Broadly speaking for main stream Europe there are no fee changes, it’ll cost you slightly less to trade with Northern Europe and slightly more to trade with Eastern Europe.

Cross border fee decreases

If you’re selling to Northern Europe (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland etc), you’ll benefit from a lower cross border fees as PayPal pass their own cost savings on – 0.4% of the transaction value compared with 0.5% now.

Cross border fee increases

If you’re selling to Asia, South America or Africa, you’ll see your cross border fee rising from 0.5% to 1.5%. Also the fee for some European countries is rising to 1.0% – this includes countries like Russia, Serbia and Romania. This is simply because it costs PayPal more to transact in the newly added currencies in these countries.

Currency conversion fee increases

Buyers and people sending money abroad will see a small increase in currency conversion fees. For example, the fee for sending a payment in euro from a UK (sterling) account will increase from 2.5% to 3.5% above the wholesale exchange rate applied to the amount being sent. The fee for sending a payment in US dollars will be 3% above the wholesale exchange rate.

20p charge for refunding a customer

For the first time, PayPal will be retaining the fixed (20p) portion of the transaction fee where a seller has made a full refund. There will be no changes in PayPal fees for partial refunds.

I can’t see many sellers liking this new cost, but in comparison many other payment providers retain the whole fee.

Doubling the chargeback fee

PayPal does not apply a chargeback fee if the transaction is covered by PayPal Seller Protection Programme. This is not changing, but the fee in all other cases is increasing from £7 to £14. This reflects the costs PayPal incurs in handling disputes.

I’m not to worried about this one personally as I’ve always been covered by PayPal Seller Protection for eBay transactions. However if you use PayPal off eBay then only transactions between UK, US or Canadian buyers and sellers can be covered by PayPal Seller Protection and this could have more impact.

Why the fee changes?

Since 2003 PayPal have invested heavily in expanding their services – for example, adding 40 new transactional currencies. In the main these changes are an adjustment of the cross border fee by region and country to reflect more closely the costs PayPal incur.

Unlike eBay who opted for a simpler fee structure to make it easy for sellers to calculate their costs (which for most people was a sizeable fee hike), PayPal have chosen a more complicated fee structure but one that relects the real cost of the transaction and currency conversion. I guess that means PayPal think sellers are more intelligent than eBay and prefer to do the maths and save money where they can.

Fee increases are never going to be popular, especially for those sellers who transact in the countries which will now be more expensive to trade with. In reality though PayPal is of course convenient and still competitively priced compared to merchant banking arrangements.

At the end of the day if we sell on eBay we don’t have a choice but to use PayPal, so we’ll complain about the fees and then pay them, and in truth by the time they come into effect we’ll probably not even notice the difference.

New Fees

The first thing you need to remember is that the new fee structure kicks in with flat rate final value fees for Business Sellers on eBay UK. If you need to adjust your prices to take into account the fee changes then now’s the time to do so.

You will now want to do your utmost to qualify and retain Top Rated Seller Status, as the PowerSeller discount off Final Value Fees ends this month. From now on to get a discount you must be Top Rated.

eBay Shop Subscriptions

You’ll also want to review your eBay shop subscription. If you have less than 700 Fixed Price listings it makes financial sense for you to downgrade from a Featured Shop to a Basic eBay Shop. This is due to the Basic Shop Fixed Price insertion fees dropping from 20p to 10p. The only significant differences you’ll lose by downgrading from a Featured Shop to a Basic Shop are free SMP and the ability to have a minimal eBay header in your shop.

Duplicate Listings

Don’t forget to make sure you end any duplicate listings to avoid them being automatically ended. To enable you to check for duplicate listings there’s a new tool to check for duplicates listed on your eBay account. You are still allowed up to 15 listings Fixed Price listings for items made to fit specific products, models, or brands to enable you to specify the fitment in item titles.

Postage Prices

You need to check your postage prices if you use Royal Mail contract services on account. The new Royal Mail tariffs for business customers comes into effect on the 9th May and for low value items there could be some significant price increases in store for you.

Don’t forget that as of the 6th April eBay revised maximum postage caps in some categories. If you’ve not increased your postage charges then there is a slight increase with the new revised maximum postage caps now in force on eBay.

Although you might think it a simple comparison there are other fees to take into account. The table shows closing or Final Value Fees payable on each site including PayPal fees for eBay (Amazon fees already include the cost of the financial part of the transaction).

We’ve shown the highest and lowest PayPal fee tranches, but you need to check the rate you qualify for, which can be between 3.4% plus 20p dropping in 0.5% increments down to 1.4% plus 20p. The level you pay will vary according to your monthly payment volumes. If you’ve not already applied for a discount on your PayPal fees you should do so immediately.

It’s not a direct comparison as eBay fees exclude shipping costs but PayPal fees are charged on the total transaction value, as are Amazon fees.

What the table also doesn’t show is that for Amazon there is a flat monthly fee of £28.75 per month, which is roughly equivalent to eBay’s shop subscriptions. eBay shop subscriptions are £14.99 for a Basic Shop, £49.99 for a Featured Shop and £349.99 for an Anchor Shop.

In addition on eBay for fixed price listings you’ll pay 40p per fixed price listing if you don’t have an eBay shop, 10p with a Basic Shop, 5p with a Featured Shop and no insertion fee for fixed price listings with an Anchor Shop. On Amazon there are no per item insertion fees to pay.

VAT at 15% is included for both eBay and Amazon fees, but there is no VAT payable on PayPal fees. VAT isn’t charged on either marketplace for sellers who are VAT registered and qualify for VAT exclusive fees.

