eBay likes testing and playing around with new policies and rules in smaller countries – like Australia, UK, Germany. Normally they don’t risk using the States as a guinea pig. Although – when the new policy of sellers not being able to leave neutral or negative feedback came into action – it was done all around the planet…

Now eBay’s Germany division – eBay.de – have made a new announcement. In the essence - having conducted an inquiry about shipping costs, it has emerged that buyers are extremely unsatisfied regarding very high shipping costs. So what eBay.de decided is very simple – they have set the maximum shipping costs for each product category. This new policy comes in action as from June 15 2008.

Let’s look at a few examples which should make every seller cautious and ask a question – why anyone thinks this is going to improve eBay business environment?

Lamps and light elements – 8 Euro. An average small lamp’s shipping indeed costs around 8 Euro. But what if a seller lists an exquisite old-style lamp with a heavy stand? The shipping will obviously cost a whole lot more than just 8 Euro! But let’s look at one section which instantly catches our eyes.

Wholesale & Metalworking – 8 Euro. Well – is anyone really expecting wholesalers to move all their merchandise listed in one listing for measly 8 Euro? Even if the amount of stock reaches a few pallets? After June 15 2008 there will be just one solution – increase the price of the product while leaving the shipping cost at a maximum 8 Euro.

And this is where we can clearly see why eBay introduced this rule. Listing fees. It’s simple as it is – the more the product costs, the more eBay can cash in on listing the respective items!

Under the ever increasing oil price all business owners are thinking new ways to cut on expenses or on the contrary – to increase revenue. But this eBay’s move – setting wholesale category’s shipping costs to 8 Euro is a bit over the top. Also the reason – buyers’ dissatisfaction about high shipping costs – seems to be just an excuse to mask the true cause – to increase listing fees.

And let’s think now about the overseas sellers listing on eBay.de. As the policy stands now – they have to comply with the same regulations! How would anyone expect a seller from the UK ship to Germany paying only the local postage costs?

No wonder other auction websites are experiencing increase in sales when eBay announces yet another limitation. For example – Australian based auction website OZtion reported 50% sales increase after eBay’s announcement of going PayPal only.

While eBay remains and most likely will always be the largest and most influential online auction marketplace on the Internet, their latest revenue boosting measures are annoying thousands of its market participants.

But bear in mind this – Spicy Auction Templates isn’t only for eBayers – sellers of ANY online auction can use SAT resources to boost their revenue and increase sales volume!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 8:02 am and is filed under eBay News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.