Why eBay Opposes and Amazon Favors Sales Tax Collection Bill

By: Ina Steiner

Thu Nov 10 2011 14:54:03

Three U.S. senators introduced the Marketplace Fairness Act on Wednesday, a bill that would allow states to require out-of-state sellers to collect sales tax for purchases made by in-state residents. eBay continues to oppose such legislation and came out sharply against it. But Amazon, who had been a vocal opponent of state efforts to impose collection requirements, is now backing the new bill.What is it that makes eBay vehemently oppose the new bill and Amazon support it?

READ THE REMAINDER OF THE ARTICLE HERE

Apparently it’s spring cleaning time over at EBAY again! More changes, but hey, life is change. I guess more than spring cleaning, it’s just reassessment time again!

Well…. Here is the text of the seller’s letter we received from ebay:

We know that online buyers pay attention to the total cost of an item–including shipping–when deciding what and where to buy. That’s why, to encourage low-cost shipping, starting July 6 Final Value Fee rates for Store sellers–Fixed Price and Auction-style–will be reduced and then applied to the total amount of the sale–including shipping.

The best way to minimize the impact on your overall fees is to take advantage of the available ways to reduce your shipping costs and charges.

New eBay Shopping Cart
Online shoppers are accustomed to adding items to a shopping cart–and they’re often motivated to buy more. That’s why we’re introducing the new eBay Shopping Cart that works with both Fixed Price and Auction-style items. Buyers can add items from multiple sellers and pay in one easy checkout–making it easier and more likely for them to buy more. It will become the way to shop on eBay before the 2011 holiday season.

New communications hub
Starting in May, you’ll be able to manage your communications with buyers from just one location within My eBay. View the emails that eBay sends to buyers after a transaction, manage your buyer-facing Automated Answers, or access your Store newsletters–all from one convenient page.

Category and item specifics changes
Category and item specifics changes are also consolidated with rest of updates. Find out if your listings are impacted and get details on the 2011 Spring Seller Update.

As always, thank you for selling on eBay. (aka thank you for giving us more of your profit margin. LOL)

OK – the takeaway:
Sellers that honestly charge reasonable shipping fees are getting a bum deal. Sellers that blatantly gouge on shipping fees should be banned from eBay anyway and make the world a better place. It is eBay’s lazy way of handling these type of sellers who use shipping to skirt paying fees.

Our store always charged reasonable shipping and in the past two months have readjusted 98% of our listings to reflect free shipping anyway. There are, however, a few things that irk me: 13% closing fee for books and media – give me a break! (In other words, if you’re still selling books on eBay, we’d just as soon not have you here.) Also ‘eBay will eliminate the current 5% discount for non-TRS PowerSellers’. See the new charts here on the AuctionBytes Blog (they do a great job of reporting these changes). Check out this blog post about the podcast with eBay’s Vice President of Selling Experience Todd Lutwak at radal.info.

As usual, I will see which parts of my store it affects and if possible, move those listings to another marketplace – namely Amazon.
Just another day in paradise!

Ebay has screwed themselves so much in trying to become Amazon. Why? Ebay had a good thing at one time. Why keep trying to be someone else when you were great to begin with? Some people never learn. Pitiful. Just Pitiful.

Read the latest headlines and articles about the “Ebay’s mission to become Amazon”.
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eBay May Offer Outsourced Fulfillment Service to Sellers
By: Ina Steiner
Sun Aug 15 2010 17:45:44

eBay is surveying sellers on whether they would be interested in using a fulfillment service called eFulfillment Service. Sellers would send their inventory to eFulfillment Service, which would store the items, and then pick, pack and ship orders as they were received. ….
eBay is under pressure from some Wall Street analysts (including RBC Capital and Deutsche Bank) to offer fulfillment services – some analysts want eBay to actually move in the direction of inventory ownership. No doubt analysts are impressed with Amazon’s success with its FBA fulfillment service; Amazon is building 13 new distribution centers this year…..
READ HER COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE ON HER AUCTIONBYTES BLOG
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Would you use Fulfillment by eBay?
by Chris Dawson

Amazon of course already have Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) so it would be interesting to see how eBay’s service (FBE?) stacked up against it. In fact users of FBA in the US can already have their products to fulfill non-Amazon orders so potentially could already be using the service to satisfy eBay orders.
Fulfillment services are best suited for multiple quantity identical items that are already boxed or bagged preferably with bar codes. It’s not so suitable for individual items or large, heavy or awkwardly shaped products that require specialist packaging – cost will be considerably more.
READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE ON THE TAMEBAY SITE
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A Portion of a Comment from the blog post “eBay Should Not Follow Amazon in Offering Fulfillment Service By: Ina Steiner” that pretty much sums it all up about eBay even venturing into this:
COMMENT: eBay Should Not Follow Amazon in Offering Fulfillment

If they just go with the big box companies like smartbargains and buy.com they should rely on their fulfillment. For smaller sellers that only have one warehouse or have valuable small items like jewelry or collectibles, the thought of giving control to ebay and its lack of experience in any matters opertional makes me shudder. If they go with a 3rd party, they might pull it off on inexpensive items but why risk it? They have only been a ”venue” remember? It takes experience and Amazon has done this since day 1 and although they might think they can ”buy” experience since ebay has its own quirky corporate culture and are behind in most platforms.. it won’t work.
They can try it but there will be many mistakes and will lose customers or another even bigger SKYPE disaster….
READ THE REST OF THE COMMENTS AND THE COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE
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The following is from an article from Last year: (Amazon Growing Faster than Online Sector: Greater variety, lower costs give Amazon an edge over eBay, say analysts. by Auctiva.com staff writer – Apr 28, 2009), but this is the exact problem still plaguing eBay.

The number of users who frequent Amazon has also increased, while eBay struggles to keep users. In March, Amazon had 61 million visitors, up from 50 million last year. In the same month, eBay had 70 million visitors—10 million fewer than a year ago.

Why does the market appear to favor Amazon over eBay?

“eBay’s marketplace business is in turmoil and traffic is down, due in part to a constantly changing shopping experience,” Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes editor and co-founder, says in reports. “The question for sellers is whether it’s worth the effort to figure out eBay’s constant changes, or invest their time and resources elsewhere.”

Read the entire article here.