Even with the fee changes overall eBay is still a lower cost per sale than Amazon in all categories, and in some such as Jewellery eBay is significantly lower. However fees are only a part of the criteria sellers should be considering. More important is which site achieves the best prices and the highest sell through rate. (Don’t forget Amazon insist that the price you sell on Amazon should match or be lower than the price you sell at on any other website).

Most sellers of new products should be selling on both eBay and Amazon. Whilst sell through rates and costs vary, not listing on either marketplace and missing out on a large slice of the ecommerce potential just doesn’t make sense. However the economics may influence which products you sell on Amazon and how much of your inventory you place on eBay.

Quite frankly the old eBay fee structure was fiendishly complicated with many sellers not even realising that there is a difference between the Final Value Fees for an item sold on auction and the fees for selling the same item from a Fixed Price listing.

This was further complicated as the first tranche for auction fees (in most categories) was 8.75% up to £29.99 and yet for fixed price items fees started at 9.9% of the final selling price up to £49.99. Even the break points between fee tranches didn’t match.

This post is simply a comparison between the Final Value Fee you would pay under the existing fee structure depending on the category you sell in and the listing format you used and the new eBay fee structure from May 2011.

There are some pretty steep fee increases in all categories with the exception of Media where the price of selling on eBay is unchanged. However as can be seen from the tables the sellers who are hardest hit are those with the highest average selling prices.

The reason sellers of high value items are affected the most is because under the old fee structure the higher the price of your item the smaller the percentage eBay charged in fees.

Typically for fixed price items this was 9.9% up to £49.99, 5.9% of £50 up to £599.99 and 1.9% of the portion of the final selling price over £600. The new flat Final Value Fees hide the increase from 1.9% which has risen to as much as 12% in CSA and 10% in Home & Garden.

Even in the Tech categories (which on the face of it appear to have had a huge fee reduction to just 3%) will be impacted by the loss of the fee tranches. Sellers of high value items will end up paying more than double under the new fee structure for items in excess of £1000.00.

Whilst no one will be in favour of the fee increases it’s important to understand how it will impact your business and exactly what fees you will be paying once the new structure kicks in. It’s time to re-evaluate your margins and make sure that your sale prices allow you to make a profit once all your costs including eBay fees have been accounted for.

Edited to add: If you’re looking for details of how the new eBay.com fee structure will affect your eBay fees then Scot Wingo of ChannelAdvisor has just published a detailed analysis.

One seller I spoke to, Alistair of Ultimate Styling, added up in his head that with 25,000 listings he’ll immediately save £3,000.00 a year on insertion fees (those pennies all add up) and as he sells motor accessories he’ll also be saving around 2% on most sales.

Another motor’s trader I spoke to initially was pretty peeved at the loss of PowerSeller discount and an increase in prices. In reality though he’s confident of hitting Top Rated Seller status before May and hadn’t realised he’d also be saving 1.9% on the majority of his sales, as most of his items are sub £30.00.

Other sellers really are facing steep price increases on Final Value Fees. John Pemberton of GMDC was pretty annoyed at a 50% increase in fees, especially in the current economic climate, with VAT increases, rising fuel costs and suppliers edging up prices.

His comment was interesting as he said the fee increases will simply leave less free cash to reinvest in stock, thus slowing the overall growth of his business. His frustration is that putting prices up takes up more of his operating capital which leaves less for inventory to list on eBay. However he feels he’s in a better position than much of his competition to absorb the increased costs and is still positive for the future.

Some of the comments I had today were unprintable, there’s a fair amount of anger out there at the increased fees which a lot of sellers are facing.

There’s also been some comparison to Amazon seller fees with several sellers mentioning the closing gap between eBay and Paypal costs and the cost of selling on Amazon. Whilst the gap has closed overall eBay is still a lower overall cost.

Trevor Ginn an eBay vereran with his own website Hello Baby told me that, given that there’s not an awful lot of competition and Amazon charge more than eBay, it’s annoying but there’s not a lot he can do about it… other than sell more on his website. Even then 10% fees for selling on eBay compared to using Google Adwords, which is variable and quite hard to control, means that the new eBay fees aren’t too bad, in his opinion.

The one thing that eBay does have is traffic, and it has that in abundance and all the time they’re making money most sellers will ultimately live with the fee changes. In the last quarter of 2010, business sellers grew their sales 20% (compared to the same period in 2009) and that’s not to shabby a growth rate in a recession.

So what is your take on fees? Will you carry on selling the same amount of inventory on eBay? Are you one of the lucky sellers who’s fees have reduced or if you’re one of the sellers facing a 50% hike in fees how will it affect your business?

That’s all changing in May, with the new Insertion Fee structure where it’s £0.40 insertion fee for a Fixed Price listing without an eBay shop, £0.10 for a listing with a Basic eBay shop (down from £0.20), £0.05 for Featured Shops and free Fixed Price insertion fees for Anchor Shops (down from £0.01).

For sellers with less than 50 Fixed Price Listings

If you have less then 50 fixed price listings then you will still be better off financially without an eBay Shop. However you might want to consider a Basic eBay Shop for merchandising benefits.

If you have as few as 50 then it’s time to sign up for an eBay shop. For sellers with between 50 and 700 fixed price listings the best option is to subscribe to a Basic eBay shop. If you use Selling Manager Pro then the Basic eBay Shop is good for up to 650 listings before you should consider upgrading.

The one exception is media sellers who benefit from lower insertion fees of £0.20 without an eBay Shop Subscription. For media sellers it makes sense to subscribe to a Basic Shop as soon as you reach 150 fixed price listings.

For sellers with more than 700 Fixed Price listings

If you have more than 700 live fixed price listings (or more than 650 if you use Selling Manager Pro), but less than 6000 fixed price listings, then a Featured eBay Shop makes the most sense to you.

