Is The eBay Fee Increase Actually Good For Business
Fee Increase Leaves Some Sellers Angry, Others Thrilled
Much of my email from readers this month concerned the recent announcement from eBay that it will increase many seller fees on February 18, 2005. Since many business people use eBay’s online store system as their primary ecommerce point of sale, it’s no surprise that most of the emails I received were of the angry variety.
One email in particular caught my attention because it urged me to visit a website to sign an online petition protesting the fee hike. The email directed me to http://www.petitiononline.com/ebayfee/petition.html and upon further investigation I found that 22,548 digital signatures had already been collected (as of this writing).
Thank goodness not all of them had my email address.
This will be the fifth rate hike in as many years for the auction giant and should really come as no surprise. Price hikes are a normal course of business. It was the size of the hike that has many sellers upset.
The rate hike involved the following fees:
