Will This Vintage Seller De-Clutter? How I’m Dealing with eBay’s Latest Changes

Written by Cliff Comments
Last Updated February 7, 2010

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2007 2 2 clutter main Full Will This Vintage Seller De Clutter? How I’m Dealing with eBay’s Latest Changes In John’s recent eBay Price Change Challenge Mythbusters post he remarked in the comments section:

I believe eBay knows that some of those 62 million (Note: Refers to the number of current eBay Store Inventory format listings) will NOT move to core, cause it was the low .03 cents that allowed many to keep them on the site. I think eBay is charging MORE to actually "de-clutter" the system. Raising the price will action make people either SELL the stuff or get it OFF the platform.

Currently I have a Basic eBay Store with about 4,500 items listed on the site. Many hundreds of my items are listed for as little as $5 or less—they’re niche long-tail items you’d be correct in assuming they don’t turn-over very fast.

Will I be de-cluttering?

John’s extracted quote above seems to apply directly to me, however the morning the announcements came down from eBay I ran my numbers through their magic calculator and the results were surprising.

By upgrading my $15.95/month Basic Store to a $49.95/month Premium store and qualifying for the nickel per item insertion fees on Fixed Price listings the calculator claimed I’d knock about $125-$150 per month off of my bill. That’s without changing any of my listing practices.

As with any changes the differences to each of our individual bottom lines are going to vary seller to seller. Extremely so in many cases. The morning I first read of the coming changes I looked them over and was first relieved that they weren’t going to have any obvious negative impact on my business. By the time I ran my numbers through their fee illustrator I went from relieved and non-committal to happy over the changes.

I absolutely understand that just because eBay says it’s a fee decrease and I say my fees are going down that this isn’t necessarily going to save you one red cent. In fact it might be costing you money, I get it. It’s the wide range of businesses and styles of business across eBay which actually makes these changes both so controversial and interesting to discuss.

But bottom line, in my world my bill just went down. In your world the reverse may be true. The key is understanding what just happened and what changes you can apply to continue being profitable, even if that means discontinuing use of eBay altogether.

Towards that end I want to lay out the circumstances of my own eBay business which again, are going to differ greatly from seller to seller. I think these few factors add up to show why these changes work for me:

1) I’ve been listing 800-1,200 Fixed Price items per month under the current fee structure. Those listings, formerly 15 (media) and 35 cents now cost just a nickel, far off-setting the other 3,500 or so items that will cost me just an extra 2 pennies per pop.

2a) Low ASP.

2b) Auctions as usual, which pretty much always start over 99 cents.

With auctions I’ll be paying 10 cents less per listing with ~~most of~~ my Final Value Fees ~~only climbing from the existing 8.75% to the new flat 9%~~ remaining the same because of my store subscription (thanks Karen!).

3) Overall quantity. Having maintained an eBay Store in the past I’ve stocked it over time. If I only listed auctions, the store upgrade would be an expense but necessary in some form to avoid 50c Fixed Price fees. Already having a store I get to upgrade it and actually save by laying out more.

4) Top Rated Seller discounts. I hate to put this one here because nothing’s guaranteed, but I’ve yet to see a negative impact. I understand that this often varies category to category and I seem to be in a good place to benefit from it.

So back to John’s original quote, will I be helping eBay to de-clutter? The obvious answer is no, since I can do what I’m doing and save doing it, however that indicates time standing still. I add listings to the site on a daily basis, they sell much slower, so my current number of items in stock is going to continue to grow over time.

How many nickels can I spend to list a $3 item that might take forever to sell? The answer looks like 60 to break even, but it’s really not. That $3 item listing is an ad, a portal to my other 4,500 listings, so the actual answer is I can afford to pay that nickel until the end of time as long as everything else is moving.

eBay aside, I’ve been working on my own off-eBay shop for some time, and so my plan coming into these changes had been to begin selectively retiring listings from eBay to farm them off to my new store. I consider my vintage goods long-tail items, well, my off-eBay store is going to be the very tip of the tail!

I’ll be pressing forward with this plan, but here’s the best part for me—I don’t have to if I don’t want to … and I can if I want. eBay isn’t dictating this move to me, in other words, I’m facing no pressure from their changes. Believe me, I can recall one eBay fee hike which clamped around my wallet so hard I was forced to immediately cut what were at the time 7,500 store items down to 600—that was several years ago and I’ve been working to up my inventory number ever since!

