eBay's Fee Structure Change Means Fundamental Shift in Listings

In February, eBay had their annual fee change which was greeted with louder than usual jeers from the eBay seller community. Now that the dust has settled a bit from that, what does that mean for anyone with a home-based business on eBay?

eBay didn't just increase fees this year. They lowered the insertion fee (the cost to list an item) but raised the final value fees (the cut that eBay takes out after the item sells).

The good news was the lowering of insertion fees and making the gallery picture free. As an example: before if you listed 1000 items starting at 99 cents with a gallery picture it would have cost you $550 in listing fees (55 cents per item). Now the same 1000 items would cost you $150 (15 cents each).

Part of the risk of an eBay business is this question: what if the item doesn't sell? If 50% of your items sell, the other 50% must be re-listed. In that example, that meant another $275 in listing fees for the unsold items in the old pricing model. If you had items that don't sell after 2 listings, they became increasingly unaffordable to list. In the new pricing model, that 2nd round of listings has been reduced to $75 for the unsold items.

While there is still some risk of unsold items, the risk of the unsold item scenario has been greatly reduced. The fundamental shift here means that the new pricing model allows sellers to list more items and re-list them with less risk if they don't sell.

Tomorrow we'll take a look a the other side of the eBay price change picture: the Final Value fees.

eBay Fee Table