Famous Belgians

It seems like someone is quite pleased: for the first time in the history of fees on eBay Belgium, we're announcing a reduction:

• Items with start prices less than €1,99 have the insertion fee halved to 5c.
• Listing designer is now free with Turbo Lister.
• On the not so good side, home page featured increases from €24,95 to €39,95, and category featured increases too.

As with the rest of Europe, these changes are as of 1st March.

Very different from the UK and Ireland and Spanish changes announced yesterday, these changes seem designed to get new sellers onto the Belgian site: cheaper starts on the lowest price items will appeal to those who have never sold, and no doubt attract buyers too, but professional sellers in Belgium will be thinking again today about their use of listing upgrades.

eBay scrap reserve prices in Spain

As fee announcements roll out across Europe similar to those announced for the UK this morning Spain goes one step further. They are to scrap all reserve prices and remove the feature from the Spanish website. According to the Spanish price change announcement reserve prices created frustration for buyers not knowing how high they would have to bid in order to win the auction.

What is the reserve price and why have you eliminated it?

It was an option that allowed the seller to fix a minimum selling price which remained hidden to the buyer. It was used very little by sellers, and created frustration amongst buyers when they didn't know at what price they could buy the item. Due to this, we have decided to discontinue it.

As stated earlier today we predict reserve prices will be eventually withdrawn from the UK site as well.

In accordance with the commitment to reinvest in eBay core to make eBay fun and unique again, eBay Spain are to encourage auctions. Fixed Price listing fees will be slightly higher than auction format.

Also Best Offers in Spain are now available in all categories.

A final humerous note, in error eBay have given a browser title of "eBay España: 10p Listing Day" to the announcement. Well in the UK for media sellers every day's a 10p listing day from now on ;-)

eBay fees : DOWN!!!

If you're a UK eBay seller, you may want to sit down before you read this.

eBay fees just went down.

Yes, that's right. Down.

After fee increases on .com earlier this month, UK sellers were expecting similar rises here, but it seems that eBay have largely spared us, opting instead for some interesting changes that will surely boost the UK marketplace. Here are the details, effective from March 1st:

• Most UK sellers will see no changes in their eBay fees at all. This in itself is wonderful news for most of us who were expecting to see eBay take another nibble at our hard-pressed profit margin.



• Technology sellers see FVFs reduced on items over £30.



• Media (books, music, DVDs, film & TV, video games) sellers see a whole new fee structure, with insertion fees reduced to 10p regardless of start price (5p if you start at 99p or lower), in return for FVFs rising to 9%. This vastly reduces the risk involved in listing these highly competitive products, and might even see eBay Express start to become a force against Amazon, Play and the like.
  
  No doubt this change will bring out the whingers, just like any other major change, but eBay's own figures show that the majority of sellers will save money under this new pricing plan.



• Sadly for Motors' sellers, they are the losers this time round, with insertion fees, FVFs *and* listing enhancements all increased in price. Still, we think that absorbing an extra fiver's fees into the cost of selling your car isn't really so bad.



• Finally, eBay take yet another swipe at the reserve price format, as reserve listing fees will no longer be refunded if the item sells. It's well-known that buyers don't like reserve prices, and eBay have done their best over the last few years to discourage their use: I'd bet that we'll see the removal of reserve prices altogether in the next year or two.

Altogether, these are at worst a "no change" relief for UK sellers, and at best, a permanent cheap listing day.

Happy New Year, give us more money

Only two days back at work after the holidays, and prices are going up on eBay.

• On the core site, the insertion fee on the US$1 to $9.99 is being increased by 14% to 40c.
• FVFs on the US$25.01 to US$1000 tranche increases from 3% to 3.25%.
• Transaction fees for Motors increase by US$10,
• and the Motors reserve fee switches from a fixed amount to a percentage of the reserve price.

I'd see the first of these as most significant, as eBay continue their campaign to get low-cost items not only out of Stores, but off the core site too. Bill Cobb might "believe these changes are modest", but they potentially represent a huge hike in eBay's bite of the turnover for many smaller and hobby sellers. Still, speaking generally, it's difficult not to feel some level of relief that hikes are relatively limited.

The same fees changes as above are being applied to eBay.ca. Changes go live on 30th January.

European sellers, get ready; we are surely next.