B2B computer and accessories wholesaler Exel-I.com also has a growing b2c business selling laptops and parts direct to consumers on LaptopBroker.com. LaptopBroker used to depend on eBay to reach beyond its own web site, but president John Wieber is starting to rethink that strategy. “We’ve been fortunate on eBay to be able to support our retail transactions in a volume that was acceptable to us at a cost that was profitable. But recent events at eBay including their most recent price increase really gave us a swift kick that told us it was time to start looking at other places for retail,” he tells Internet Retailer.
In January, eBay announced changes in its fee structure that increased the listing fee for a 10-day auction, raised the fee for a basic eBay store subscription and boosted final value fees on items sold from eBay stores. But it was the fee increases for the gallery and Buy It Now features that got Wieber’s attention. Gallery fees that permit sellers to post photos of an item rose to 35 cents from 25 cents, while Buy It Now fees went from a flat rate to being tied to the value of the listed item. The new Buy It Now fees are 5 cents for items priced at under $10, 10 cents for items priced at $10 to $24.99, 20 cents for items priced at $25 to $49.99, and 25 cents for items priced at $50 or above.
All told, “If we had not changed any of our listing strategies on eBay, the last increases would have meant about a $55,000 increase in our eBay fees,” says Wieber. “I sat down and forecast that, so we stopped using gallery and we stopped using Buy It Now.”
Besides getting Wieber to reduce his spending on some eBay seller features, the fee hikes also have accelerated an upgrade of LapBroker.com and sparked an experiment in selling on Amazon. Currently LaptopBroker lists about 115 items on Amazon as a selected merchant. It hopes to increase that number to 2,000 by June. Wieber says Amazon charges a flat fee and no listing fee to sellers using that format, and it offers something else: a different kind of buyer than frequents bargain-focused eBay. “Amazon can deliver full retail price buyers,” he says.
Wieber adds that after the site upgrade, LaptopBroker expects to branch out into paid search marketing pointed directly at the site, and getting onto shopping comparison sites. “It’ll be expensive at first, because we are going to be paying PPC costs, paying Amazon, and paying eBay. But what I see happening is our sales on eBay going down and us converting that spending to PPC,” he says.
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