For sellers with between 234 and 700 Fixed Price listings

If your currently have a Featured eBay Shop it made sense if you had more than 234 fixed price listings. Now if you have less than 700 Fixed Price listings it makes financial sense for you to downgrade from a Featured Shop to a Basic eBay Shop.

For sellers with more than 6000 Fixed Price listings

If you have more than 6000 fixed price listings then you’ll now save money by subscribing to an Anchor eBay Shop.

If you’re still unsure of the benefits of eBay shops check out all of the benefits and Why you should open an eBay Shop.

Anchor shops see free insertion fees for fixed price listings and eBay have also slashed fixed price insertion fees for Basic shops from 20p to 10p per item. This means it will make financial sense for more sellers to either upgrade to an Anchor shop or downgrade to a Basic shop.

Often eBay has been accused of giving discounts to their biggest sellers and ignoring smaller sellers. With this seller release there are some real up front listing cost savings for sellers who have a Basic eBay shop and it also makes Basic shops much more financially viable for the very smallest sellers on eBay UK.

Fee Changes

There has been a radical rethink of final value fees. Gone are the fee tranches and in come flat rate category specific fees making it simple to calculate the cost for selling an item. You’ll no longer have to calculate 8.75% of £0.01 – £29.99 plus 5.25% of £30 – £599.99 plus 1.5% of the final selling price of £600 or more. It’s now a simple percentage of the whole selling price.

There are some winners and losers with some categories such as Tech having final value fees slashed by 50% and increases in others.

There will be changes to the Buy it now and Reserve features in most categories and the reserve fee option will increase from 2% to 3%.

Auction listings with Buy It Now

The changes will see the end of the £9.99 auction with £10 Buy It now. From May not only will fees increase a few pence for adding a Buy It Now option but there must be a 40% difference between the Buy it now price and the auction start price.

PowerSellers

In line with eBay.com the PowerSeller discounts will end in May this year. If you want to get discounts on your Final Value Fees you’ll need to achieve Top Rated Seller status.

eBay are also changing the criteria to qualify as a PowerSeller. From May you’ll need 100 transactions to domestic buyers in the last 12 months instead of 100 items sold. This means previously if a buyer bought a quantity of 100 items from a single listing you’d meet the criteria for the one sale, in the future this will count as one transaction and you’ll need to sell another 99 items to qualify.

eBay are also removing the 100 Feedback, 98% or more positive criteria from PowerSeller requirements.

Duplicate Listings Ended

From May, sellers will no longer be allowed to have multiple listings for identical items. This policy will apply to fixed price listings across most categories and should save fees as well as benefiting sellers from recent sales on multi-quantity listings. If you do have duplicate fixed price listings running they’ll be ended automatically in mid-May.

To enable you to check for duplicate listings there’s a new tool to check for duplicates listed on your eBay account.

What will still be allowed is up to 15 listings for items made to fit specific products, models, or brands to enable sellers to specify the fitment in item titles.

Better Communications with Buyers

Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro emails, which are duplicates of the ones sent by eBay, are being retired. Business sellers can customise and personalise the winning bidder, order confirmation and order update emails.

From May sellers will be able to upload from any courier along with tracking numbers in My eBay, Selling Manager or Selling Manager Pro. Adding tracking information automatically triggers the new order update email to be sent to buyers informing them of the updated postal status for their purchase.

Global Seller Standards

Starting in May 2011, minimum selling standards will be put in place across all eBay sites around the world. From the 20th May, to sell into other countries sellers will be required to meet new minimum Global Standards and sellers already have to meet minimum standards to sell into the US, UK and Germany.

Sellers will also be able to achieve Top Rated status in Canada, Australia, France and Italy in addition to the US, UK and Germany.

Listing Analytics Improved

eBay have added new features to the listing analytics tool available in My eBay for free. You can now choose between real time data or data from the last 30 days, it includes data for auctions and includes data for ended items.

Category changes

There are some category changes coming to Clothes, Shoes & Accessories, Computing, Consumer Electronics, Mobile & Home Phones, Photography and Video Games.

Product Details, Catalogue and Multi-Variation Listings

From May there will be required product details in Fashion (Brand, Size, Style), mandatory listing all Electronics items with a matching product in the catalogue and more descriptive item condition values for media. Sellers need to ensure that they update their listings or items could be ended at worst and at best will lose sales by not appearing high in search rankings.

The categories where you can list Multi-Variations have been expanded. They will also soon be available to all sellers, not just those with an eBay shop.

Lets suppose you offer a One-Day shipping service, a slower domestic service and International Shipping options. eBay’s change says that in this instance you’ll only ever be charged final value fees on the slower domestic shipping service.

Final Values Fees will be calculated on the shipping service paid by the buyer unless the buyer pays for a One-day or International shipping option. If a One-day service or International option is selected, the first domestic shipping service offered other than One-day will be used to calculate Final Value Fees. If there are no other domestic shipping services offered, fees will be calculated on One-day service or International service.

There are two important points here, firstly if you currently only offer a One-day shipping or International service you should consider adding an economy service to your shipping options. There’s no need to make it your first shipping option, let buyers downgrade if they really want to use a slower service. However just by offering it means that’s the service your shipping final value fees will be calculated on.

Secondly consider making your first domestic shipping service offered (other than your One-day shipping option) free. This will mean you’ll never be charged final value fees on your shipping costs as they’ll always be based on the free shipping option even if your buyers stick with the first option for One-day shipping or are based overseas.

Is this the end of auctions on eBay

eBay are touting the changes as good for sales and on the face of it most of the changes do look positive. Casual sellers can now list auctions with a Buy It Now option for free and there are few that can complain about that. What’s more interesting is how eBay are saying that they love the auction format but go on to talk about convenience for buyers removing the need for them to bid on auctions.

