Comments on Auctionbyte eBay Survey
Sep-2006
Auction bytes have recently conducted a survey of eBay sellers. The survey produces some interesting, but contradictory results
General Malase. eBay sellers who took part in the survey said that only 38% (rising to 33% for top sellers) thought that they would be selling on eBay in 6 months time. It is clear from the survey that eBay sellers are not that impressed with eBay at the moment.
Lack of direction. Despite this desire to move off eBay there seems to be little idea of where to go. The survey found that 22% of eBay sellers also sold through a website, and only 22% were intending to do so in 6 months time and similar figures for Google base were 16% and 20%. In addition only around 10% of respondants used google adwords and 39% did no online marketing at all.
These figures would seem to suggest to me that, like the eBay strike, there is a lot of talk about deserting eBay and not much action. The largest group of respondants to the survey were sellers of collectionables (21%) for whom eBay is by far the best platform.
Despite the brouhaha around eBay shop fee increases, the number of shops in the US has actually increased over the last month. With eBay’s dominent position, especially in auctions, I think that a mass exodus is unlikely to happen.
The fact remains that eBay is pricing itself way too high, the fee increases introduced for Stores format was explained as an attempt to drive sellers back into the “core Auction listings” yet when that had taken effect a massive increase in Auction listing fees was imposed. This is a blatant money grubbing exercise designed to fleece the sellers as much as possible.
Margins are increasingly squeezed by this, not simply because of the increase per item, but “reverse leverage’ whereby a successful sale has to carry the fees of all the unsuccessful sales too. The results can be devastating for sellers, especially with falling Selling Ratios where less & less items sell as a % of inventory. Back when I started on eBay in 2001 I had only to sell 1 item out of 20 to break even, managing an average ration of 7 out of 10. At the last, in late 2006, I had to sell 1 in 4 items to break even, but only managed 1 in 12.
No attention is paid to buyer fraud, only seller fraud is mentioned. There is a healthy trade in scam purchases where buyers simply claim to have not received their item, or received & the sent back items, yet not had a refund. Stolen credit cards, hijacked PayPal accounts & forged Money orders also abound. All result in losses for the seller & eBay/PayPal will ALWAYS back up the buyer not matter how obvious the fraud is.
My money making businesses on eBay went from great profit to regular losses, all due to fee increases. I cut my costs time & time again, only to see this hard work go into the pockets of eBay after another fee increase. I eventually closed them all in 2006 & went elsewhere, returning to profit & cutting my work hours tremendously.
I would never deal with eBay again as a seller.