eBay UK have stated that after 24th September, it will no longer be possible to sell buy it now items for less than 99p on the site. In a post on the PowerSeller Board, Community Manager James stated that:
Concerns around feedback manipulation have prompted us to review this area and after 24th September, the minimum BIN price will be 99p, for single and multiple quantity listings. The minimum BIN price for an auction + BIN option listing will also be 99p. Sellers with lower value items will still be able to list in auction with starting prices lower than 99p.
There was no mention of this in the official announcement of changes last week, which seemed to imply that BINs from 1p would be permissable. And there has still been no official announcement on a forum with universal access. Yet again, eBay communicate essential change by accident, by rumour and behind closed doors.
Sellers in many categories have been used to Shops’ listings which allowed buy it now prices for multiple items as low as a penny each. In my own Crafts’ categories – as, I’m sure, all across eBay – this allowed buyers to choose a selection of items, matching exactly what they wanted, combine postage and not spend a penny more than they needed to. With the new 30 day BIN format, that can’t happen: sellers will have to list larger quantities of very cheap items so that they total 99p or more, or stop selling them on eBay altogether.
This is not, I hasten to add, just about Crafts. Right now, there are more than 400,000 items on eBay UK with buy it now prices below 99p. There are 75,000 books under 99p, for example: where do eBay think those buyers and sellers are going to go? That’s a vast amount of inventory to sacrifice. Of course, some categories are going to be more heavily impacted than others: in Collectables, it’s 16% of the category; in Crafts, 11%, and in Stamps, it’s just under 10%. If anyone’s thinking of setting up a niche marketplace in one of these areas, now would be the time to do it.
But the real tragedy is that killing sub-99p BINs will harm hundreds of sellers and annoy thousands of buyers, but it won’t achieve what eBay have allegedly set out to do and stop feedback manipulation. Accounts which need a quick feedback boost – whether for legitimate or more nefarious reasons – will be just as happy to pay a couple of quid per feedback as they used to be to pay 10p per feedback: any seller of low-priced items could have told them this.
So, my Crafty and other chums, what will you do now? Leave us a comment; be part of our poll.
Updated to add: Lest I be accused of unfairness to James, there is now a post on Q&A too. However, as Pinks are fond of reminding us, only a tiny percentage of eBayers frequent the boards. Therefore, the question of where the official announcement is on this issue remains valid.
64 Responses
I may put some of my prices up, but most of my sub 99p inventory will move to my website and Amazon – looking for the positives, it will make stock control much easier anyway!
This is a fantastic own goal for ebay. Buyers like buying this stuff, so how will the change improve the buying experience?
Ebay is proud of boasting that 68000 or however many people rely on it for all or a significant part of their income. Would be interesting to know the figures on how many of these businesses have been stuffed up at various times by crucial decisions, made seemingly at the drop of a hat, by ebay (this one being only the latest).
Its official no more sub 99p multiple listings
I’m not affected by this as a seller but this week I bought stuff from my fave sellers because I’m sure these changes will see many of them off.
There is something wrong with the logic here: we will do away with sub-99p BINs because of feedback manipulation. You could just as well say: we will do away with auctions because some sellers shill them. That’s not a good example but maybe you know what I mean.
I think ebay would do better to try and improve ebay rather than ape Amazon. There are two Qs really: whay do people buy on ebay? and: why do they stay? There’s a big social side to it, buying stuff you can’t get in Tesco from like-minded sellers. Ebay are nuts to just wipe that out, the value of these things is far more than the dollar turnover.
I really feel for you guys.
And the fb manipulation thing is rubbish, I’m sure you can still buy possies for 1c from ebay China and the like.
Mildly annoying as a seller, but I think I’ve can work around my listings
Very annoying as a buyer.
The joy of craft buying is the ability to pick and mix exactly what you want in the quantities that you want.
This is a retrograde step in the buyer experience
How low do the shares have too go before these muppets at ebay are stopped from making all these changes???
Below the 20 dollar mark?
I have less than 25 sub 99p listings but they do sell reasonably well, folk dont always want a larger quantity and happily buy 1 or 2 from different listings.
Wont affect me greatly as a seller but its bloomin annoying that I cant offer it.
It continues to be very worrying when policy like this is made up as an afterthought.
