With the increased final value fee, we sellers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. eBay is one of the best places to sell unusual items and reach a global market as opposed to Craigslist.
The only good thing is the free gallery pic--why?! Because it does draw buyers in to look at your auction, so you have a better shot at selling it. For example, because I'm saving that 35 cents, I can put an item in TWO categories (doubling the number of people who view the auction and maying increasing the final sale price)--saving 70 cents and therefore making up the INFLATED FVF (commission) price that they will be charging. But this is only good for items around $10.
What it tells me is that I'm going to even work harder at making my auctions GREAT. The BEST title possible, the BEST picture (or pictures) possible, the most information possible to capture an audience and therefore encourage multiple bids. But since 80% of buyers now SNIPE, getting good price is harder because not everyone gets their bid registered in those last few seconds.
eBay is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
"WE" will all have to see how much of a bit the new FVF takes and try and be creative about making more money.
BUT WAIT!
Since I read this question, I did a little exploring and found a most unique link of a petition of sellers who are protesting the rise in fees. There are over 28,000 'signatures' on the site linked below:
To: ebay
Ebay sellers are very concerned about the recent fee increase. Of course as ebay grows, it is understandable that the fee structure will increase. But sellers are questioning the amount of increase, mainly the gallery fee (from 0.25 to 0.35) and the final value fee (from 5.25% to 8%).
Many sellers are making little profit as is. Ebay is clearly discouraging the smaller sellers, however don't all sellers have to start out somehow? Sellers are saying that they will have to close their ebay store due to the subscription increase, or increase their prices to offset the fees. Many people want to leave ebay entirely.
The long term of the increase of the fee structure are:
a) Smaller sellers will stop selling on ebay and try to sell somewhere else online. They will never have the chance to expand themselves on ebay.
b) Larger sellers may consider starting their own online store or sell elsewhere
c) Prices of auctions will increase. Buyers will turn back to retail stores. The idea of ebay is that you can find things cheaper there, even when adding shipping and handling together.
d) Discourage new sellers, decreasing competition (which is what the ebay market thrives on for pricing).
Several ebayers have stated that they want to boycott. However I have started this petition to show ebay the concern we have for the new increase in the fee structure.
We protest that ebay should reconsider the fee increase entirely, but if not possible, please do think about not increasing the fees as much (some fees have double...or even tripled!).
I understand that even an increase in listing fees is understandable, but the substantial increase at the same time in the final value is absolutely absurd. Please listen to the ebay sellers, we are the backbone of ebay.