Is eBay making it harder to sell low-end items?

There's been a lot of debate recently about whether eBay works as a selling venue for non-collectible books and other inexpensive items.

Lots of eBay sellers have a store to park slow-moving books at fixed prices. But the fees add up, and despite the recent changes at eBay, overall fees are continuing to go up.

The fees changes that are coming next month have been advertised as a reduction in fees, but take a look at this analysis:

Auctioning an item at $25 would have cost the seller $1.91, including 60 cents for insertion fees plus eBay's final-value fee commission of $1.31. So under the new program, the seller pays $2.74, including 55 cents to list the item plus a higher commission of $2.19.

As you can imagine there are a lot of unhappy sellers:

Carol Hearn, who sells antiques on eBay from Washington state, said ... "It looks like what they are trying to do with the fees is make it more difficult and expensive to sell low-end items. The people that are selling low-end items are going to feel this fee increase the most," Hearn said.

My prediction is that eBay is going to make its site increasingly attractive for the megaseller -- at the expense of the small and part-time seller. eBay makes 80 percent of its revenue from the top 20 percent of its sellers.

In December Amazon's traffic surpassed eBay's for the first time.

Are the changes at eBay going to result in fewer listings and fewer buyers?

Q&A: How much is my First Edition worth?

QUESTION: I just started selling books online. The other day, I bought a book in a used book shop for $6, and can't figure out how to price it. There's a big discrepancy in prices I see at Amazon and elsewhere.

The book is A Magician Among the Spirits by Houdini. I found this link for it on Amazon.

But my copy is a First Edition. It has silver lettering and gilt edges with a purple fabric bookmark.

How much should I ask for this book?

ANSWER: Well, that's an interesting find. But I would be very cautious about assuming you have a First Edition.

I've picked up some amazing bargains over the years in bookshops and resold them online for up to 10 times what I paid. I'm not an expert on First Editions by any means, but something tells me that your Houdini book is a reproduction of the original edition.

If someone out there has some knowledge about this book, I hope they'll chime in with a comment.

Amazon does have a page for the First Edition. There's just one copy listed at $275 with this description:

Comments: New York; Harper & Brothers; 1924; 1st Edition; Hardcover; Very Good-; tall octavo; 294pp (including index) plus black & white photo plates; no dust jacket; Very Good minus gilt-stamped blue-gray cloth; book shows minor shelf wear and light sunning; slight softening to spine ends; small white stain mid-spine; corners lightly bumped; internally clean and unmarked; spine just slightly shaken; else clean, tight copy of the first edition.

Great description, although a photo is a tremendous help when start getting into this price range. And personally, if I had the only copy, I'd be asking more than $275--people will never lose interest in Houdini. Sure enough, a search for Firsts at BookFinder shows most sellers want much more, including one chap in the UK who wants $3,000. And no, it's not signed.

By coincidence, a copy of this First Edition signed by Houdini's wife sold on eBay today. I can only guess that the condition held the price down:

	HOUDINI MAGICIAN AMONG SPIRITS 1ST ED SIGNED					View similar active items Sell one like this
		11	$265.00	$8.00	Jan-31 11:11
	Houdini A Magician among the Spirits Spiritualism					View similar active items Sell one like this
		0	$17.74	$22.23	Jan-30 01:00
	Houdini Book HCDJ 1972 Magician Among The Spirits					View similar active items Sell one like this
		0	$5.99	$4.00	Jan-23 21:32
	HOUDINI A MAGICIAN AMONG THE SPIRITS WITH BONUS BOOK					View similar active items Sell one like this

eBay bans negative feedback for buyers, cuts listing fees

eBay announced some huge changes today, the summary is below.

Nobody will have a problem with the reduced listing fees, but a lot of sellers are going to be outraged that they can no longer leave negative feedback for buyers. I don't see how the seller has any leverage to prevent buyer fraud without the ability to report bad buyers via feedback.

eBay honcho Bill Cobb said there's "a lot of passion" among sellers about the feedback policy change. That's got to be the understatement of the decade.