And then to offer a rather implausible explanation.
Why then can you list for 99c on .com?
Customer service skills of a bison.
I don’t sell items for less than 99p – but I buy a lot of beads. And I will be really annoyed if this puts my favourite bead sellers out of business or if it means I can’t get beads that I want.
Mind you – I have a feeling that the sellers of these kind of items will be so badly affected by the recently announced price changes that they wouldn’t be able to list this kind of thing anyway.
So as a jewellery maker, and ebay buyer, less choice, less likely that I’ll be buying on ebay. Bad news for everyone.
I don’t sell too many of these items anymore but those that are below 99p such as findings etc will go into bigger packs or I will transfer them to the website. It’s doing better than ebay anyway and no listing fees either.
If ebay are doing away with things that don’t work how about starting with their own customer ‘support’?
This is just another one they dreamt up at the pub. 400,000 items below 99p and the majority are about feedback manipulation? I don’t think so. Even 1% wouldn’t warrant this ridiculous route.
I could go on but I won’t…
If im right (occasionally i am) eBay are now allowing choice listings so sellers of beads can effectively list the entire range of beads (say they usually sell at 10p) on one listing saying “this listing is for 10 beads, pick and choose which you want and they will be sent to you” atleast with the different colours anyway, Rather than moan can people try and use the grey matter and think of a way to work with the changes ?
We have buyer restrictions for people with less than 5 FB, this is because 95% of problems came from them. All it took was a buyer to buy 5 1p beads, buttons, felt animals etc from different sellers and they got round the blocks in place. This now costs them atleast a fiver and will stop the people with many account getting round blocks.
Clarky: the new choice listing policy announced was for .com, not for .co.uk, and there has been no corresponding announcement since 1st August for .co.uk. And FWIW, UK listings are still being pulled for fee avoidance for offering a choice or something that can be interpreted as offering a choice.
I’m also going to take issue with this: Rather than moan can people try and use the grey matter and think of a way to work with the changes ?
IF changes can generally be perceived to be in everyone’s best interest, then figuring out how to work with them might be a recommended route. However, when they are in no one’s best interest, and have quite clearly been thought up off the cuff, in response to questions asked by sellers, and were never part of the original policy change, then I think complaining is quite in order. And I shall continue to do so at the same time as figuring out how quickly I can dump this stock 😀
Does not affect me, but if the sole reason for this is around feedback manipulation why dont Ebay simply change it in that feedback for transactions of say less than £5 does not count in building a new sellers profile, this would mean that for someone to sell BINs they would have had to have bought at least £50 worth of stuff. That way the tens of thousands of sub 99p BINs could remain
I take issue with your comment too – Clarky.
I am perfectly entitled to moan in the circumstances – it doesn’t mean that I don’t have a strategy in place to deal with it (I have suspected for a while that this was on the cards).
Oh, I’ve got it.
I’ve got the absolute, devastating argument that will get this policy reversed.
People all over Richmond will be running to tell us we can list items, BIN, as cheap as we like.
You know what it is?
Are you ready?
Come closer, I’m gonna whisper….
Amazon Marketplace allows you to sell items priced as low as a penny.
You KNOW that’s gonna change their minds :^O
Quite honestly this is the worst policy change I’ve ever come across. Whilst it’s great when people buy items for hundreds or thousands of pounds it’s the ones that spend small amounts on a regular basis which are the true bread and butter.
Giving buyers the option to buy lots of low cost items in the quantities they want is essential.
It’s like going to the cinema – individually pick’n’mix sweets are dirt cheap, but I never seem to be able to get out without a bag full costing me a fiver. Sub 99p items are the same, I’ll buy a few of these and a few of those and have a decent order for the seller.
well if they would only bring in the SHOPPING CART people have been crying out for, then I am sure they could find a way to allow feedback to be given per order not per item if the individual item price was below a pre-set limit.
sigh.
I think eBay is trying to be too many things to too many people all at once, which is a recipe for disaster. Knee jerk reactions are just not the best way to go about re-building a business.
Well it’s true Chris that when I buy beads I never just buy one pack for a few pence, I buy several, make the order up to a decent amount, get combined postage spread across a load of items to make it worth while. Just like the proverbial kid in a sweetie shop!
