eBay Changes to Feedback and Fees Are Top Concerns According to AuctionBytes Survey

Sellers responding to a recent AuctionBytes survey said that of the five major announcements eBay made on January 29, 2008, the changes that will impact their businesses most are those involving feedback and fees. Of the 1,640 people who responded to the survey, 43% singled out eBay changes to the feedback as having the biggest impact on their businesses while 33% of the respondents chose fee changes.

When asked if their choice would have a positive or negative impact on their businesses, an overwhelming majority (90%) said that overall, the impact would be negative. However, breaking it down further reveals that respondents who chose PayPal Protection for eBay PowerSellers as having the most impact thought that change was positive - the only one of the five changes to receive a majority "positive" rating.

Who Took the Survey?
1,640 people responded to the survey between February 3-7, 2008. Respondents were asked to provide their primary selling ID and email address and the value of the items they've sold over the previous 12 months. The breakdown is as follows:

Because eBay made different changes to different international websites, the survey addressed only changes to the eBay.com website.

Sellers React to eBay Fee Changes
eBay announced it would be making a number of changes to its fees, effective February 20, 2008 (http://pages.ebay.com/sell/update08/basic/index.html). AuctionBytes asked eBay sellers what impact the new fee structure would have on their business and pointed respondents to a fee calculator that could help them determine the effect of the fee changes on their business (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/feecalc).

69% said under the new eBay.com fee structure, their monthly eBay fees would go up; 13% said their fees would go down; 6% said their monthly fees would stay the same; and 12% said they didn't know.

Sellers React to eBay Feedback Changes
eBay announced it would be making a number of changes to its feedback system, rolling out over the first half of 2008 (http://pages.ebay.com/services/forum/new.html). 90% of respondents said that, overall, the changes to feedback are bad; 5% said the changes are good; 4% said the changes are neutral; and 1% said they didn't know.

AuctionBytes will publish more articles this week on the results of this survey that will cover the following:

• Changes respondents said they would make to their businesses due to eBay changes
• Deeper analysis of feedback responses
• Deeper analysis of fee change responses
• How did high-volume sellers respond?
• Which types of sellers thought the changes were positive?

To comment on the survey, post a comment on the AuctionBytes Blog (http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2008/2/1202699243.html).