eBay Reduces Fixed Price Listing Fees 70%

The following was taken from the eBay website:

eBay supports sellers with 70 percent reduction in fixed price listing fee.

• Starting Sept. 16, we are dramatically reducing up-front risk for sellers of Buy It Now™ fixed price items by lowering our listing (insertion) fee to 35 cents – our most competitive pricing ever. For more information on Basic Fee Changes, please click here.
• Listing duration for Buy It Now™ fixed price items will be extended to 30 days (up from seven), saving sellers time and money.
• In the extremely competitive media categories (books, movies, music, games), we are further lowering listing fees on Buy It Now™ fixed priced items to 15 cents (5 cents for catalog-based listings).
• We are shifting fees to the back end with final value fees, which sellers only pay if they’re successful. However, we are reducing final value fees for consumer electronics, cameras and computers, which are among the most competitive categories on the web.

Buyers will find more bargains faster through a streamlined shopping experience and improved search.

• Starting Sept. 16, buyers will be able to spot bargains faster through our improved search function that serves up auctions and fixed-price items in a streamlined view.
• “Ending soonest” remains a key factor in search results for auctions items. So if a seller’s item is in auction format, the item will at some point come up in search results. In Best Match – eBay’s default sort method – there are many different weights which determine the sort order. On fixed-price items the most important determinants are DSRs and item relevance.

We’re encouraging sellers to offer free or reasonable shipping.

• To lower shipping costs across the site we’re establishing reasonable shipping & handling limits in one of our biggest categories — media (books, movies, music & video games). This means that sellers must offer one domestic shipping option that’s under the limit or opt to use the eBay shipping calculator.
• This holiday season, eBay is also providing incentives to offer free shipping, including increased exposure in search and other discounts. PowerSellers can receive double their final value fee discounts — up to a 40 percent savings on their final value fees.

Paying on eBay will be faster and more reliable than ever.

• Starting this fall, we’re moving to a fully electronic checkout process that’s faster and more reliable for buyers and sellers. As part of this move, checks and money orders will no longer be accepted on eBay as of October 2008, although buyers can still use these payment methods for item pick-up, at the seller’s discretion.
• It’s clear why we need to make this change. Today, items paid with check or money order are 80 percent more likely to result in a customer complaint than those paid with credit card or PayPal. Also, buyers who pay with check or money order are twice as likely to leave negative feedback than those who pay with electronic methods. So starting in late October 2008, we are moving to 100 percent electronic payments.
• This means that sellers will still be able to offer credit card payments through their own merchant accounts, and payments through ProPay and/or PayPal, with all payment methods integrated into the checkout process on eBay. And remember, for those buyers and sellers who use PayPal, we’re backing every transaction with our buyer and seller guarantee.