Sooo, not only are smaller sellers being driven off the site to make way for the big boys, but this is now the equivalent of the old hardware shops where you could buy a couple of screws for a few pence being driven out of business by the likes of Focus where you have to to a pack of 200 screws just to get the one or two you need…
Soon ebay will be just like the big “shopping malls”, big chain stores only, all selling the same imported stuff, full retail price.
# 12 Sue
Properly said………….
# 17 Josordoni
………………..I am sure they could find a way to allow feedback to be given per order not per item if the individual item price was below a pre-set limit.
I was confused over the repeat feedback changes a while back, Thought if you bought a couple of items off one seller on the same day (diffrent listings) and then left feedback for each item spread seperately over weekly periods, you got 1 feedback point per listing/transaction.
Then I tried this & no repeat feedback point score. Then I read the rules again & it is not the feedback scores received per week, but the transaction point have to be in seperate weeks.
The reason I am writing this, surely with the system above, how can feedback manipulation give you feedback scores by buying more than 1 item at once from a buyer
(or is my brain not working proper, with all the ebay changes it’s having to digest)..
The demise of the ebay shop, is probaly ebay’s way of getting back at the owners for striking earlier this year.
Corporate attitude is ‘i’ll get you for that & we will win’, but sadly (for ebay) the sellers are the one’s in the end who will decide who wins (for ebay),
Another completely unneccersary change, that in a month or so will be reversed. If ebay want to do this then don’t stop anything below 99p, just make it, say, 59p minimum & at least we will stand a chance.
Also, by selling ‘free’ (inc) P&P, ebay get their hands on a % on the P&P…..JUST what they wanted.
More to amazon I think
A real kick in the teeth to high-volume, low value sellers.
An insulting act of arrogance not to announce it properly.
eBay UK don’t want 400k listings? Bad news for shareholders.
Lets hope public opinion forces them to reconsider.
As a buyer of small, crafty type thingimibobs and doodahs, I don’t want massive packets of stuff. I want a wide range of stuff in small differing amounts (sometimes single beads!). That’s how crafters shop!
I know crafters aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of ebay sub 99p listings, but they are probably the least likely group to be using these listings for any kind of manipulation (no disrespect to all other sub 99p listers who don’t manipulate either).
I hope some ebay decision-makers have a read of this thread.
What an incredibly stupid idea!
IF Ebay UK is so worried about feedback manipulation ( which i doubt) they could have found plenty of other ways to stamp it out … i dunno, maybe like enforcing their existing policies?
oh the delusions I suffer from!!!
Completely ridiculous policy, do eBay think we are all down and outs who dine out at soup kitchen’s ? If you need to fuddle your feedback a couple of quid is not going to make a squat of difference.
And as for allowing it on auctions, purleeaseee who dreams this crap up, so you can’t give a buyer what they want i.e 1 bead for 10p that they can buy TODAY along with a load of other beads that they can buy TODAY, but you can put a 10p bead up for auction and make a buyer wait 5 days to see if they are the winner, ffs how bloody stupid is that.
“Mum I won that red bead for 14pence, I only have to wait now until next sunday to see if I win that big blue bead”
“How exciting darling, I do love the cut and thrust of online auctions, by next year I will be able to help you make the necklace you have always dreamed of”
Honestly…You couldn’t make it up, the board of Amazon must laugh themselves to sleep every night.
“by next year I will be able to help you make the necklace you have always dreamed of†😆
TBH, I think arguing this from Crafts is a waste of time. What eBay ought to be taking notice of are the 75,000 items in Books which are under 99p, because those buyers and sellers have somewhere else to go, and will do. Funny that Amazon will sell me a 1p book without worrying about feedback manipulation.
ebay is paranoid.
ebay is paranoid
ebay is paranoid
ebay is paranoid
ebay is paranoid
God they’ve got me at it now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This could all have been sorted so easily with a shopping cart and a minimum total order value.
“No sir we don’t sell one vinyl for 49p, but you’re welcome to buy four more to make your order over the £2.00 minimum”
A checkout and the US policy on choice listings and this problem is gone.
Sometimes Ebays decision making process looks incredibly ill thought out.
