Another Aussies-only CLD Down Under (4 days worth)
By Ed | January 8th, 2009 | Category: eBay AU | 4 comments
For a site that saw its seller base decimated in 2008, eBay Australia is doing a good job of deterring international sellers.
A quick and dirty comparison of fees across English-speaking eBay sites shows the team from down-under advertising the highest auction-format insertion fees and Gallery image fees on planet eBay. Their fees for Shop Inventory Format (SIF) fare no better.
This makes it all the more strange that in a country with one of the smallest populations of all eBay Territories (I’m guessing only Belgium and Singapore are smaller) the management team continue excluding non-resident sellers from participating in Australian Cheap Listing Days (CLDs). Such actions will do little to improve buyer choice on the site, whilst simultaneously lending credence to protectionist cries from UK & US sellers wanting overseas sellers shut out of their own CLDs.
The eBay AU promotion announced today, runs from 9th to 12th January (inclusive) and is for Auction and Fixed Price formats, including multiple item listings, whereby including PayPal as a payment option will gain half price insertion costs. Sellers can be registered on any eBay site but must have registered with an Australian resident address. Car Parts and Accessories categories are included in the promotion, but whole vehicles, boats and aircraft are not, nor is real estate (property & buildings).
The eBay Oz team are touting this as a promotion to clear unwanted Christmas presents -
Not quite what you expected? Sell your unwanted Xmas gifts and turn them into cash. It’s better than hiding them under the bed or having them collect dust in your cupboard. With an expected 18.8 million unwanted gifts worth a total of $978 million* left over this Xmas, there’s never been a better time to sell yours on eBay.
Anyone selling for that purpose had best hope their Mum doesn’t know their seller ID if she spots the oversized lumpy cardigan she painstakingly knitted as a present for her favourite son or daughter 
This “unwanted presents” messaging is exactly what I said the UK team should have been doing with their post-Christmas CLD when I posted about it last week, so I suppose the down under team at least get a thumbs up for their effort in that direction.
Countering that, is that this promotion again seeks to drive Australia towards a PayPal-only position. Sellers should do the maths if they normally do not accept PayPal, and be sure the insertion fee offsets the AUD $0.30 + 1.1% to 2.4% PayPal fees for receiving payments. Note that the PayPal AU fees are a lot cheaper than in other PayPal territories and have better Seller Protection Policy terms too (e.g. proof of despatch, not proof of delivery).
Ed
Quote: “Sellers should do the maths if they normally do not accept PayPal, ”
Hi Ed,
All general listings on the Ebay site must include PayPal since last May. The only exclusions to that rule are motor vehicles and similar (e.g.aeroplanes), real estate, etc. I found it an odd requirement, since the included items can not be listed without PayPal on the Australian site.
Kind Regards, Kevin
Thanks Kevin
It did slip my mind, when writing the post, that eBay AU had retained the “PayPal must be included” ruling.
As you say, it makes it a strange requirement, especially as there is an automated filter to stop the addition of a listing if PayPal is not selected.
On a similar vein, have you got any updates about PayMate expanding into the US and whether residents in other countries will be able to sign up via the US version?
Cheers
Ed
No updates, and no information, just a lingering paranoia that they are going to foster PayMate as an alternative payment service, and then take another tilt at the ACCC to restrict payments on Ebay Australia to “approved” Online Payment Services that offer buyer protection, and pay-on-pick-up, so that they can scrap paper payments and direct bank deposit.
Hopefully I am wrong.
Kind Regards, Kevin
I fear you are not wrong. I also fear that Australia is a testbed for this as an “official” policy, whereas the US’s Paperless Payments Policy is the “unofficial” routing towards the same aim.
Watching the eBay India development with regards to payment systems has been interesting too – PayPal only became official there last year, and only got its own localised site (and flooding of the eBay IN site) in Q4 last year – prior to that it was all PaisaPay everywhere on eBay IN – but eBay make no fees from that as it’s a bank to bank service.
Oz & India have long been the testbeds for the more “outlandish” eBay policy experiments – probably due to market sizes and remoteness from the core eBay online communities – I don’t mean by geographic distance, but in relation to online interaction between the marketplaces. The more Oz can interact with other primary markets, the harder it will be for eBay to sneak in any exclusionary policies.
Ed