Is this the end of the auction on eBay? Almost certainly not – for many unique one off items it’s the only way to achieve the best price the market will stand for that product. However what it does mean is that consumer sellers will now get better visibility in search (as auctions are sorted Time Ending Soonest) but also gain the benefit of offering Buy It Now.

Professional sellers wanting to get visibility in search are reliant on performing well in Best Match for fixed price listings, or using auctions (for which they’ll pay insertion fees) and hoping buyers are prepared to bid and wait for the auction to end before they’re assured the item is theirs.

Casual sellers should be pleased that their items will get great search exposure and in fact better search exposure than if they paid for a fixed price listing. The only disadvantage is that, if their item isn’t purchased on Buy It Now, it might sell for the original auction start price. Setting a realistic start price is now no barrier though as there will still be no insertion fee for their first fifty listings.

The impact of fees on shipping costs

If you already offer free shipping then this change is great news for you. To counter the additional fees garnered from charging on shipping eBay have given a 1% or 2% discount based on the category you trade in. For those offering free shipping that’s lower fees with no downside.

If you do charge for shipping then the additional fees are mitigated somewhat. You won’t be charged fees for shipping overseas or next day shipping costs – so long as you also offer alternatives the first domestic shipping service offered other than next day will be used to calculate Final Value Fees.

The best strategy for sellers who offer next day shipping will actually be to offer a low cost alternative as that’s what you’ll be charged fees on.

The one thing that Final Value Fees charged on shipping will do is to remove any advantage sellers have for overcharging on postage to subsidise the cost of the item. This form of fee avoidance is effectively ended on eBay.com from July.

Lower fees vs charging fees on shipping costs

It’s easy to look at the 1% or 2% reduction in fees and dismiss them as tiny, so what do the discounts actually mean in monetary terms? Firstly the discounts are much bigger than they sound, for instance if you sell clothing and apparel on eBay you previously would have paid 12% Final Value Fees. That’s drops to 10% from July this year but in real terms it’s a 16.67% reduction giving a reasonably generous allowance for shipping costs.

As an example suppose you sell an item of clothing, it can be seen from this table that relatively high priced items with low or free shipping will save sellers money. Sellers of low priced items with relatively high priced shipping in proportion to the item cost will incur slightly higher fees.

Loss of PowerSeller Discounts

Effectively PowerSellers might as well cease to exist on eBay. Whilst it’s still a familiar term and carries some minor benefits there is no PowerSeller Logo, no PowerSeller discounts, no PowerSeller promotion in search. All the real business benefits now apply to Top Rated Sellers only.

The best advice for all sellers is to base your business on the published fee structure and take any discounts as a bonus. In reality a 5% discount on Final Value Fees may be significant but it’s only $50 out of an invoice of $1000. Your actual invoice would be significantly higher than $1000 as you’d also pay Insertion Fees, listing upgrade fees and any subscriptions such as eBay Store fees as well.

Whilst discounts do have a monetary value in reality only Top Rated Sellers are getting discounts worth having so that’s the level all sellers should be aiming to achieve. However if sellers have a complaint about the new fee structure the loss of their PowerSeller discount is probably the most legitimate.

The big news in the US is that the 5% Final Value Fee discounts for PowerSellers who are not Top Rated Sellers will end, for the first time Final Value Fees will be applied to shipping charges as well as the item sale price, payment holds will be introduced for new sellers and global seller standards will be introduced.

eBay.com fee changes

eBay Top-rated sellers continue to earn a 20% discount on Final Value Fees. If you’re not a Top Rated Seller then the current 5% PowerSeller discount ends as of your June invoice this year.

Store subscribers will see no change in Insertion Fees, but there are changes to final value fees which see rates segmented by category. Final Value Fees are down from the previous fee schedule by 1% (2% less in Media, Clothes Shoes & Accessories and Motors Parts & Accessories), which should for many sellers take into account the extra fees charged by charging fees on the shipping costs as well as the final value.

Those who sell low cost items with relatively high shipping costs in comparison to the sale price will be hit the hardest. The change is good news for those already offering free shipping as they’ll enjoy lower Final Value Fees without being impacted by fees on shipping costs.

This appears quite simply a ploy to end fee avoidance by overcharging on shipping, although it may also penalise sellers who ship heavy items with costly shipping and those that provide premium shipping services in contrast to those who ship by the cheapest possible method.

Non-store subscribers Insertion Fees will be free for the first 50 auctions per month regardless of start price along with the option to add a BUY IT NOW price for free. This will kick in on the 19th April along Fixed Price Final Value Fee rates reduced and applied to the total amount of sale (including shipping) from the 6th July.

After 50 items non-store subscribers, Insertion Fees will be charged at the same rate as Insertion Fees for eBay Store Subscribers.

Payment Holds

Sellers with little or no selling history and sellers performing below eBay’s minimum standard will see buyer payments show as pending in their PayPal account and not be available to withdraw or spend.

If you have a Standard or Above Standard performance rating and an established selling history, or you’re an eBay Top-rated seller then you’ll see no difference and funds will be available when your buyer pays.

If you have a limited selling history (90 days or less from your first sale, 25 or fewer sales transactions or $250 or less total sales since your first sale) or if you have a Below Standard rating in your Seller Dashboard then funds will be held.

Funds will be available 3 days after eBay receives confirmation of delivery when you upload tracking information, 7 days after your latest estimated delivery date if you don’t upload tracking but mark the item as shipped. If no shipping information is provided to eBay (you don’t upload tracking information or mark the item as shipped) then funds will be available 21 days after the buyer pays.

Sellers with funds held will be able to pay postage and print shipping labels on eBay or PayPal. Benefits are that tracking information is uploaded automatically and funds for the cost of shipping will be made available from the held money. This will give new sellers the ability to ship items without having to self fund postage for up to 21 days.

