Ebay Inc. will raise listing and commission fees for online stores, effective Aug. 22, citing the need to push more listings back into the auction format. The fee changes will apply to so-called store inventory and could affect up to 541,000 eBay stores worldwide.
The fee changes will not affect eBay sellers who only use core listings—auction-style, auction style with Buy It Now, and fixed-price listing format—outside of the store inventory format.
Auction-style and other core listings account for about 91% of gross merchandise value sold but store inventory listings comprise about 83% of active eBay.com listings on average, said Bill Cobb, president of eBay North America in an announcement posted on the site. At the same time, the cost of hosting store inventory listings is more than 50% higher than for a core listing, he said.
“In fact, current store inventory insertion fees don’t cover eBay costs for hosting them,” Cobb tells eBay sellers. “It’s vitally important—to your business and ours—that we maintain a healthy balance between listing formats on the eBay marketplace, and ensure that inventory conversion across the site remains strong.”
Under the new fee structure, eBay is introducing two insertion fee tiers based on a listing’s starting price for store inventory listings. The first tier will charge $0.05 for a 30-day listing duration for items that start between $0.01 and $24.99. The second tier will charge a $0.10 insertion for a 30-day listing duration for items that start at $25 or higher. Currently, all store inventory listings are charged a $0.02 feed for a 30-day listing duration.
In addition, eBay is introducing a fourth final value fee tier for store inventory listings. The four tiers will include $0.01-$25, $25.01-$100, $100.01-$1000, and $1,000.01 and higher. The fee will increase from 8% to 10% of the closing value for the first tier and from 5% to 7% for the second tier.
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