eBay India reverses fee-cap, throws fee hike at sellers
By Garry HJ | August 28th, 2009 | Category: eBay IN | 2 comments
In one of those classically nonchalant Announcement Board posts that epitomises eBay increasing fees, the Indian site has thrown a 50% additional listing-fee hike at volume sellers in most categories.
Please note in correcting an inaccuracy in the first edition of this article, I have also added several points I missed earlier, and this version is more complete now.
eBay.in operates a listing fees cap that was introduced last year, whereby after 1,500 listings per selling ID per month, no further insertion fees are charged.
From 16th September that cap will only apply in the jewellery, clothing and accessories, and media categories. Throughout the rest of the site, listings after the first 1,500 per month will incur a 0.50-Rupee insertion fee. (Note – this is a half Rupee increase, not a 50 Rupee increase as I originally reported a few hours ago – apologies to readers, and to eBay India, for that inaccuracy, which I have now corrected.) This appears to be regardless of start price.
1. All listings in all categories, created and scheduled to go live on or after 16th September 2009, will be subject to the new pricing structure
2. Listings for a duration of 1 and 3 days will be charged Re. 1 irrespective of category they are listed in (excluding Books & Magazines, Movie & Music, Video & Computer games)
3. The max cap benefits will continue to be computed on seller’s listings in a calendar month.
4. The discounted fee above 1500 listings in a calendar month shall be charged during the listing process and credited back within 30 days of the end of the calendar month
5. For sellers listing less than 1500 listings in a calendar month, the fee continues to remain Re.1 per listing
6. Final Value Fee for all categories remains the same, subject to minimum Rs. 3.
Additionally, India is moving towards the replacement of Shop Inventory Format with the introduction of 30-day Buy Now listings in core, but retaining GTC as an in-shop only duration.
This move also introduces increased fees for shop subscribers whose shop subscription is not on eBay India, and mirrors the barrier to trade erected by eBay UK last September. (addition – see links in my reply to the first comment below). Sellers whose shop subscriptions are outside of India, will pay up to four times the listing insertion fees that the Indian Shopkeepers will pay.
The same announcement also attempts to justify the introduction of 30-day listings into core as being sufficient reason for hiking shop subscription fees by 20% to 25%. The revised shop subscriptions and the 30-day format are available from 10th September.
This is not such a drastic round of subscription-bloat as the one that the UK foisted onto users last year, but for India’s rural poor it will still be a major financial stress. Once again, eBay policy has been crafted by “rich city types” without thought for the rest of the country.
Immediately following the announcement of the new fees, Indian sellers were treated to a failure in the PaisaPay bank-payment system created by eBay India, whereby remittances to their banks were placed on hold “due to technical difficulties”. News of a fix was posted 3 hours later (at 03:33am) and sellers told they would have to wait until the following day before they received their monies … I wonder how much eBay/PaisaPay made on the overnight money market with that 24 hour hold?
Gaz
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Hey Gaz,
How are you? My name is Sushant Sreeram and I work at eBay India. Came across the above post while surfing and thought I would make a couple of clarifications for the benefit of your readers:
a. The listing fees after the cap of 1500 in all categories (excluding Books & Magazines, Movies & Music, Video & Computer Games, Jewellery, Apparel & Accessories) is moving from the current Indian Rupee 0.00 to Indian Rupee 0.50 (half an Indian Rupee) and not Indian Rupee 50.00 as mentioned above.
b. Post the changes scheduled to go live on the 10th of September 2009, all current SIF (Shop Inventory Format) listings that are currently displayed at the bottom of the search results page will receive a lot more visibility once they are displayed in the core search results along with Auction and Fixed Price (Buy It Now) listings. Along with this, shop subscribers will be charged lower Listing Fees and Feature Fees for 30 Day Fixed Price listings compared to those who don’t have a shop and list in the same duration.
c. In light of the above changes, we are increasing the subscription fees for shops while taking care to ensure the subscription fees are still viable for a seller who has quality inventory of a volume that makes a shop subscription attractive.
We believe the increase in visibility for 30 day and GTC listings by shop subscribers combined with lower cost of listing and feature fees outweigh the increase in shop subscription fees. However, we continue to encourage sellers of all sizes and types to continue to evaluate for themselves whether a shop subscription makes sense for them and if yes, which tier. There are inherent benefits to having a shop subscription one of which is that a shop on eBay gives the seller a consolidated online presence where he/she can display all the items available for sale. It is as good as a standalone online store. We believe each seller will take the best call on which items can be listed in the 30 day & GTC durations and list the more popular and hot-selling items in other durations.
You can go through details of the changes at http://pages.ebay.in/marketplace/marketplace_changes.html
The PaisaPay seller remittance had to be put on hold due to technical reasons completely unrelated to the changes that were incidentally announced around the same time. This issue has now been completely resolved.
Thanks for your feedback.
Regards,
Sushant
Hi Sushant, Many thanks for the visit and clarification, and yes, apologies – my bad.
The announcement does in fact read a 0.50 Re fee (not a 50.00 Rs fee) after the first 1,500 listings. I will amend the original post and edit the title.
I notice also that India is following the UK model of excluding shop subscribers from other sites, by preventing those overseas shop subscribers from receiving the discounted fees on the new core 30-day and GTC listing fees – in my case with a shop registered on Singapore, I will be paying four times the insertion fee (on eBay.in) of a subscriber to a shop on the Indian site.
Your base fees and current Forex rates mean this is not as big a deal as when the UK introduced this policy last September (and at least you are announcing it before it starts, which the UK did not do and made it feel like a cruel betrayal of expatriates) … see the following links for how we reported that debacle -
C-Day +1 – eBayville Excludes Overseas Shops’ Cheap Fees
UK Pink blurts out the truth about overseas shops
see also the encore performance at -
UK Adopts Wartime Mentality – Keep Foreigners Out!
Rule Brittannia, Xenophobia Rules the Waves
There were many more similar responses to how eBay UK treated non-resident sellers last year. We could have followed the same vein this year, but didn’t want to be viewed as a dog with a bone, and let it fade. That does not remove the truth that eBay is doing all it can to disincentivise cross border trade, and your new Fixed Price / SIF fees structure is further evidence of just that.
Whereas, in the past, eBay Shops were a “Rent one and sell worldwide” feature, it is now beginning to feel as though the heart of Donahoe’s Disruption is to have sellers subscribe to a shop on each site where they list … and of course only the largest retailers can afford to do that, whilst us small sellers become relegated to whichever provincial backwater we physically inhabit.
Maybe that is in reality where the Disruptive Innovation is heading?
Could we summarise the aims by saying Mom & Pop sellers will only be able to have Mom & Pop Stores in their home territory, whilst the mega-sellers will be promoted via international store-chaining? Is this what he meant when he said, in January 2008 in Washington, that long standing eBay users would not recognise the site by the end of 2009?
Sure feels it’s going that way from here.
Gaz