Global Seller Standards

Starting in May 2011, minimum selling standards will be put in place across all eBay sites around the world. From the 20th May, to sell into other countries sellers will be required to meet new minimum Global Standards and sellers already have to meet minimum standards to sell into the US, UK and Germany.

Sellers will also be able to achieve Top Rated status in Canada, Australia, France and Italy in addition to the US, UK and Germany.

Shopping Cart

As previously announced the Shopping Cart (known as the Shopping Basket in the UK) will be rolled out to eBay.com will be rolled out by the summer and become the standard way to buy on eBay over the course of the year. Initially only PayPal will be supported but by summer all accepted forms of payment on eBay.com will be supported.

The eBay Shopping Cart eliminates virtually all unpaid items for Fixed Price listings, the only exceptions being items offered on a negotiated sale such as Best Offers and Second Chance offers.

Catalogue in Electronics

If you sell electronics then you need to start listing using the eBay catalogue. The new shopping experience already live on eBay.com for DVDs, GPS systems, and MP3 players will be rolled out to more categories. Listings that don’t use the eBay catalogue in these categories receive limited exposure on the Search Results page and thus impact sales.

Starting on the 16th May you’ll be required to list and revise listings in these categories with the catalogue when there’s a product match. Best practise will be to start listing with Product Catalogue immediately so that your products are ready when it becomes mandatory.

Mandatory Item Specifics for CSA

From the 9th May Brand, Style, Color, Size Type and Size item specifics will become mandatory for all listings in listings in Clothing, Shoes & Accessories.

Both “Colour” and “Exact Colour” will both be required and eBay say that new colour treatment will help establish consistent colour across categories.I’ll be watching this one with interest as eBay have changed “colours” in clothing on eBay countless times over the years and each change means existing listings then have colours specified which no longer appear in the product finders that buyers use for search.

Motors Parts & Accessories

All listings in eBay Motors Parts & Accessories categories will be required to specify a return policy, handling time and item condition. This is basic information all ready required for other eBay categories.

New communications hub

Starting in May, you’ll be able to manage your communications with buyers from just one location within My eBay. You’ll be able to see the emails that eBay sends to buyers after a transaction, manage your buyer-facing Automated Answers and access your Store newsletters all on the one page.

International Shipping

From June sellers will be able to specify more international shipping carriers and costs in their listings. Later this year, items offered internationally that specify international shipping information could receive increased exposure by being displayed in the main search results for eBay sites in Australia, Canada and the UK.

Specifying international shipping details on items offered to buyers in Australia, Canada and the UK will be required starting in August 2011.

There will be two auction fee schedules – Standard fees for sellers without an eBay store and another set of auction fees for sellers with an eBay store. Fixed price fees insertion will not change but final value fees will be reduced and remain specific to the category you list in.

The big change is that Final Value Fees are applied to the total amount of the sale including shipping. If you’re shipping heavy items with costly shipping you’ll need to factor in the additional fees.

However don’t forget you will also pay 1% lower final value fees (2% less in Media, Clothes Shoes & Accessories and Motors Parts & Accessories) on the item itself. Also if your buyer pays for a next day service or an International shipping option is selected, the first domestic shipping service offered other than next day will be used to calculate Final Value Fees. This makes it imperative to offer a choice of shipping as even if next day is your default service Final Value Fees will be calculated on your next cheapest delivery option.

eBay.com Standard Auction Fees

These fees apply to sellers listing auction style listings who do not have an eBay shop subscription.

eBay.com Store Subscriber Auction Fees

These fees apply to sellers listing auction style listings who have an eBay shop subscription and for sellers who don’t subscribe to an eBay store when the exceed 50 auctions in a month.

eBay.com Fixed Price Fees

Insertion Fees for fixed price aren’t changing, but final value fees will be reduced as the cost will be applied to both the final value and the shipping charged by the seller.

Currently Visa and MasterCard charge interchange fees of between 1.5% and 2% for every debit card transaction – that averages to 35 cents to 50 cents per purchase. The proposals will cut fees with a maximum suggested cap of just 12 cents per purchase.

Interchange fee is the term used in the payment card industry to describe a fee that a merchant’s bank pays a customer’s bank for each purchase. PayPal accepts both credit and debit cards, and in the US charge 30 cents plus a percentage of the transaction.

If they were included in the legislation it would result in an enormous cut in PayPal’s profits of $971 million on sales of $26.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010. PayPal generate almost half of eBay’s total revenues.

PayPal are making the case that they shouldn’t be included in the legislation as they are not a payment card network and don’t themselves charge interchange fees.

Any ruling would initially apply to the US, but if PayPal fees drop there they’d doubtless fall around the world given time. PayPal appear confident that they would not be affected by the new rules due to come into effect in July, but the possibility that they could must be a troubling thought.

Private sellers on eBay France have some new fees to deal with. As of September last year, they were able to list auctions starting at €1 or less with no insertion fees. eBay says:

Since the introduction of the new pricing, we have noticed that some sellers took advantage of this promotion to offer for sale a large number of lower quality items, disappointing many buyers and sellers.

Accordingly, private sellers will only be allowed 100 free listings per month, which will be free regardless of start price (until 31st December 2010). From the 101st listing, they’ll have to pay the same insertion fees that business sellers do, between 15c and €1, depending on start price. Private sellers with less than 25 feedback will be limited to 100 live listings at any one time.

According to the annoucement, this change came into force on 2nd June; eBay.fr have apparently only seen fit to officially inform users two months later. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

photo credit: uncooI

Most contraversially, from August 10th they will no longer refund the 30c fixed transaction fee to the seller when a full refund is made. Instead, sellers will see both the refund amount sent to the buyer AND an additional 30c deducted from their account by PayPal.

