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eBay Scraps Transaction Fees in China
PlayCleverFully writes "The US online auction service eBay scrapped all sellers' transaction fees in China, in an effort to compete with local competitors offering free services, including Yahoo-invested Alibaba.com. The online auctioneer announced the changes on its China auction website, saying transaction fees would be waived, but small fees would continue to be charged for listing products on the site's webspace and for "feature" products. eBay's China unit, Eachnet, would also require all sellers to provide authorized online payment mechanisms to improve its credit environment, including PayPal and other escrow services, the announcement said. The move means that sellers won't get paid until the buyers receive and are satisfied with the products, it said."
Capitalism works - for the Chinese.
Meanwhile in the USA - 98% of patents...what?
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Screw all of this talk about moving to Canada or Europe... sounds like China is now the place to live... except for that whole... oppression of unfavorable speech and blocking of websites.
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Indeed, countries like China and India will be where the 21st century will take place.
But in the big picture, it is just the typical East-West reversal. Remember, in centuries past China and India were the major world civilizations. The Europe of today is much like the China of the 1200s. And the China of tomorrow will be much like the Europe of today.
The East was on top for a while, and then various events lead to the West becoming more prosperous. But we see the tide turning one again, this time in favour of the East. In three or four centuries it will no doubt switch back towards the West's favour, and soon enough there'll be yet another switch.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
money doing this? The answer is simple: volume.
because eBay just raised fees for US sellers again.
Yahoo Auctions beat Ebay to the Japanese market by only 5 months, and it has dominated there.
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it's not a %9 increase based of the auction ending price in the US, it's a %9 increase of their current percentage. %2.75 to %3 in this case. Ebay has 3 levels of pricing, %5.something percent for the first $24, %3 for the next 25-999 of value, and around %2 for anything over $1000. The people who make a living bulk importing brand new things from China and re-selling them on ebay are NOT going to be happy about this.
And you can always set your searches to be US only.
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
Apparently the extra value eBay brings to the table in China has been priced above its actual worth. Nice to see them essentially admit this in not so many words.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
That sounded like a spammer.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
It's actually a quote from SNL, you straight-up clod.
Ebay just raised their "mid-tranche" fees to 8% (oh yea, they prefaced that by lowering their insertion fees for "low-tranche" items by $.05) ... IMHO the fees ebay charges have gotten way too high! I sold a $92 item and after paying for the ebay and paypal fees came away with a little less than $80
12/92 = 13%!
I think they're just shooting themselves in the foot because I'm not using ebay half as much as I used to and I'm sure I'm not the only one they've turned off.
Indeed. And as is often shown, spamming is a very lucrative business. If you can base your business around a large volume sales, even at a few pence per sale, you'll often be very well off.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
So what eBay is saying is now that we own the North American market, we'll keep raising the fees.
Does anyone know of any other good online auctions?
Maybe its time we start to take our money to the competition so we can get a break like the Chinese.
1. Give away the service
2. ????
3. Take over market share
4. Raise prices again
5. Profit!
So they just need to figure out how to steal the market share and they are good to go.
Oh excuse me miss "I'm so smart I wanna go to the island."
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
In an unrelated move, the Ebay subsidiary PayPal tripled its "seller protection fees" for as yet undisclosed reasons
1.x Billion Chinese = 1 Big (potential) Market But the bottom line is just how many can/will buy/sell using their system. Its like the last comment about how the seller doesnt get paid till the buyer is happy. Reminds me of NAFTA and Mexico. Vast potential market, but didnt quite work out that way. Dont get me wrong, theres alot more net centric user potential in China, but like India even with the massive amount of people, you still have to grow your client base and that may take more time then even a altered Ebay business plan change can get it on.
With all additional service fees they hit sellers with, it often adds up to 7% of the sale price. Because of this sellers can't make money or are forced to tack on outrageous shipping and handling fees. I haven't bought or sold an item through ebay in ages. Because it's just not worth it. And the reason for that is not lack of items to buy, but ebay itself pricing its sellers out of the market.
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My time in China showed me that Ebay is failing, not because of competetive pricing, or a poor cost model but because their major competetor is home grown and plays to the Chinese cultural prefrences. Ebay has been hesitant to branch their code base to make Ebay-China more Chinese friendly -- and therefore no cost cutting measure is going to save Ebay in China. Just look at how wonderful Ebay did in Japan. http://news.com.com/2100-1017-845099.html It's the cuture stupids , it's the culture!
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
Capitalism works - for the Chinese.
Capitalism must be cared for. You must care that there is enought competition. You must divide monopolies. Capitalism need a lot of work.
It's a system that works, but as any other system, when some people gets too much power the system is corrupted and stops to work.
In China capitalism is making the government to share its power, so it's working great. In U.S.A. the government is concentrating power in itself and in the big companyes, so capitalism works no more.
It isn't only a matter of what system you chose, but of whom is using it and how.
