Very good article about Ebay’s shipping rules and the new free shipping.

Check out the entire article here.

Personally, I find all that stuff too complicated. I like to handle shipping discounts on a case-by-case basis, but this really requires communication with the buyer – usually I do this by regular email, if I can, but it is sometimes done by the eBay messaging system. As the latter is now being discouraged to maintain a Top-Rated Seller (TRS) status (with “no communication between buyers and sellers” a criteria for an automatic 5-star DSR for communication), this kind of on-the-fly flexible shipping discount will be less attractive to me. On the other hand, people are starting to debate the value of that TRS badge, given all its myriad requirements.

Check out the entire 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!

One of the guys I like to read and keep up with is Skip McGrath’s Auction Seller’s Resource. In his latest newsletter is a good article on what we all have known was happening, but Skip sums it up very nicely.

ARE EBAY AUCTIONS GOING AWAY?
At eBay’s annual meeting, CEO John Donohoe said that auctions now make up less than half of all listings on the site. And he predicted it could drop to as low as 30% by 2011. Just a few years ago, auctions made up around 70 percent of the listings on the site but in the last quarter they were only 45 percent.

This is not by accident. Since Donohoe took over, eBay has made a concerted effort to look more like Amazon…..

The very nature of the auction business is that it only works when there is a sense of community and a shared passion between buyers and sellers. Those are the traits that made eBay successful. And, these are the same traits that eBay has assiduously tried to kill over the last few years….

Once you learn how to sell on eBay successfully you have learned valuable skills that you can transfer to selling on other venues such as Amazon, Craigslist, Upillar and Bonanzle (both Upillar and Bonanzle are really growing fast) and your own website.

Read all of Skip’s article here. While you are there, sign up for his free “The Ebay Seller’s News” newsletter – you will be glad you did!

Buyer Protection cases penalize eBay sellers even if resolved happily or false in the first place
(The Whine Seller Blog)

eBay sent out a seller update out earlier today and most of it was “Yes, yes. Fine, fine.” Then I got to this part:

New seller standard: Buyer Protection cases counted along with low DSRs. You’re on the right track!

Opening a case with the eBay or PayPal Buyer Protection program is a clear indication of buyer dissatisfaction, especially when the buyer tries and is unable to resolve an issue directly with the seller. That’s why, starting in September, “item not received” and “item not as described” cases will be considered along with low DSRs to evaluate and reward seller performance.

The “You’re on the right track” bit is because I currently meet this requirement.

Um…. I’ve been selling on eBay for many years now and I have had lots of buyers start “Item not received” or “Item not as described cases”. But here’s the thing, eBay. Of all of those, only five were actually buyers whose item didn’t arrive or wasn’t as described or who had a problem at all for that matter.

All the others. Let me repeat, ALL THE OTHERS were buyer who opened the case because, as they told me, “They weren’t sure how else to email the seller to ask a question.”

So if this is going to count toward my freaking DSRs, are you going to make it clearer what the process is for? Better yet, is there going to be a way for buyer and seller to amicably close the case if it was started under newbie confusion?

Read the ENTIRE article here.