For those that use eBay a lot to sell items, you may know about eBay's online "store" feature, which allows you to sell items in a store, rather than in a auction listing. Well a while back, eBay popularized this feature by lowing the fees that were charged per item. As it turns out, the tables were turned, and although many people started to sell using the online stores, it hurt eBay's auction listings and sell rate. As it became easier for sellers to use the stores, people switched to them, from auctions. This resulted in many of the same items, but few being sold. So, eBay is taking action to solve the problem. eBay is raising the rate on items selling in the stores, hoping to drive people back to using auctions and "Buy it now" buttons, and hence, stabilizing the balance between both the auction listings, and store listings.
Now, is this a wise decision for eBay? You have to look at two factors here. (1 Are there more items listed on stores than are sold, resulting in items sitting there, wasting time and lowering sales for eBay, and (2 will fee increases increase, or decrease amount of sales, and thus, increase profits for eBay? See, from what reports have indicated from several sources, most listings on the US site at certain times of the year were actually store listings. But they only accounted for a very small percentage of sales, meaning that a lot of items were sitting in the shops, when they could have been sold at auctions. So you can make the assumption that by increasing the fee charged per item, eBay is trying to stop items from sitting in stores, and get them back into auctions. And although many people are actually calling for a boycott of eBay, the effects should essentially be none. If everything works out as planned, people should be switching back to auctions, and a balance will be restored, Happy selling!
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