The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines customer as “one that purchases a commodity or service“.

The upcoming changes eBay announced on Tuesday, along with changes implemented during the last few months, make it clear that eBay has never owned a dictionary.

Increasingly, eBay is operating under the delusion that the people who come to eBay to make purchases (buyers) are their customers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Since eBay’s inception, no buyer has ever spent a penny purchasing a commodity or service from eBay.

eBay’s revenue is generated entirely by sellers who purchase services from them. Sellers are eBay’s customers. If eBay sustain their growth and increase profits, they need to understand that and focus on creating an environment in which ethical sellers can thrive and continue to grow.

Photograph by Larry Page.

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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.
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