The buzz on Auction-Bytes, and all the other hot auction info sites is that ebay is going to raise store listing fees again.  Maybe even doubling it - to 10 cents per listing from the basic 5 cents charged now.

  For those of you who have had ebay stores for a long time - You may remember several years ago, when ebay was looking for more revenue, and they encouraged us all to open stores, and fill them up with all of our items.  At that time they lowered store listing fees from 10 cents each to 2 cents to entice us into listing more store items.  And, then a year ago - they included store items in all basic searches, and for many of us - our sales doubled over night.  A few months later ebay took the increased store visibility away, saying all of those search returns confused buyers.

  Now we are paying 5 cents per listing, plus 10 % final value fees (up to $25.00) when your item sells.  And, ebay is not happy with that. 

  Their core listings - Regular Auction listings apparently are not growing as fast as they would like.  And, ebay feels store listings are a major stumbling block to higher core growth.  What they don't realize - Is many items will never sell, as regular listings.  Some items need to sit there and gain visibility.  Often times and item sits in an ebay store for a year, or even two years - until the right person stumbles across it.  For ebay that is $3.70 profit if the item sells for $25.00, and has been in a store for two years.  Odds are they will also make another dollar or so, when the buyer pays with Paypal.

  The other side of the coin too, is that many of the store items on ebay have already been listed as regular items one, two, maybe even five times, and have not sold.  That's how they became a store item in the first place.  The seller parked them in a store - because they could not sell as a regular listing.

  The truth is - Ebay is outright expensive to sell on, if you want to make a profit.  My seller fees this month will top $1100.00.  Closer to $1250.00 if you include Paypal's cut in there.  Without my store listings, they would only make $300.00 or $400.00 per month from me.

  Right now my ebay fees are $9000.00 to $10,000 per year excluding Paypal's cut.  My basic store fees for 6400 listings is roughly $4800.00, not including final value fees.  If they jump to 10 cents per listing that would bring me to $8000.00 a year just for store listing fees.  Makes it kind of rough to make a profit.  Especially when ebay is hounding sellers to charge less shipping, and to include the handling fees in your items.  Because on the other end, you have sellers demanding lower and lower prices.  You obviously cannot have both and stay in business for long.

  Don't want to sound like I am on a rant here, but I wouild like to see what other store sellers think on the matter, and how they are planning to cope.

Nick,

history-bytes