1. Reduced Listing Fees
   Lower Insertion Fees and adjusting Final Value Fees, which reduces the up-front costs of selling on eBay. Free Gallery picture on every listing, and some additional feature discounts.
   • Lower insertion fees
   • Free Gallery picture with every listing
   • Lower fees for Gallery Plus, Picture Pack, and Feature Plus
   
   
2. Rewards for seller performance
   There will be discounts and incentives for sellers with the best customer satisfaction rates according to the anonymous five-star Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs).
   • More search exposure through Best Match
   • Fee discounts for PowerSellers
   • Increased protection for PowerSellers
   
   
3. Feedback Changes
   The strategy is to "increase buyer confidence" and "showcase good sellers."
   • Buyers will only be able to receive positive Feedback.
   • Positive repeat customer Feedback will count and Feedback more than 12 months old won't.
   • Negative and neutral Feedback left by the buyer will be removed for transactions in which a buyer doesn't respond to the Unpaid Item (UPI) or if the member is suspended.

Speaking of eBay...

I have a few review copies of this new eBay guide for those who are interested.

I have 10 copies listed on Amazon Marketplace for 1 cent (OMG -- I've become a penny seller!).

And of course there's an auction on eBay.

I'll sign your copy too. In return I'd appreciate it if you'd write an honest review of the book -- keeping in mind that it's a guide for eBay novice to intermediate sellers. If you're already a pro at eBay, this book won't be earth-shattering for you (although there is a great deal of eBay trivia indexed in it, which may be helpful. But no information about bookselling in particular).

I say these are "review" copies, but they are not marked that way -- these are the retail edition, and so their resale isn't prohibited.

Amazon posts chargeback guide for sellers

Have you ever received this dreaded message from Amazon Payments?

We are writing to let you know that the credit card issuer has contacted us on behalf of the purchaser of the below transaction. We would ask that you provide us with proof of delivery to provide to the credit card issuer...

I've received a few of these over the years, but they seem to be more frequent than ever, judging from the seller message boards. So far, Amazon has never debited the amount in question from my account. But I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen, since Amazon has recently started docking sellers for A to Z claims, even when USPS delivery confirmation shows receipt.

No doubt Amazon is getting lots of inquiries from sellers on this, so they've just published a list of Frequently Asked Questions to explain how chargebacks work for sellers:

What is a chargeback?

A chargeback occurs when a cardholder contacts their bank to dispute the charge for an order placed on Amazon.com. Chargebacks are also known as "charge disputes" and they can be filed for a variety of reasons, ranging from non-receipt of the item ordered to unauthorized use of the credit card.

Read the rest of the Chargeback FAQ here. Not surprisingly, it recommends that you use a "trackable" shipping method and ship only to the shipping address you receive with the order.

Another shoe is ready to drop at eBay

Big changes are afoot at eBay. A new chief executive is on the way in, and Meg Whitman is on the way out.

At the top of the agenda:

Shifting eBay's emphasis from auctions to fixed-priced listing, which could make the experience of buying on eBay more like the one customers have come to expect from sites like Amazon.

Fixed-price sales now account for 40 percent of eBay's revenue. Who knew?

An announcement on a new fee structure is expected next week. I am guessing -- I'm way out on a limb here -- that fees for sellers will be higher.

If eBay can improve its search function and repeat-business action, higher fees might be worth it.

One area where eBay is expected to CUT fees: image hosting. That's long overdue, if you ask me. The more product images on eBay, the more sales. Encouraging multiple photos for listings without a fee penalty makes a lot of sense.

There's a lot of speculation about what this means for eBay Store sellers. For those of you who sell on eBay, how do your costs compare to Amazon when you add up insertion, final-value, and PayPal fees, compared to Amazon's 15-percent Marketplace commissions?