The other major change is a 100% increase in the chargeback fee, from $10 to $20 for payments in US dollars (and the foreign currency equivalent if the payment was in another currency).

At the moment, these changes appear to be US-only: the UK policy updates section – as of time of writing – makes no mention of any similar policies. Only a matter of time? Your guess is as good as mine right now, though if we can find out if this might be coming to Europe, you’ll be the first to know.

This is going to make PayPal a very much more expensive option for US sellers, who are used to being able to refund payments where buyers have made a mistake, and re-invoice them with no penalty. In cases where buyers request a different shipping address after payment, sellers will be forced to choose between paying a double transaction fee, or losing their seller protection.

Where buyers pay for multiple small transactions and sellers have – until now – refunded those payments and combined into one large payment, there will no longer be any advantage to doing this: sellers of low-cost items, where buyers typically buy multiple items in one purchase, might as well put up all their prices by 30c + FVFs. And when buyers send their orders back or claim they’re lost in the post, there’s another fee for the seller too.

Every quarter, PayPal revenue is the star of eBay earnings, so it’s really not surprising they’re seeking to maximise that: as a PayPal spokesperson told AuctionBytes, “It has been more than a decade since PayPal has made a broad increase.” When you have a near-monopoly as they do on eBay, why wouldn’t you take advantage of it. Other merchant account providers have similar charges, so even off-eBay, PayPal aren’t putting themselves at any disadvantage. Why do you charge more? Because you can.

All other fees remain as before

The information on this seems to have been hidden away rather. Some Motors’ sellers say they’ve had an email about it, but there has been no AB post or similar official announcement, and in a thread on the PowerSeller board, James the eBay UK Community Manager said he had no idea and have not heard about any changes in motors pricing nor have seen any announcements to that effect. eBay might want to look again at their communication on this one.

I also question the wisdom of increasing the fee for reserves: NOTHING makes for shill bidding like reserve fees. Free pictures won’t make up for the bumps on the other fees either: I predict a few more eBay sellers will be trying out Autotrader, Gumtree and the like in coming weeks.

The end of Store Inventory Format (SIF)

SIF listings will cease to exist on eBay.com as of March 30th this year simplifying the choice of listing format for US sellers. Now all listings will appear in the main search results and existing Store Inventory Format listings will automatically become regular Fixed Price listings.

New Stores subscription costs and listing fees

As of March 30, 2010 the eBay.com fee structure will mirror the UK with low upfront costs and the bulk of fees being success based payable only when an item sells.

For fixed price listings the fees are:
No Store Subscription: 50¢ Fixed Price Insertion Fees, no monthly fee
BASIC: 20¢ Fixed Price Insertion Fees, $15.95/month
PREMIUM: 5¢ Fixed Price Insertion Fees, $49.95/month
ANCHOR: 3¢ Fixed Price Insertion Fees, $299.95/month

Casual sellers will be able to list up to 100 auctions with 99¢ no reserve start price for free on eBay.com and only pay if their item sells. The final value fee will be 9% capped at $50.00. Insertion fees for higher start prices will be the same as those for Store subscribers, although subscribing to a store will lower your final value fees.

Store subscribers will get up to 12 pictures on their listings for free!

For most sellers the fee changes will mean significantly lower up front fees so less risk, with final value success based fees largely unchanged. Sellers can subscribe or upgrade their eBay Store now and pay no additional monthly subscription fees until April 2010

New Buyer and Seller protection

eBay buyer protection is rolling over from PayPal to the new eBay resolution process along with automatic final value fee refunds when you refund your buyer. For sellers unpaid items can be opened in the resolution process as few as four days from the date of sale giving faster resolution with eBay handling communications with the buyer.

Top Seller and PowerSeller status

Top Seller status is being expanded to more sellers, eBay Motors traders will be able to qualify and US based sellers will be able to qualify as Top Sellers based on sales on eBay.co.uk, eBay.ie, eBay.de, eBay.ch and eBay.at. To qualify as a Top Seller in EU countries sellers must be registered as business sellers.

From mid April new seller requirements will apply to all sellers, not just Top Sellers and new PowerSeller discounts will come into effect. In addition sellers need to remove all PowerSeller icons, logos and references from their listings.

Multi Variation Listings expanded

Multi Variation Listings will be available in more categories allowing sellers to consolidate products with colour or size differences into a single listing. This not only reduces insertion fees but also as the listings receive sales will boost the listings position in Best Match.

The effect of the changes

No doubt there’s going to be plenty of conversation around the changes for eBay.com sellers, but in truth although the changes are complex for UK sellers they’re almost mundane. UK sellers have already been working for a year with more expensive eBay shop subscriptions, lower insertion fees, higher (in some cases) final value fees and no shop inventory format listings. The net result for many sellers has been a cut in their total eBay invoice, although for UK sellers who sell mainly or exclusively on auction format did see a fee increase.

So if you’re in the US what do you think of the changes? If you’re in the UK are there any clues in the latest US announcement as to what changes could be coming to us when eBay announce changes for the UK?

eBay surveys are often a good indicator of future changes the company is considering, and this survey’s final question seems to be particularly telling: “If there was one thing that eBay could do to get you to sell more on their website, what would that one thing be and why?”

We might guess from all this that eBay is considering a “rebalancing” of fees some time next year. My bet would be that the lower insertion fee, higher FVF model we’ve been seeing this year will be expanded. I think we’ll see more free listings for private sellers; not just for low-start auctions as we have now, but fixed price too. Some whole categories may go insertion fee-free (media, for one). And the UK stores subscription model, where the higher your shop subscription, the lower your insertion fees are, will surely be rolled out to other eBay sites.