Did no one stop to think “what happens to the sellers that actually sell stuff for less than 99p and what can we do to help them?”
Its not chuffing rocket science!
BS, I seriously don’t think anyone *did* stop and think about that. Reading James’ attempts to get the issue clarified makes me think that the “final decision” was very much off-the-cuff.
As someone who used to run the Sports Category I’m rather saddened by this change (if it goes ahead). One of the key categories in the early days was Football Programmes. There was a huge supply, items were easy to categorise and fine and there were many sellers/football fans who were early online adopters.
When we introduced Fixed Price in 2002, there was a huge leap in programmes listed as sellers could put them up at 50p or so, keeping FVF fees under control. Demand for normal every day programmes was high enough to ensure items sold but there was little sense in listing as auctions as you wouldn’t get 2, 3 or 4 fans fighting over the same programme when there were so many in the marketplace.
These changes will eliminate, to some degree, that opportunity or subsequently and perhaps more likely force sellers to list programmes at £1 a pop. Their hand is being forced if they want to continue to list.
Jamie, when I counted yesterday there were more than 25,000 items under 99p in Sports Memorabilia. Another category that will be decimated by this policy.
A category I know well is Stamps. I helped set that up at eBay 1999-2000. Stamp sellers have been loyal to eBay, offer good customer service and take great pride in the credibility of the category and are active reporters of fakes etc.
It looks like there are about 19k sub-99p in Stamps: not a big deal for eBay, but surely one of the biggest selections of stamps available to collectors?
Unlike beads, it’s tricky to see how can ‘double up’ to make a quid because so many of these items are unique. For stamps sellers, these cheap items generate long-tail profits. Of course, many also sell very high valued items too. I can see that this change will make the economics of selling in this category pretty hard too and totally destroy the extraordinary selection in this category.
Stamps is one category, imho that could easily support a niche marketplace, off-eBay, honed to the specific needs of philatalists.
It’s a real shame – I was actually pretty pleased with the new shop/BIN fees system and was planning to start selling everything I stock in 1s as well as 5s/10s/50s etc. Now I’m working very, very hard on my website.
STAMPS!
Worse category on ebay for pests ,pillocks, and anal retentive buyers, please please let them go elsewhere
#32 Dan
Yes! I sell stamps, if a customer wants, a ‘run through’, I will only be able to offer some on eBay.
I am sure that eBay understands this so can only conclude that my business is no longer welcome. Customers will no doubt feel the same.
Aternative auction sites are available and some of these will no doubt get a timely and welcome boost, new sellers who already have CUSTOMERS!
#34 North..
Never had a problem. Full pest control programme in place and free suppositories with every order.
“active reporters of fakes “etc.!
Fake stamps are a very large collecting area , some exchange hands for very much more than the original
Norf: I know. But I meant when sellers were passing of fakes as not fakes. :o)
Dan meant fake real stamps, not real fake stamps…
RE niche sites for collectables.
Delcampe seems to cover items such as stamps, postcards, etc …
😀 @ SUE
just ignore me Dan
selling in the stamp category has tainted me 😀
Cant imagine what would be said if nothing priced under 99p were allowed
in your local high st
ebays stance is that daft
I see it as the thin end of the wedge so to speak.
Today it is 99p next year there is nothing stopping eBay changing the goal posts yet again and making it a £5 minimum.
Seanie2288
From someone on the PSB:
Asked what is the lowest value you can put a BIN on for shop or non shop, the answer was “1p as per the Legal Notice, haven’t you read it”.
Sometimes, I despair. This is one of those times.
I reckon this will be one of those things that common sense will cause to be changed before it comes into force. We just need to keep talking about it so that eBay can’t avoid seeing the idiocy of the decision.
Slightly concerned that all the threads on the PSB seem to have died a death, Lynne. Never mind, on with plans B, C and D 😀
# 42 Sue,
I have some Asprins left, If you want a Grooss or so!!!.
The way ebay is going we’ll all need them.
#45
24p a pack in Tesco
Won’t let me buy 5 packs, I might take them all at once!
# Sue…mail
See what you mean…
#46 John
Bet their only 99p BIN each, and you can collect…ha..!!!
I have done nothing but defend eBay ever since the changes started coming.
But a lack of simple common nous I find much harder…
depressing.
