‘How to Deal with the Latest eBay Changes’
by Lynn Dralle, The Queen of Auctions

I was at eBay Live in 2008 in Chicago when I started hearing the “rumors” that eBay stores were going to go away. It put me into a panic. I was at a cocktail party with all the top eBay executives (since I am an eBay Certified Provider) and I cornered as many as I could to ask my questions!

I talked to both Dinesh Lathi and Rajiv Dutta.  Rajiv assured me that eBay would always support sellers of unique one-of-a-kind items like you and me because that is the basis of eBay’s Foundation. I think eBay’s announcements on Tuesday back up what I was told almost two years ago at eBay Live in Chicago. eBay is still supporting sellers of unique, one-of-a-kind items like you and me. Here is a link to the announcements if you have not seen them yet.

I love the first line from those announcements.

“It’s you–entrepreneurial sellers–who make eBay the world’s #1 online marketplace. In 2010, we’re taking steps to increase your profitability and bring you even more buyers.”

It really makes it clear to me that eBay does recognize that their livelihood is dependent upon smaller- to middle-sized sellers like us. The bottom line is this. If you are listing less than 50 items per month, you may want to opt for NO Store. If you are listing more than 50 items per month, an eBay store is probably the way to go. Here is more information that I have taken from the eBay announcements.

Choose the package that’s right for you. Sign up now, before February 16, and pay no additional monthly fee until April!

• Basic: 20¢ Fixed Price Insertion Fees, $15.95/month
  Consider a Basic Store if you list more than 50 Fixed Price or Auction-style items a month. It’s a great starter package if you plan to start an eBay business or ramp up your selling.
• Premium: 5¢ Fixed Price Insertion Fees, $49.95/month
  Great choice for higher volume sellers (more than 250 items per month) and sellers listing in both Auction-style and Fixed Price formats.
• Anchor: 3¢ Fixed Price Insertion Fees, $299.95/month
  Get the same great deal as the old Store Inventory format-now with full exposure in search results! With an Anchor Store subscription, higher volume sellers get top savings and the lowest package rates on eBay.

See fee charts for details.  Use the Fee Illustrator to help you decide.

NOTE: Starting in March, meeting the new minimum performance standard for all sellers will be a requirement for Premium and Anchor subscribers.

The Fee Illustrator is awesome. You can plug in your numbers and it will tell you which store level is best for you. Keep in mind that it is just calculating auction insertion prices at 10 cents each (it should ask you what your starting auction price is instead of just assuming 99 cents). That was the only glitch that I found while using it. I did a little analysis of my own business and I will include that for you here also. I have always had a premium store and for a few months I even tried the anchor store. The anchor store at $299.95 per month did not make sense for me back then, and it still doesn’t today. I would need to have about 10,000 items in my eBay store to make it pay for itself.

Here is the analysis of my business. I have 6272 items listed. 100 are auctions. I will continue to list 100 new auction items each week. Here are my current monthly costs:

400 auctions at 35 cents insertion = $140.00
6172 items in my eBay store
10 at 10 cents per month = $1.00
448 at 5 cents per month = $22.40
5714 at 3 cents per month = $171.42
Premium Store subscription = $49.95
Total Insertion fees per month = $384.77
Under the new fee structure:
400 auctions at 25 cents insertion = $100.00
6172 items in my eBay store
6172 items at 5 cents per month = $308.60
Premium Store subscription = $49.95

Total Insertion fees per month = $458.55

DIFFERENCE = $ 73.78

Final Value Fees (NO CHANGE because of my average price points being below $25.00)
85 auction items sold for an average of $12.44 at 8.75% = $92.52
422 store items sold for an average of $16.87 at 12.0% = $854.30

The good that I see coming from this:

1.     $73.78 is not a big change in my eBay fees for the extended exposure of my items showing up in a core search. The slight final value fee increase on sales prices over $25.00 will affect me very slightly. When eBay store items came up in core searches for a few months back in 2007 (I may not be remembering the year correctly), my business went through the roof. It was amazing the increase it had on my sales. We were all so bummed when eBay changed it back to store items just showing up in the store searches. This is going to be awesome!!! I wish it were happening sooner than the end of March. I think that the $73.78 extra I pay per month will be made up quickly with me just having to sell four more items per month out of my fixed price inventory. This has already been proven in the UK and Germany where the change in searches and store format has increased sales.

2.     Smaller sellers who are not serious will leave the marketplace. Once again, there will always be complainers who won’t want to modify their business strategy to fit with this new model. I say, fine, let them leave eBay. It will just leave more business for those of us who can adapt and make it profitable.