On the flip side, I think we’ll see a “rationalisation” of FVFs. eBay is looking to label the current system “too confusing”, and we’re likely to see a single percentage rate for FVFs, whatever the actual sale price. Hopefully this will be capped too, but it’s likely to be pitched at a level where sellers of more expensive items feel like they’re getting a bargain, whereas sellers of lower-priced items will complain (again) that they’re being charged an exhorbitant rate.

And my feeling on this is that it won’t make any difference whatsoever to what people list on eBay. Business sellers have – by and large – moved beyond the days when we threatened to go on strike if Meg put IFs up 5c. We’ve learned how to set our prices to take eBay fees into account, and the current push towards “success-based” eBay fees suits us nicely. We see eBay as a customer acquisition tool for our off-eBay businesses, and count eBay fees in with our marketing budget, just like Google Adwords.

No, if we’re not listing on eBay, there are reasons for that. There are lots of reasons – reasons we’ve repeatedly told eBay – and they’re not about fees. They’re about feeling in control, not having our accounts closed down because one buyer is cross. They’re about regulation and over-regulation and the way that eBay has, at a stroke and without warning, wiped out businesses that relied upon that platform. They’re about inventory management, and us not having the (free) tools to manage our stock across eBay and Amazon and our own sites. They’re all good business decisions, and if eBay thinks that sellers are only concerned about fees, then that just shows how out of touch with their sellers they are.

So for a bit of mid-week fun, our own, totally unscientific poll. Would you list more on eBay if fees were lowered? If the answer you like isn’t in my selection, then do feel free to leave it in the comments.

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In addition, the long-running 15c insertion fee “promotion” for business sellers’ BIN listings is being extended to 8th September. From 9th September, insertion fees for fixed price items will depend on Boutique subscription level:

At the same time, FVF take increases by 5%:

Media categories will see their FVFs reduced fom 12% across the board to 9%.

Lest this work out as a fee cut for anyone, Boutique fees are increasing enormously:

More details on eBay France.

Sellers including PowerSellers with low DSRS (Item description 1 & 2 stars above 3% of total and communication, dispatch time, and P&P charges above 4%) will be demoted to the bottom of search results whilst those with the lowest incidence of low DSRs ( 1 & 2 stars) will be boosted to the top. eBay are changing their focus from trying to get the best sellers to improve, to actively disadvantaging the sellers who consistently give poor performance.

The new standards depend on the rate of low DSRs (1 & 2 stars) as well as average DSRs. The rate of DSRs will calculated as:

 
The evaluation period will be 3 calendar months for high volume sellers (400+ transactions in three months) and 12 calendar months for all other sellers. The evaluation for seller status will be on the 20th of each month.

There will be a new Top Seller dashboard live on the 29th July for you to check your current status. Although currently not available on eBay UK the Top Seller dashboard can be accessed on the eBay.com site.

New Seller Standards

Top Sellers will need to have minimum DSRs of 4.6, with less than 2 or no more than 0.5% low (1 or 2 star) DSRs. They’ll need to do at least 100 transactions per year and be a PowerSeller. The reward is the highest discount levels and promotion in search results with the Top Seller icon.

Above standard Power Sellers will need to to have minimum DSRs of 4.6, with either less than 3 or no more than 2.0% low DSRs. PowerSellers will need to do at least 100 transactions per year to qualify for the new discount structure.

Standard PowerSellers sellers will have no minimum DSR standard but will need to have less than 4 or no more than 4.0% low DSRs.

Current PowerSeller Discounts

The main criteria is volume based with either a minimum turnover from £750.00/month or minimum 100 items a month. Discounts are currently:

New PowerSeller & Top Seller Discounts

The main criteria will be quality based as measured by avoiding low DSR scores. Sellers who do not meed the quality threshold for Above Standard or Top Seller status will no longer qualify for FVF discounts. The discount levels (and difference from the old levels) will be:

Hidden Savings

Although the new fee structure appears to give smaller discounts in reality many sellers will be saving large sums on listing fees. Bold, Border, Highlight and Featured Plus are being discontinued and the Featured Item section will no longer appear in Best Match sorts. Many sellers have been forced into using these features to gain visibility as Top Sellers will now be promoted in search results. The Top Seller icon will also be displayed alongside their listings in search results and will stand out more once other listing enhancements are removed.

Summary

The net results of the changes could benefit lower volume sellers. Low volume sellers generally can give a more personal service which should result in better feedback and DSR scores. They’ll also be able to compete more easily against high volume sellers who previously could afford more features on listings.

It will also be easier to displace an incumbent seller from the top of Best Match. Previously with Recent Sales once someone gained the position at the top of search results it was almost impossible to dislodge them with a new listing. With Item Quality (Transactions/Search Impressions) a better priced or more attractive listing should attract more sales compared to views and will quickly rise to the top.

All sellers should save upfront money on listing fees and all Top Sellers (low and high volume) should benefit from increased sell through rates driven by greater visibility as a reward for offering great service.

We’re continuing our commitment to moving the cost of selling on eBay.co.uk and eBay.ie away from front end fees so that the majority of fees are paid only when you successfully sell an item.

The changes do remove some of the risk from selling on eBay: when you’re a private seller and can look at every 10p, there can be little more depressing than a seller invoice when you haven’t sold anything. But don’t get too excited: if you’re selling something that finishes for more than a tenner, or you’re listing in the media categories, your fees just increased. Here’s how they compare (for non-tech, non-media categories):

Media categories already had free insertion fees, with FVFs at 9%, so that’s a straight increase had 5p insertion fees with FVFs of 9%, so that will be a fee increase on any item sold at more than £5.00.