In the end my own hope for this round of changes is not to save that $125-$150 per month, but to keep my bill right around where it’s always been and use that extra money to list more and sell more. If moving my store items to core works towards that goal then I’d happily pay eBay even more than my current bill in order to increase what I take home in the end.

So John, yes, I am going to de-clutter, but at the same time I’m going to re-clutter my eBay listings.

vincej

Thank you Cliff for your many notes, above. As usual pretty consice and precise.

I'd like to point out that you are among the few that say this "How many nickels can I spend to list a $3 item that might take forever to sell? The answer looks like 60 to break even, but it’s really not.".

That ONE statement is exactly the reason the new fees aren't a "decluttering", they're just a fee increase for many sellers.
From a straight $$ point, we can keep our old junk on ebay same now as before, just paying $40 more, that's all. They would have to raise the fees a lot higher than that to bump us off. OR to consider NOT using old stale merchandise continually. So long as each month is profitable, up go the same items again next month looking for a buyer. This is not an iPod store, is it? LOL.

But what concerns me more, is the search penalties given for old stale stock. i.e. the rating based on "listing views" compared to sales and search standing. THAT is where the real hit of decluttering takes place. need a plan for that.

Our plan is to run 30 day FP, cancel on end. Then simply relist from scratch again 10 days later. Looking for automatic system now for this. I think it's called a CSV upload file. Same stale merchandise , better search standings, same cost Each re-list would be a new item, new ebay item number, like it never existed before.

Is that gaming the system? yeah. I guess... so what. They just gamed me out of an extra $40/mth. It's called "business".

I know customers of ours who do not spend their days on ebay. They go on twice a year, looking for a particular item, and purchase. eBay, if it tries to "rush" time span for sales, is only doing itself, and these customers a disservice in the end. And these are your "vintage" customers. I think most vintage sellers will tell you most of their sales are "one-offs", with a small portion repeats.

You, Cliff, of course may differ. IN your case you have a niche market, you benefit more from repeats and and ebay store. in our case,we have multiple types of items, across categores, and there is really no benefit to a store on ebay , other than to contain costs.

So... if we remain on ebay... my store will be just as cluttered as before, only it'll be more like holding a new garage sale every 33 days with most of the same old stuff. :-)
.
had ebay's intentioin been to declutter, it would have made the premium store fee $79.95 plus $50 fp fee to list. That might have decluttered it somewhat. (including us).

cheers.

Cliff Aliperti

Vince, Maybe they don't actually want the overall de-cluttering as much as they want to either A) take just a little bit more off your cut and/or B) incentivize you to list a little more to make it pay for itself, in essence adding more clutter to the site. In fact, point A just might be the stick being used to get you to accept the carrots that come with point B?

While the new fees will have a negative impact on many sellers, no doubt, it could also lead to the creation of many new full-time type sellers ... I should qualify that--> full-time eBay sellers. That, at least to me, makes this fee schedule most interesting to the seller on the cusp. While change is tough, and I feel for anyone who stands to lose, I'm heartened by the possibility of growth presented here as well.

vincej

I do belive I'll be munching on the carrot for a bit.

Munching while I relax in a lounger with all my "lazy" FP listings working long days.

Funny thing is.... the net result of these changes is "if you are going to list, make it worth it".
Since my items are almost all long-tail... well I need to re-clutter. Results in ebay's take going up, more selection for buyers. In my case one more sale a month covers the new fees, so we'll see how it goes. To date, eBay is still the best bang/buck ratio for consistent sales revenue, for us at least.

At first I thought we'd dump it, but turn it around a few times, and after a few days, and some interesting plans and tools in hand, we're considering staying with premium store too. Funny that.

Just don't ever call me an full-time "ebay seller" - not sure the old heart can take that one.. LOL

ColderICE

Dude, it is so refreshing to hear someone with a foot in rationality about
thier business. Emotion just does not pay the bill or make one successful. I
love this response!

Thanks,

John

e: John@3rdPO.com
store: www.3rdPO.com
address: 3rd Power | 3550 Centerville Hwy | Suite 107-216 | Snellville, GA
30039
fax: 678-805-4900

tfmurphhk

Interesting and well written article Cliff. Having spoken to you before this article, I changed my mind from closing an eBay store... to actually growing it.

Different situations for different people will dictate different courses of action.... but you have laid it out well in this article.

Thanks

Cliff Aliperti

Wow, Tom, thanks! I think the bottom line here is that the scale is going to slide differently for everyone depending upon both your current selling practices and your future selling practices. Hopefully you can make it work for you, hopefully as many sellers as possible can!