The New eBay Changes & Fee Structures

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Insertion Fees

For auction format listings, items priced $.01 - $24.99 will drop 5 cents...yes, that's not a typo, five cents. Items prices $25-49.99 will have a lower insertion fee, $1.00, a 20 cent price drop. $50-199 will drop to 2.00, a 40 cent drop. Items priced $200-499.99 will cost 3.00, a 60 cent drop, and items $500 and up will be 4.00, an 80 cent drop. Fixed price fees will generally be the same as auction format.

Final Value Fees

Starting 2/20/08, you'll find final value fees increasing to 8.75% of the final selling price on items under $25. That's a 3.5% increase.
The rest of the final value fee structure will be as follows: 8.75% of the initial $25.00, plus 3.50% of the remaining closing value balance ($25.01 to $1,000.00), and items over $1000 will be 8.75% of the initial $25.00, plus 3.50% of the initial $25.00 - $1,000.00 plus 1.50% of the remaining closing value balance ($1,000.01 - closing value).

An Example

How will this affect items under $25? Insertion fee on an item priced 9.99 will be 35 cents (assuming there are no upgrades or buy it now features to your auction item), and the final value fee will be around 89 cents. Don't forget PayPal! That's another 2.9% of the final price INCLUDING shipping. So if you are charging 8.99 shipping for your 9.99 item, you'll pay around 55 cents. Let's total that up...$1.24 in eBay fees, plus .55 for PayPal. Total combined that's 1.79, or around 18%. In this instance, not accepting PayPal would save around 6%.

Store Insertion Fees

Insertion fees for store listings will be changing as well. No longer will items be able to be priced under $1.00 in store inventory format and fixed-price. Items priced 1.00-24.99 will have an insertion of 3 cents, a 2 cent decrease. Items priced from $25-199.99 will be 5 cents, a 5 cent drop, and items priced above $200 will be 10 cents, which is no change.

Store Final Value Fees

Final value fees for items priced $0.01-25.00 will be 12%, up from 10%. Items priced $25.01-100.00 will be 12.00% of the initial $25.00, plus 8.00% of the remaining closing value balance ($25.01 to $100.00). Items priced $100.01-1000.00 will be 12.00% of the initial $25.00, plus 8.00% of the initial $25.01 - $100.00, plus 4.00% of the remaining closing value balance $100.01 - $1,000.00. Finally, items priced over $1000 will be 12.00% of the initial $25.00, plus 8.00% of the initial $25.01 - $100.00, plus 4.00% of the initial $100.01 - $1,000.00, plus 2.00% of the remaining closing value balance. In all, that's a 2% increase between $.01-25.00, a 1% increase between $25.01 and 100.00, down 1% between $100.01 and 1000.00, and down 1% anything that's over $1000. Phew!

PowerSeller Discount

Powersellers will be qualified for a discount if their star ratings are up to eBay code. This is good news for most! If the detailed seller ratings (star rating) for the past 30 day period are 4.6 or higher, you qualify for a 5% discount on Final Value Fees. If you are a PowerSeller and all four of your detailed seller ratings (DSRs) for the past 30 day period are 4.8 or higher, you qualify for a 15% discount on Final Value Fees.

Read here about the Feature Fee Decreases.

Feedback will be changing as well in February. Repeat buyers' feedback will finally be accounted for if the feedback is left one week apart (from the same buyer). The biggest change:

Sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral feedback to buyers.

This is sure to change things up on eBay. Ebay buyers that fail to respond to unpaid item disputes or are suspended and leave the seller a negative/neutral feedback will be removed. Feedback percentages will also only reflect the past 12 months instead of the lifetime of selling. Buyers will have 60 days to leave feedback, not 90. Buyers must also wait 3 days to leave a negative feedback for established sellers, encouraging communication.

Ebay has stated that they think this new process will encourage quicker feedback, reward high-volume established sellers, honesty will increase in the feedback system, and bidding will increase due to the new system (and confidence it will create).

Other Feedback Changes:

The new feedback system will count nuetrals as negatives for the past 90 days! This is a huge thing. Expect the eBay seller landscape to change drastically, and mirror more of Amazon's.

Ebay will be tying customer satisfaction to the search results. What does this mean? Sellers with lots of unhappy customers will not be found as easily in the search results. A star rating (DSR or detailed seller rating), feedback and number of "item not as described" complaints combination will make up the formula for the new search visibility. A DSR of 4.6 and 95% customer satisfaction rate (this means feedback?) in the last 30 days will increase sellers' exposure. Low shipping & handling DSR's and customer satisfaction will result in lower visibility.