#48 Many people have defended Ebay over these changes. Just looking at the PS board over the last few months more and more people are taking a different stance. i will say again NPS/dsr’s will get you if you sell less than 50 items per month. Sooner or later the law of averages say you will hit a bad buyer/buyers. Sooner if you are in a higher risk area.
Neutral’s STILL COUNT AS PART OF A NEG ON NPS. I have an a/c that has 2 neuts and 4.1 for postage dsr and it has an nps breach on it(81 POS this month).
The only rip off merchants left on ebay now are ebay.
Forgot too add
One last thing DO NOT COUNT ON THE DASHBBOARD too give you a warning if your customer satisfaction is failing! This week i had NPS and the stupid thing said customer satisfaction was GOOD(that was before and after NPS notification)
Chris – In message 16 above you stated “Quite honestly this is the worst policy change I’ve ever come across. Whilst it’s great when people buy items for hundreds or thousands of pounds it’s the ones that spend small amounts on a regular basis which are the true bread and butter.” etc
In BBC4’s “You and Yours” consumer programme today on the same issue you stated that this change “great for business” and would “save sellers an awful lot of money”. So it seems that you don’t know your own mind on the issue from one day to the next.
It must be clear that in any “flat fee” system there will be winners and losers. To give a rough analogy – supposing Royal Mail were out of the blue to state that in four weeks time they would introduce a universal stamp -say value of £1. Most people would think they were mad. Those users that mainly send letters would be protesting about the huge price hike. Those users who mainly sent packets and parcels would probably also think Royal Mail were mad but would keep rather quiet about it whilst laughing all the way to the bank.
Well that is basically what is happening on ebay at the moment. It is fine for you and Jody Ford ebay marketplace manager to state that some sellers may have to look at ways of changing their business. Yes I could start listing consumer electronic items for 1p which is seemingly the market Ebay is going for, but I prefer to stay in a field I know something about which is vintage collectables. And I guess the seller whose situation was discussed in “You and Yours” and sold secondhand records would prefer to do so as well. -Dennis
#51 There are two issues here. The first which I think is great for most (not all) sellers is the ability to list with much lower insertion fees (not forgetting free gallery which saves another 15p per listing). The biggest losers are those, like the seller on the program, who sell low cost low sell through rate unique items and I strongly believe eBay need to address that situation before Sept 24th.
The second and separate issue is the so far unannounced (at least officially) change to introduce a minimum price for fixed price items of 99p which at a stroke removes getting on for half a million listings from the site. That’s a pretty bad own goal and yes I do think it’s about the worst change I’ve ever known happen on the site.
Great for eBay to boast over 10million listings available to buy, not so great for them to lose something like 4-5% of them in one fell swoop. That’s not going to increase customer choice in the slightest.
Time for a reality check. Chris, if you were being more reasoned you could have said the changes would be great for (minority) of businesses.
Realistically new fees are a huge hike for the vast majority of business sellers and will enivitably lead to less competition between sellers and a generally bad buyer experience. Sellers will also need to recoup some of the additional fees through higher pricing and this will be the most likely business strategy to deal with these changes.
Still can’t fathom the logic behind these changes other than to advantage a minority of very large business sellers.
Would have thought ebay would have wanted to have a compettive edge with sites like Amazon and benchmark their fees/charges that way.
Seems like another very poor decision that was ill thought out and would have been far better judged had it been subjected to the most basic consultation with sellers/customers prior to implementation.
Will be interesting to see how it pans out after 24th Sept. The main thing we will be looking out for is the whittling away of some of our smaller compettitors through the paint that will be caused by the new fee sructure – which is in reality a seriously bad thing for all!
I’m sorry but I fail to see the majority of business sellers spending more on fees. Businesses by definition are larger sellers and so can take advantage of shops to bring down insertion fees.
Previously sellers would list the same item multiple times to appear as often as possible in ending soonest search. From 24th they’ll only need to list once. Previously sellers would have been paying 15p for gallery on multiple listings. Now gallery is free.
Casual and smaller sellers may pay more in fees. Sellers of low cost, low sell through, unique items may pay more. The majority of business sellers will pay less.
#54
My biggest issue has always been visibility.
