eBay's Imminent Fee Increases are Driving Small Businesses to Other e-commerce Sites

If you visit www.petitiononline.com/ebayfee, youll find a large volume of eBay users who are clearly frustrated over the giant auction sites announcement that, as of this Friday (February 18), it will be increasing monthly fees it charges sellers by 60 percent.

(PRWEB) February 19, 2005 -- The online auction giants monthly subscription fee charged to people who operate basic eBay stores will increase from $9.95 to $15.95. In addition, the fee for a standard listing for 10 days will double, from 20 cents to 40 cents.

Here are a few disgruntled comments taken off of the website:

Lauren Wilson: Prices are too high for small businesses. I had to stop selling on eBay even before the price hike."

Elona Rohde: (eBay is) discouraging your own growth."

Jim Carrabre: I will be one of many that will need to close my eBay store."

According to Petition Online, the long-term effect of the increase means that smaller sellers will stop selling on eBay and try to sell somewhere else online. They will never have the chance to expand themselves on eBay," said Petition Online.

Also, the website states that larger sellers may consider starting their own online store or sell elsewhere and that prices of auctions will increase. Buyers will turn back to retail stores," it said. The idea of eBay is that you can find things cheaper there, even when adding shipping and handling together." The sites goes on to state that the increases in fees will discourage new sellers, decreasing competition, which is what the ebay market thrives on for pricing.

eBays decision to increase fees has prompted online users to seek other e-commerce alternatives such as Overstock.com, Pricester.com and Bidville.com. All are reporting increases in new online users since ebay released the upcoming new fees.

"It's difficult for the individual or small business person trying to make a living or just starting out on the Internet to have to pay substantial fees just to test market their dreams." Says Bill Curtis, who is an eBayer and operates jbkwholesale.com. "Listing fees add up when items do not sell and you must figure that into your costs. I like the idea of using Pricester.com where they only charge small transaction fees."

According to Pricester.com CEO Joe Puentes, the e-commerce portals goal is to enable any individual or small business person to do business online with no overhead, thus keeping costs low and passing the savings on to consumers. We provide free standard listing fees and free Web Store hosting," said Puentes. For a limited time, we have removed our one to four percent transaction fees, thereby allowing the online selling community to get to know Pricester.com. With us, there is no overhead and test marketing can be done without any investment."

"What Pricester.com is doing is outstanding. It actually brings e-commerce down to the level of everyday people" said Chris Fischer, a South Florida Webmaster."

Small sellers will probably stick around while savvy sellers will explore other auction sites. One thing's for sure: There are now many more options out there."

# # #