-= If you fight Dragons long enough, you will become a Dragon =-
The sheer volume of China/Chinese Ebay scams are already giving Ebay a big, black eye. Personally, I'm afraid to deal with anyone at the first hint of a Chinese connection (even imperfect spelling or grammar is enough that I'll pass on a bid). This isn't racist or nationalistic ... just pragmatic. I think it is rather sad, since I'm sure the majority just want to buy and sell (like everyone else). Ebay should do a lot more to police the scamming, since some are pretty obvious to all but the most naive (that said, they usually seem to find a victim). Even a modest fee to create an account, and display of the IP addresses/regions logging into an account would make a *big* difference.
Oh no, the pricing model of the 1990's is back. eBay has forgotten it is a publicly traded company and shareholders want money. If Yahoo (or whoever) wants to do it for free, that's their problem.
Just to set the record straight, and in case anyone was confused by this statement:
ncluding PayPal and other escrow services
Tag lost or not installed.
I'm pretty new to the whole eBay thing (about a month) but I have to say as a new comer I am stunned by the complexity and cost of it. The fees are nothing short of scandalous and the number of things that you have got to get your head round before being able to sell well.... The whole auction thing is dead in most markets as it is dominated by businesses setting start prices which are what they want for an item (erm, I'm guilty of that too but that's not the point). To top it all the site is slow and generally confusing. I'm surprised no one has taken the market away from eBay.
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Even the article suggests that Ebay lost to Yahoo! because they were late getting to market in Japan. Metcalf's law really applies in ebay style auctioneering. In the absense of software interoperable with ALL auction sites, the largest site will have huge advantages over competitors identical in operations. If bidders have to use the website to find auctions and bid, then they'll gravitate to one or two sites, the ones with the largest selection. The primary function of this is the number of people visiting, so early gains over competitors aren't just important, they're vital. It would appear that marketplaces are one area that gravitate towards a natural monopoly.
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Has'nt anybody snapped to the point that Ebay is handing Chinese vendors competitive advantages not available to non Chinese. From now on, Chinese buyers/sellers will operate for free, and NON-Chinese sellers/buyers will have to pay commissions. That is gross unfairness to all non Chinese. If Ebay wants to be a Chinese First organization, then let it be honest and ssy so publically by registering as a Chinese company and not an American one.
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"WTO" and "anti-dumping laws."
What you're not considering is the massive growth that China has experienced in even just the past year. That means that data that is a year or two old isn't very useful today.
Again, look at the difference between the numbers the original poster gave. We're talking about 60 million or so people. While that's a fair chunk of the American population, it is less than 10% of the population of China.
While Internet access has likely reached a plateau in the US (those who can afford or want access have such access), while the growth in China is just beginning! So while they may hold an absolute lead over the US a year or two ago, two or three years from now they will likely be a far larger market. As such, the age of the data is quite relevant. Two years can make a massive difference.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Ebay has a serious, serious, problem with China and it's "goods" provided/exported. I love how they raise the rates for legitimate US sellers, but ignore the fact that now the Chinese Bootleggers list for FREE, totally screwing anyone selling dvds on ebay. Do a search for the Sopranos on ebay and you'll see what I mean. Ebay is bootleg city and has really done nothing to stem the tide of Chinese bootleggers on ebay. I have seen a LOT of Chinese bootleggers that sell only bootleg dvds that have THOUSANDS of positive feedbacks and are ebay Powersellers and are relatively untouchable. Hopefully ebay will start to take China more seriously and suspend the bootleggers, especially now that they are not making any money for ebay and are effectively tying up the ebay system. Of course, this won't happen, especially with ebay now asking sellers to waive any and all rights and protections if they want to sell on the new ebay express site coming soon.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
when will they scrap the transaction fees in the US?
I mean, fair is fair; they are moving programming jobs to the far east for cheaper wages, why can't competition to eliminate transaction fees move back to the US?
Indeed, countries like China and India will be where the 21st century will take place.
You are basing this idea off of the fact that Ebay is not charing transaction fees? Come on man, you are a known troll but you have to try harder than that...
I don't see China/India becoming a power in my lifetime. Or my childrens. Or their childrens. They have people. They don't have much more than that. PhD's per capita? No. Resources? Not really... middle east and Russia, and neither of them are getting anywhere quick. It takes more than people to make a country a success; and as another poster already mentioned as these countries become successful the lower and middle classes will demand the comforts that Americans and Europeans currently afford... their governments cannot provide these... without a careful balance they cannot succeed.
I know I've heard this one somewhere before...
What would happen if someone in China opens up a private mailbox service (similar to Mail
Boxes Etc or Postal Annex) and take advantage of the China Ebay and their policy of
weived fees.
If ebay sees that you hava a China address, would they give you the China rates?
If you are a seller, you don't have to worry about having your China address in your
transactions. It's only the buyer who has to have a good shipping address.
Perhaps we here in the U.S. would need to have two ebay accounts. One that we use
to sell (with a China address) and the other we use to buy (with a good U.S. shipping
address.
Cleara
That was a quote from "The Island", you straight-up clod moderators. :)
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Wasn't it a few years ago that Microsoft said it was ok to steal their software as long as you were Chinese?
And now eBay says you don't have to pay fees if you are Chinese?
American history used to have Jim Crow laws of segregation. Sonds like some kind of new segregation is forming on the internet.
If someone can afford to give away their product for free, then those of use who are forced to pay the subsidy should really consider boycotting the companies until their price models are brought into a balanced structure.