Dealing With eBay Changes 2012Recently eBay announced the changes they'll make during 2012. This article examines how these changes will effect eBay sellers. Sign up for my free Antiques and eBay Newsletter for articles covering new eBay changes as they are announced. 2011 eBay changes are explained here.
Return Policy Changes Under The 2012 Spring Seller UpdateEffective in May, 2012 if you offer returns, return periods must be 14 days, 30 days, or 60 days, and you must offer the buyer his money back as an option. You can still offer to exchange the item, but must also offer money back. For most of you readers exchange was never an option because we sell used items and rarely have quantities of them. The big thing here is the additional length of time the buyer has to decide on a return. For most antiques and collectibles (used items) the time period should have little impact. I've always offered money back returns, and even pay the return shipping if it was my mistake. For most of the items I sell offering a buyer a 14 day return period will not effect me. But there are cases where a longer return period can be damaging to a seller. For example, I've heard stories from coin dealers who have sold gold coins on eBay based on the value of gold only to have buyers return them when the value of gold declined. The big problem with standardizing return policies is it removes the seller's ability to deal with different buyers based on the situation. During the past year, I've allowed 2 people to return items and paid shipping both ways. I also had one buyer call me (my phone number is included in every package I mail) because the item he got wasn't as described. The buyer thought the item was original when it had been repainted. The description clearly said the item was repainted in the first sentence. I offered to take the item back, but refused to refund shipping either way because I hadn't made a mistake. He decided to keep the item. But now with the standardized return policy I either always have to pay return shipping, or tell all bidders that they'll pay return shipping. EBay says I can later tell some unhappy buyers I'll pay return shipping, but this changes the way prospective buyers see me. My recommendation here is to include the 14 day refund period in most of your eBay listings with the selection of buyer pays return shipping. Watch for problems, and then reassess. While it's not mentioned clearly, eBay is going to give an increase in exposure for best match searches for items with 14 day or longer return periods and 1 day handling listed by top rated sellers. In the future we'll probably see eBay force sellers to pay return shipping in addition to refunding purchase price and initial shipping costs.
New Handling Requirements In The 2012 Spring Seller UpdateWhen I first read these changes I thought I'd loose my discount on final value fees. Currently eBay gives me a 20% discount for being a top rated seller in most months. Effective June 1st only listings with 1 day handling and at least 14 day returns qualify for discounts. I end my auctions late on Wednesday nights, and ship on Friday afternoons. This is longer than 1 day, but from reading eBay's detailed explanations, it seems like I have until midnight Friday to upload tracking information for buyers who pay late on Wednesday night or on Thursday. I still might not be able to qualify for the discounts because some of my buyers pay later. Last week I sold 8 items. One buyer is mailing a check so his transaction will never show up in my handling statistics. 4 buyers paid after the auctions ended and their items were shipped. The other 3 buyers paid this week, and I'll ship their items on Friday. (I'm writing this on Wednesday.) This means that of 7 traceable transactions, only 4 were shipped within eBay's 1 day time frame. EBay says I have to get 90% of my tracking information uploaded with 1 day of receiving payment to qualify for Top Rated Seller discounts. Last week I only would have hit 57%. Additionally, what will be the effect of telling buyers I ship in 1 day and then continuing to ship only on Friday afternoons? Will a buyer that pays 5 days after the auction ends complain when I ship the item 4 days later? Digging further, I looked at the past discounts I got under the Top Rated Seller program. My average discount is about $20 a month. Note: Over the years my eBay fees have declined as I've moved more of my sales off eBay. Here's a free interview that explains how to escape the eBay volume trap.Based on these discounts and the low likelihood that I'll ever be able to upload tracking information within the time allowed for at least 90% of my transactions, I'm going to consider this a fee increase and not even try to get the discounts. My fear is that by trying for the discount I'll end up with buyers who pay on Monday complaining when I ship on Friday. I don't want to raise buyer expectations when I know I am not going to make repeated trips to the post office. I also fear that by setting unrealistic buyer expectations my Detailed Seller Ratings will decline to the point where I am no longer eligible for free listing specials and risk having my auctions lowered in search results. Here's eBay's information on what happens with sellers who get more than three 1 or 2 ratings for shipping time in any one month: My recommendation to you is to look at your discounts. You can do this by going to My eBay > My Account > Seller Account > Account Activity. If your current discounts are low like mine, and you're unwilling to ship daily, don't try. Otherwise, spend the next few months trying to get the discounts. If trying effects your feedback, stop and assume the program change is just a hidden fee increase. One note here. I sell mostly packages. Boxes. If you sell small items that you mail in envelopes, the cost of adding tracking with delivery confirmation can eat through any discount you might get. An example would be selling an old Indian Head penny. You can mail the penny for about 70 cents, but cannot get delivery confirmation on a flat envelope. If you packed it in a padded envelope so you can get delivery confirmation, your cost will run $2.80. I did this last week so that's an accurate number. I sold the penny for $25 with free shipping. The final value fee was $1.95. A 20% discount would be 39 cents, but I paid $2.10 extra to mail the penny with tracking. (The tracking also prevents the buyer from claiming he didn't get it and getting an automatic refund.) Added Note: Don Hoppe suggests ending auctions on Thursday evenings and shipping on Monday. This gives slow paying buyers the whole weekend to pay. If you try this, run a 7 day listing started on Thursday night rather than a 5 day listing. A 5 day listing would start on Saturday night, meaning you'll miss half the weekend shoppers.Photos Changed In 2012 Spring Seller UpdateThis is a minor change. I don't use anything but the single gallery image in my listings and won't be making any changes. One of my friends thinks the new photos will result in more bad pictures on eBay so his listings will stand out better. One change with the photos is you can no longer add sales messages to your photos. You can have copyright or ownership overlays, but cannot add words to peak buyer interest. This doesn't effect me either because I don't waste my time on these distractions. It looks like eBay is making the photo changes to capture more shoppers using mobile phones. My buyers aren't using phones to search eBay. If you sell antiques and collectibles, your buyers probably aren't using cell phones either. I still recommend you host your own photos. Use an eBay hosted gallery image so you get more visitors to you listing, but otherwise no changes are needed. Adding Free Pictures to your Auctions explains hosting your own images.
A Hidden Fee Increase In The 2012 Spring Seller UpdateI spent a few days tracking comments by other writers and examining the 2012 eBay changes, and missed something. When I was looking at the photo information, I found this statement: If you don't have a store and sell items for more than $1,111 this is an issue. Store listings don't have a upper limit on final value fees, but the fees decrease as the amount goes up. For eBay sellers without stores, the current fee is 9% up to a total of $100. Does An eBay Store Make Sense For You? will help you decide if a store will lower your fees.This change seems to be an attempt by eBay to force more users to open stores. I know many people who opened stores and don't list enough items to make it worthwhile. This means eBay gets $15.95 a month from them in minimum fees. One note here: While looking at discussion boards and comments about these changes I saw statements ranging from my "I'll do nothing and eat the extra fees," to "I'm done selling on eBay," along with the expected "let's boycott eBay." My expectation is the majority of eBay sellers will do nothing differently as a result of these changes other than paying more in fees. If you're in a niche where the sellers do respond with longer return periods and quicker handling times, and you do nothing, your sales amounts could be negatively effected. This means it's important to pay attention to what's happening in the categories you regularly list.
Understanding eBay Changes 2011In 2011 eBay implemented 5 changes that effect sellers. . .
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