Selling on eBay – Keeping Up with eBay Changes & Leveraging Their Tools
February 21, 2008
You may have heard in the news about eBay’s latest fee changes which have led to quite a bit of unrest with eBay sellers, some are even looking for alternative selling platforms. Some sellers are sticking around but are boycotting eBay this week, not listing their inventory in protest of the changes. With fewer items being listed this week, there may be less competition out there so if you have stuff to sell, take advantage of it and list today!
One of the changes is that sellers with good detailed seller ratings (DSRs) will get an advantage in Best Match search results. Below are my current ratings:
- Item as described – 4.7
- Communication – 4.9
- Shipping time – 4.6
- Shipping & handling charges – 4.6
I’d like to get all my scores above 4.6 so that I can take advantage of the new search results. I do know why my shipping time ratings are at 4.6. I say items will ship within 3 business days of purchase, I could cut that down to 1 or 2 days and bump up that score.
I’m not really sure why my shipping & handling charges rating isn’t higher, my rates usually seem to be some of the lowest. I charge whatever the USPS or UPS fee is plus $1–2 to cover shipping materials, labels, ink, gas. I’m puzzled as well why the Item as Described isn’t higher, 99% of the things I sell are brand new and they have a picture and model number in the listing. Can’t get much more specific than that.
ebay Advertising
As an eBay seller I get their periodic newsletter and the most recent one announced that the spring eBay catalog is going out the first week in March to more than 2 million eBay buyers. Even though many people are complaining about the fees eBay charges, I think this newsletter is an example of the value they provide for their fees. How else could a small business owner reach 2 million people with a catalog? They’ll advetise a variety of items across several different categories.
- Sports
- Motors
- Home
- Fashion
- Techology
- Art, Antiques, Collectibles
ebay Partnership
I got another check this month from my eBay partner, it wasn’t as big as last months but I’m not going to complain about a $450 check : ) He’s been busy expanding his business, finding more product sources. He’s listed and selling the first pallet of items and has already had another pallet delivered. It will be interesting to see what kind of ROI he gets from the stuff at Liquidation.com.


All posts by Ben Edwards
Hungry Dollar, I don’t think you choose a bad time. Better to start now than procrastinate : )
Sure eBay is going through a rough patch with it’s sellers but they still help people transact millions of dollars of business and it’s still a great place to make money selling things.
I guess I chose a bad time to get into selling on ebay. I just opened an account last week… oh well.