3.     eBay will soon flag listings that have not had any movement, sales, lookers etc. and this will help us to clean up our inventory.

If I want to make back that $73.78 increase, I could use eBay’s new flagging tool and take about 1475 (1475 times 5 cents is about $73) slow moving items out of my eBay store. However, I am going to continue with my two-year rotation of merchandise and see how great business is in April and May before I start purging slow-moving inventory. I hope you are all as excited about these changes as I am. I know that our eBay store businesses will continue to improve with these changes. Since I do about 80% of my eBay business from my eBay store, I am thrilled that these items are going to get the exposure they deserve!

Happy eBaying!
Lynn

Hi Lynn,

I bought your (2008) Boot Camp in a box and could not do anything else for a week while I watched you in action. The 2009 Boot Camp in a Box was even better and I learned a lot from both.

I have doubled my listings on eBay and when I am really fast at this I will do even more! I even sold a G.I. Joe item out of my store which I had listed three or four times and gave up and got my price at the store price!!! My ebay fees have been split in half! My monthly bills are much less now and I am listing more.

Thank you so much and the best of everything to you.

Frances R., Barre, Vermont

The Queen’s Court plush Christmas present has been a fun experiment to watch. Here is another quick update from Elizabeth, BookLoverToo.

Hi Lynn,

I listed my plush on January 8th. It is a stuffed bunny with a straw hat and ribbon embroidery on the pants. I have to admit I was a little jealous of those Queen’s Court members who received Steiff and Dakin, etc. I thought my little bunny would never sell. It even states on the tag that it is not a toy, for decorative purposes only. On top of that, it is missing a button. But lo and behold, it sold at live auction! Just when I forget your theory of “just get it up there,” I am reminded by selling something I never thought would sell.

Lesson well (re)learned.

Thank you so much,

Elizabeth
Booklovertoo

You’re very welcome Elizabeth!  I’m so glad you were successful, well done!

Happy eBaying!

Lynn

Another busy two weeks. I have been so focused on writing my new Dinnerware Success eBook that I haven’t had much time to do anything else! Well, I did fit in watching a few exciting football games.

It has been really strange, but ever since I started working on the Dinnerware Success eBook, dinnerware has been flying off of my shelves. Check out this Portmeirion piece that I was just about to put into the eBook and say, “this pattern doesn’t sell,” when it sold! You just never know.

My Dinnerware Success eBook is turning out really well and I am really excited to get Volume I sent out to everyone who has pre-ordered in the next few days. If you haven’t gotten yours yet, be sure to order soon before the price goes up!

Thanks everyone, and happy eBaying!

Lynn

Indiana has been wanting a pair of Ugg type boots and she didn’t get any for Christmas. She won’t be able to wear them much living here in the desert, but in the winter it does get really cold at night. While I was thrift store shopping a few weekends ago I spotted an awesome pair of Italian real fur boots. They were in incredible condition and only $3.99. Well, they didn’t fit and she didn’t really like them, so up on eBay they went. Turns out the suggested retail for these Garden Spot Italian boots is $150 to $180! For my previous blog and newsletter readers, the boots I’m talking about are the Italian Apres Ski Boots previously mentioned.

Here are the Ugg type boots that Indy ended up getting with some of her Christmas money. She bought them on eBay–of course!

We won this auction with auctionsniper.com. I highly recommend using a sniping service like this when buying anything on eBay. Auction Sniper is an eBay sniper tool that automates the process of placing your eBay bid in the closing seconds of any eBay bidding auction.  It dramatically increasing your chance of winning and very easy to use.  The best part is that you can try Auction Sniper for free!  So give it a whirl and let me know what you think, did it make a difference in the number of auctions you won? Let me know!

When I told my mom that I was writing about boots, shoes and scarves, she told me about a great score she had had recently. She bought five pairs of used Dansko shoes at a yard sale for $3.00 each. It was in an area of Bellingham that’s not so great, and it was late in the day. The lady running the sale originally wanted $7 each and because it was time to close up shop, my mom was able to negotiate the price down to $3.00 each. That’s more like it!

She put them all up at auction for $19.99 to $24.99 and one sold for $24.99. That covered her initial investment of $15.00 and then some. The other four pairs sold in her eBay store within 3 months, each for between $19.99 and $24.99.

One really fun clothing category that often gets overlooked is scarves. They’re easy to store, easy to ship and can sell for big bucks. Check out this neat email I got from Mandy, a Queen’s Court member.