Amazon accepts seller input on packing slip changes

Based on feedback from Amazon sellers to a proposed design to the "Manage Your Orders" section of its Web site, Amazon has made these revisions (click here and then click again on the image for an enlarged view):

• Added a Pending Orders feature that will allow you to view orders that have not finished processing. You can use this option to help reconcile inventory levels. Previously, you would have needed to access your payments account to obtain this information.
• Updated the packing slip in the following ways:
  • Included the seller contact e-mail address.
  • Added a link to seller feedback.
  • Removed the price information.

Still no word on when the changes will be put into effect. Feedback from sellers is still solicited at sya-changes@amazon.com

FillZ revamps bookseller site, cites big growth since 2005

FillZ, a Web-based inventory, repricing and order-management service, launched a revamped Web site.

FillZ enables sellers to list and manage their inventory on Amazon, AbeBooks, and all the other big marketplaces simultaneously.

It's the first design change of FillZ's front end since the company was formed in 2003.

ABE bought FillZ in 2006 and used its parent company’s design team to update the site, which has been handling many more orders recently. In 2005, FillZ facilitated orders worth $20 million, and the total for 2007 was $100 million. In 2006, clients sold 12,000 items per day through FillZ, but last year more than 30,000 items were moved daily.

"FillZ is now a serious player in our market and we don't see our growth slowing," said president Shaun Jamieson.

FillZ sellers typically list books, music, movies and games through various fixed-price marketplaces. It supports AbeBooks, Alibris, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, a1 Marketplace, Barnes & Noble.com, Biblio, ChooseBooks, Chrislands, eBay Stores. eBay Express, eCampus Marketplace, Gemm, Half.com, TextbooksRus, TextBookX, and ValoreBooks.

Amazon plans changes to Marketplace packing slips

Amazon is redesigning the packing slip for Marketplace orders. See this page for all the details. Amazon isn't saying when the new design will roll out, but here's a rundown on the new features:

• A redesigned and streamlined Search feature.
• Buttons in the Order List to print a packing slip or refund the order.
• A set of Quick Filters that will allow you to quickly refine a list of orders by date range.
• The ability to sort your order list by Status and Shipping Service.
• A redesigned Order Detail page with the shipping address on the left side of the page.
• A simplified Refund tool.

Some of the shortcomings in the eyes of sellers:

• No URL for the customer to leave feedback.
• Apparently the seller's e-mail address isn't shown; instead customers are sent to Amazon's Web contact form.
• Item prices are displayed, which can be a problem for gift orders.
• The item condition and seller comments are missing. Amazon only recently added these features to packing slips in response to seller complaints.

To send feedback to Amazon about the redesign, send e-mail to: sya-changes@amazon.com

Google Base service provider throws in the towel

Remember BuyBundle, the service for listing your Amazon and eBay items on Google Base? It looks like they've called it quits, and have sent this message out to members (thanks to BeachSideBooks for sharing):

Dear BuyBundle Seller,

We would like to update you on the status of BuyBundle's operations.

BuyBundle was an attempt to bring the reach of Google Base to independent sellers. Unfortunately, Google Base has been slow in catching on. We waited patiently for over a year but given the current status of Google Base, we are not sure how long it will be before Google Base becomes a viable channel.

We are officially suspending operations from January 1, 2008. Till then, the site will be open for sellers. You can check your account and take care of existing orders. We are closing the site for new buyers so there are no more pending orders.

Thanks for being a part of BuyBundle community.

I haven't heard much about Google Base recently and its effectiveness as a bookselling platform. Personally I had taken a wait-and-see approach to see if brought in a decent amount of sales for other people. I didn't want to have to monitor it if it was only bringing in negligible business.

This isn't a knock against BuyBundle, whose team seemed to have a lot of great ideas. They couldn't help it that Google has left this Base thing on the back burner indefinitely. I don't think Base will ever take off until it's organized into something like a marketplace where people can compare prices, merchants, etc., easily. Opposition from Amazon surely didn't help.

I can only guess that Google has bigger fish to fry right now. Or maybe they were afraid of inviting government regulation. They have so much control of the Internet already. They practically control Internet searching and advertising completely. If they started taking over Internet shopping people would really be up in arms.