profit on an item, I’m not going to get in an uproar about an increase of a few dollars to sell that item.

I will however be reassessing some of the lower priced items that I have listed in my eBay stores to determine if it makes sense to let the remain as they are, to increase the price, or to remove them.

Changes To The eBay Feedback System

There are five primary changes to eBay’s feedback system that will be introduced over the next few months.

The key change is that, effective sometime in May, sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers. Most of the eBay blogs, forums, and newsgroups that I read are filled with sellers complaining about this today, and it will continue for a long time.

eBay’s rational appears to be that by taking away sellers’ implied threats of retaliatory feedback, buyers will be leave more honest feedback about each buying experience. Before sellers go off-the-handle about this, I think there are three important things to consider:

• eBay had to know that implementing this change would create a huge backlash by sellers. I don’t believe the decision was made lightly. For them to take this step, based on buyer satisfaction polls, this had to be a much bigger concern on the part of buyer then anyone thought.
• I’m continually amazed by large number of sellers who view the sales process as a war against a hated enemy rather than as the win-win situation it should be. In may ways, although they may not want to admit it, sellers have brought this change upon themselves.
• While many ecommerce sites allow buyers to leave feedback for sellers, eBay is one of the few that allows sellers to leave it for buyers. Amazon doesn’t and they, along with the host of ethical sellers who use them as a sales venue, are thriving.

In my opinion, many sellers place way to much emphasis on feedback. Rather than spending their time worrying about their feedback rating, they would be much better served if they spent that time insuring they provided their customers with a pleasant buying experience.

Changes To The Powerseller Program

Effective in April qualifying Powersellers will be recognized and rewarded with FVF discounts ranging from 5% up to 40% depending upon their Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR) and their Powerseller level.

I’ve alway thought that most sellers place way to much emphasis on acquiring, and maintaining, Powerseller status when they should be concentrating their efforts upon making a profit instead. If you profit picture was good, most likely you were a Powerseller. Being a Powerseller didn’t mean you were making any money.

During the months ahead we are going to hear a lot about how important these FVF discounts are and what we can do to insure we qualify for them. Don’t let yourself get caught up in making these discounts a goal.

Instead, concentrate on selling items that provide profit margins of 300% to 500% or more and on providing your customers with excellent customer service. If you do these two things effectively, qualified Powerseller status and FVF discounts will follow.

Best Match, Search, And Finding

I’m not paying much attention to this because I don’t believe it will have a significant impact on myself or readers of The Auction Rebel.

Most of the impact associated with the implementation of Best Match as eBay’s default result for searches will be on those who sell new items, items from wholesale lists, items from drop shipping lists, and other items that have hundreds or thousands of similar items listed on eBay every week.

Buyers doing a search for the kind of items talked about on The Auction Rebel won’t get results that are twenty, thirty, fifty, or a hundred pages long. Their results will consist of one or two pages. If you are doing things right, your items should show up on the first page. Even if you aren’t, they will still find your listing.

My recommendation is to let others get involved in all the negativity surrounding these changes. They aren’t going to change anything. Rather than joining them, concentrate your time and efforts on maintaining a positive attitude and go about steadily building your business. If you do that, and treat your customers the way you would want to be treated, there’s no need to get excited about all the changes.

Their affect on you and your business will be minimal.

Related Reading:

eBay Winter Storm Warning
Preparing For The Changes To eBay’s Fee Structure
Lessening The Impact Of Detailed Seller Ratings In 2008
Preparing For The New Role Of eBay Feedback In 2008

Photo by Jere Keys.

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