Hi Lynn,

This was a great score! A Hermes Paris 100% silk scarf I found at Value Village for 2.99 with its seam label and the copyright printed right on the scarf! It sold with a bidding war for way more than I could have ever imagined. Yippee! I’m going to check the scarves more often when out Thrifting!

Mandy
Mandicrafts
Mandy’s auction is here.

When I emailed Mandy to ask her if I could include her score my the newsletter, here is what she sent back:

Sure you can use the scarf in the ezine, but the follow up to it was that they complained that it had a worn spot and pin holes and a stain. I’d inspected it before it shipped and offered a full refund, confident I could resell or over it as a second chance offer, but they still wanted to give it as a gift and asked for compensation before leaving feedback.
I refunded $20 and that made them happy enough to leave good feedback and it was still a great score for me without all the return hassle!

Some of that extortion we are all experiencing with feedback held hostage, no kidding! But Mandy did the right thing by offering a parital refund. Good job, Mandy! And I just heard from her again, she made Silver Powerseller today! Congratulations–What an awesome accomplishment. What great lessons learned, just like with antiques and collectibles, anything made in Europe or by a famous designer in boots, shoes or scarves is usually going to be a score! Don’t pass these items up when out thrifting or garage saling.

Happy eBaying!
Lynn

This fantastic offer is for Boot Camp in a Box owners or past Live Boot Camp attendees.  Want to join that group?

Boot Camp in a Box is here. Live Boot Camp is here.

As much as I love writing, I would rather be selling on eBay or motivating you all to sell on eBay. That is what I am truly passionate about.

I believe this comes through in the Bellingham video footage from one of our very first live Boot Camps and the first one EVER that was successfully filmed!  The footage from the Bellingham Boot Camp has been ‘lost’ for a while but I’ve taken it out of the vault and want to make it available to those who already own Boot Camp in a Box.

What does an older Boot Camp have to offer? There is still very valuable information to be learned from this footage. AND every single boot camp is different. Different locations, different students, different questions answered and different lessons. Don’t miss your chance to add this to your Boot Camp library and with a 2-part payment plan, it makes it even more affordable. Don’t delay as this footage goes back into the vault when the limited number has been sold.

Here’s what Boot Camp graduate Sharla had to say about Bellingham Boot Camp: 

“Thank you so very much for the beyond awesome time in Bellingham. It wasn’t even a seminar it was a blast…You have no idea how much you helped me with eBay and my life.”

-Sharla Jackson, Denver, CO
eBay store: Tradewinds247

Hurry this offer is over when our stock on hand is gone! When that happens, this footage goes back in the vault.  Click here to order now. To pay in two payments, click here.

As many of you know, the USPS raised its Priority International mail rates on Monday, January 4th, 2010. Not great news, but the increases were not too bad. The USPS will not raise first class international prices until sometime mid-year. I have redone my INTERNATIONAL shipping chart with these new increases.

If you aren’t already using my International Shipping Cheat Sheet, I highly recommend it. It saves us literally hours a month in quoting shipping rates to our international customers. The international market is a great place to get more exposure for your auctions so why not start selling to a wider audience and see what happens to your bottom line? My cheat sheet will make it faster and easier to quote the most commonly asked question you get from international buyers.

A downloadable version will be the Queen’s Court gift for January and is on the forums for download now.  If you want to get the laminated hard copy version – so handy to keep by your computer to make quick shipping quotes – with the 1st class domestic retail page on the back side, you can order it here at a great price and be ready for the new changes! I know I can’t live without my laminated USPS International rate chart and use it about five times a day.

UPS has also announced price increases, but I am not worried about these at this time. I have been quietly adding 50 cents to $1 to my base UPS s/h/i prices in anticipation of this change.

Hey everyone, we’ve already sold a number of seats for Live Boot Camp 2010. So if you are considering joining us, we recommend that you reserve your spot! This one is going to sell out quickly. Here is a link to sign up.

Let’s hear your stories!

I want to read your eBay success stories and share them with my ezine readers, your story might even make it into a book of my readers’ best eBay stories!

I’d like to send out a big thanks to everyone who has already submitted a story, they’re all fantastic! I know there are many great tales out there, so please submit your story along the lines of the stories from the 100 Best Books and a great side story with photos will help. If your story is used, you will receive a $35 merchandise credit on my web site and you will have your story featured–along with your user ID–in my ezine! It may also eventually end up in a published book!

By the way, when I mention my ezine readers’ user IDs with links to their auctions–it actually helps their sales! Amazing how that works. Click here for the guidelines for submitting your stories.