eBay Germany have finally announced their fee changes effective from 20th February. These are some of the most complex changes any eBay site has undergone, so I’m summarising here; if you want to see the full details, this is where they are.
Different fee structures for business and private sellers
Private sellers can list auctions starting at €1,00 with Gallery picture with no fee. They pay 8% final value fee. Cars, motorbikes, boats, and other motors and sports vehicles can also be listed free; FVFs are dependent on sale price, with a sliding scale from 8% to 2%.
Category-specific pricing for business sellers
Business sellers‘ in certain categories will see a move to the lower-IF, higher FVF model seen on eBay.com and .co.uk.
- The lowest prices will be seen in media categories (films & DVDs, music, PC & video games) and tickets.
- Electronics (hi-fi, audio, in-car navigation, household electronics, TV, video, software and games consoles) do next best, and
- a collection of home and office categories (office & stationery, gourmet, furniture, toys, sports and home decoration) also see some changed prices.
All affected categories will see insertion fees cut for auctions starting at or fixed priced items at €10. The biggest cut is in media, where all items have a 5c insertion fee (private sellers do not get special pricing in the media).
For multiple item listings, eBay.de’s fees are charged according to the number of items being listed and the starting price of each individual item. In relevent categories, IFs for multiple items are being reduced, and the IF cap is also being reduced from its current €4,80 to as little as €0,05: yes, it’s the media categories again.
Correspondingly, FVFs are being increased in the sub-€50,00 tranch. In electronics categories, the higher tranches have FVFs reduced by 1%.
For auctions starting at €1,00 *only*, the price of Gallery is being reduced to 25c.
Further discounts for qualified PowerSellers
Those who are members of the German PS program, who maintain a minimum of 4.6 on all four DSR criteria, and who offer PayPal on at least 80% of their ended listings, will be entitled to discounts on their FVFs of between 20% and 26%, depending on PS level. Qualification will be on a rolling 30 day basis. Those whose DSR scores are all 4.8 or higher will be entitled to an additional 10% discount.
The PayPal criterion is likely to be very unpopular with German sellers: bank transfer is much more widely used in Germany than it is amongst UK eBayers. The rest of the changes are, I think, likely to leave sellers pretty divided: some will like the lower-risk pricing model, others will resent the increase in FVFS, and still more will wonder why their own categories have been ‘ignored’. What I think the rest of us can certainly take from this is that category-specific pricing is likely to become much more common on all eBay sites than it has been previously.
