eBay Fires Customers
Last week eBay announced it will increase the fees it charges to those who sell items through its online stores. The new prices will raise fees by an average of 6 percent for the approximately 500,000 online store owners, eBay estimated. Some sellers are angry with the news, and are considering jumping ship to Amazon, Yahoo or shopping.com. But eBay is cool with this, because some experts say the move was done to "fire" its below-zero (BZ) sellers.
By raising the costs to operate stores, eBay hopes to push more listings back into the auction format, CEO Meg Whitman said in an interview. In addition, the move will eliminate many sellers who use the eBay online store platform as a "dumping ground" for hard-to-sell merchandise. Skip McGrath, author of "Titanium eBay: A Tactical Guide to Becoming a Millionaire PowerSeller," told CNNMoney.com that those types of sellers are "cluttering up the space and diluting the platform's effectiveness." eBay store inventory listings represent about 83 percent of the volume but generate just 9 percent of the gross sales volume, according to the company. So the move may streamline the platform, improve efficiency, and ultimately make the site better for its most growable and most valuable buyers and sellers.
What do you think? Is the move a good one for eBay, or will it alienate too many sellers?
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