The new fees will apply from 12th March. Please note: fee changes apply to private sellers listing auctions on eBay UK only. There is no change to the fees for business sellers or BIN listings.

Though “risk free” selling will undoubtedly appeal to many private sellers, I can’t help thinking that by pushing them towards 99p auctions, eBay are forcing them to take another, more costly risk: that their items will sell for much less than they would have with a higher start price, or on Buy It Now.

I’d imagine that the kind of items private sellers are likely to list – and I have no actual data on this whatsoever – are going to be clothing, children’s toys, DVDs, CDs, books. In other words, the kind of thing that is replicated in thousands right across the eBay site. These kind of ‘commodity’ items do not do well at auction: if you start them at 99p, you’ll be lucky to finish at £1.04. Buyers don’t need to compete to win because there are a dozen or more all the same. Moreover, they don’t want to wait to see if they’ve ‘won’ a 99p DVD; it’s easier to use BIN and get on with their lives.

What a push towards 99p auctions might do, though, is to restore eBay as the place to grab a bargain. eBay’s home page used to carry links for items “ending soon, no bids” – and a short browse would uncover a gem or three which could be picked up for pence. I’d bet on that link or one like it being restored to eBay UK’s home page in late March; let’s hope it brings the buyers back with it.

The effect of this will be to make Personal Payments sent through PayPal totally free for the recipient allowing them to withdraw the money to their bank account with no charges at all. Currently to stay fee free they either need to leave their money in their PayPal account until it totals more than £50.00, or re-spend it paying with PayPal.

There will also be fee changes for those that use PayPal Website Payments Pro Fees for PayPal Express Checkout again effective 11th February 2009.

Other changes include the removing the need to complete the Expanded Use Programme as part of the process to lift their receiving or withdrawal limits – PayPal will introduce an automated process to confirm your address information is correct.

The privacy policy will also be amended to allow PayPal to collect information about you from other PayPal users, add more companies that PayPal share your personal information with and to allow PayPal to contact you by telephone to confirm your identity.

You can read the full changes by logging into your PayPal account and clicking the “Policy Updates” link on the left hand side in the “What’s new” section.

The glitch has appeared on 30 day listings for which a 7 day Featured First enhancement was applied. When a revision is made (even a simple revision like adding more inventory to the listing) users have been charged a second time, but for a full 30 day Featured First fee.

eBay advised users to run long duration listings and to adjust the quantity as stock sells and is replenished but double dipping on fees, changing the Featured First option from a 7 day to a 30 day and re-charging, shouldn’t be happening.

If you have been using the Featured First enhancement and have subsequently adjusted the quantity available on a listing, check your invoice and make sure you haven’t been over charged.

Rafael Orta from eBay opened the webinar with a short overview of the changes starting with the premise that eBay “Want you to load all your inventory on the site by Christmas”. Multi quantity listings are now the name of the game – they save on insertion costs, save time creating listings, can be good til canceled, and most important of all increase the chances of appearing high up in search results as soon as they attract sales.

All listings will be in main search results and best match will be tweaked to show the most relevant listings first although the option to kick start listings with the new featured first listing upgrade can jump start sales.

The Best match criteria will vary by category and continue to be tweaked and eBay guarantee a relevant mix of auction and BIN in search results.

Then it was straight into the Q&A session largely answered by Rafael, but with assistance from Max Leisten in the US ChannelAdvisor office. The first question was for those who haven’t received communications regarding the changes and the details can be found at http://ebay.co.uk/buyitnow08.

There were several questions regarding what changes will affect the recent sales boost in search results. This will be an issue for those who tweak prices daily based on fluctuations in their supply chain. If the sales price is increased then all recent sales advantage will be lost. The other listing edits which will lose the recent sales advantage are changes to the item title, item condition, description and the category listed in.

Interestingly changes to the postage cost do not affect recent sales according to Rafael. It does however mean that if you reduce your postage costs but increase the item price to compensate that any recent sales advantage will be wiped out – if you change to free post it really does have to be “free” to keep the boost in search.

When relisting the recent sales advantage will be carried over to the relisted item, but the window for relisting has not been disclosed. Rafael hinted that it would be no more than 7 days, but it could be less in some circumstances.

There is still no easy solution for listing an item which is compatible with multiple models, e.g, a car spark plug could fit hundreds of different vehicles. Rafael advised to make sure the most common are in the 55 character title but with the option to list duplicates with different titles to ensure your products are found.

There was a question regarding fees and would they go up or down overall. There is no easy answer to this (insertion fees will be less, but some final value fees are rising) as it’s likely seller behaviour will change dramatically. Sellers are likely to have less listings for each product line, but are being encourage to list more product lines and put all of their inventory on the site. As the selling model is changing so drastically each individual seller will need to assess the impact of fees based on their own listing strategy.

Best Match is already active on eBay UK, but is a different implementation to the eBay.com site. In the UK there will be no removal of duplicate listings from a single seller in search results, but the duplicate listing policy remains in force. From the 25th all listings will appear on the core site including current Shop Inventory items, but listings already live will incur fees (insertion, final value and listing enhancements) based on the old fee structure.

Auctions will continue to be important and crucially they will still be displayed with a time ending soonest sort order. This means if you list auctions regardless of other sellers gaining a boost in search with recent sales or by using the featured first listing upgrade your items will appear at the top of search results just before they end. Even if you add the BIN option to an auction it will still be treated as an auction in the search display order.

Finally a question was asked by a seller who’s listing strategy has always been to make sure she had listings ending daily – “Does new fee structure mean you can have just one listing instead of multiples for visibility”. The answer is a resounding “YES”. eBay.co.uk is changing this week, and your listing strategy needs to change as well.

Edited to add: The recording of the webinar including the Q&A is now available.