Now with some clever listing, I think I will break even (but have not done the maths), but am listing on .com, so different scenario altogether.
Even where I to pay more in listing, I finally have the visibility I crave for as a seller of antiques.
When shop used to be in core, our business boomed.
Last month when we had a 2 week bin on .com for $0.35 per listing, our business boomed.
When I have visibility, I have sales.
So even if I pay a little more, it will be the difference between a backstreet store and a high street store.
That is assuming that best match does its job properly…
So the fees are not the only consideration with the changes.
As a business we are excited about the future months on Ebay, lets hope it is left alone long enough for us all to relax and get on with selling rather than keeping pace with change…
Mark
To rent a shop in our high street costs about £34k (something like that).
Ebay is cheap…
Mark
The figs you quote re gallery and multiple items are completely irrelevant if you sell from a shop and do not use the gallery.
Secondly, the free gallery and listing fees are amply counterbalanced by the hike in FVFs to 10%.
Believe it or not Chris, the majority of business sellers are non VAT registered small businesses.
To come out on top with the new pricing structure you need to be shifting roughly in excess of £6000.00 per month in takings in relatively high value stock.
Many businesses use ebay as a sideline and do not have that turnover and will end up paying more to ebay to sell the same proportion of goods.
I think you will find the majority of business sellers (absolute numbers) will actually pay more, not less.
visibilty is our main requirement too
ebays fees are a minor part of our costs
Ebay does the most damaging of things for the weirdest of reasons. Decisions that in the long run must cost them dearly.The decision on Hidden Bidder ID’s comes to mind.How many hundreds of thousands of Buyers did THAT alienate.
The least one can expect from large companies is intelligent reasoning behind changes introduced. This Off the Cuff insanity is just surely not acceptable from a major Company,yet is typical of the autocratic,high-handed,Amatuerish shambolism that Ebay indulges in with major decisions.
#51 I’m in pretty much the same position as the record seller on “You and yours”, in fact I was interviewed for the program but they only used a very short clip, right at the beginning of the program – blink and you missed it! But I was making much the same point – low priced items, one-offs, and as it’s mainly CDs I don’t really care about gallery anyway. I don’t want to chage WHAT I sell, music is what I know and care about, it’s a logical extension of my hobby really. So the only thing I can do is change the WAY I list, which really does mean listing less and taking the slower moving stuff to the car boot instead.
I counted up last night (had been putting it off!), and around 600 listings, about 40-45% of current ebay inventory, will need to be moved to my website and Amazon.
This change will pretty much kill off the sale of individual step by step (non die cut) decoupage sheets on ebay, which was until now a thriving market at around 70 – 80p a sheet. Rather a shame for all the ebay buyers who like decoupage.
I’ve just written up and printed an extra little flyer to go in with all ebay orders containing an under 99p purchase, to let my customers know about ebay’s decision and my future plans.
I hadn’t really promoted my Amazon shop previously, but I’ve made sure to mention it in the flyer for those buyers who feel nervous about buying direct from an independent website 😉
Our we sure this is about feedback aquisition for newbie sellers and not seller DSR/feedback manipulation?
I sell low volume high value.
To keep my DSR’s up and reduce the impact of a neg or two in a slow month I’ve been listing 50 of 1 item at 25p on BIN that other sellers sell for a pound. Sell the lot in a day or two and then wait a month and do the same again.
Doesn’t cost me anything much apart from my time.
I imagine other sellers could be using a similar strategy to maintain powerseller status levels as well ???
Dodger, quite a few low vol high value sellers have been advised to do that very thing by their account managers, in order to keep their DSRs up.
In practice, I don’t think it’s anything as considered as stopping DSR (or feedback) manipulation. I think no one thought the policy through til last week when various people on eBay boards were asking for an answer. I think it came off-the-cuff from somewhere in eBay Towers with no real consideration as to the implications for anyone.
Myself and many others including some of Greedbay’s biggest PowerSellers have this week deleted everything on our user accounts and moved totally over to EBID.NET which is currently the worlds no2 online auction site. Free listings, 2-3% final value fee only. No enforced PickpocketPAL or blackmailed terms. Its like Greedbay was 10yrs ago. Read Greedbay’s forums and then EBIDs forums..you can actually feel the difference.