Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 18, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Against the backdrop of falling visitor numbers and new customers, the US online auction house eBay has announced that it intends to change the fee structure currently in place in Germany in the coming fiscal year. In doing so, the market leader is responding to criticism increasingly voiced by commercial dealers and private sellers that listing fees are overpriced. In addition, industry insiders assume that around two thirds of the nearly 248 million registered members internationally are dormant accounts and that urgent work is therefore needed on the company’s attractiveness.
According to eBay, it takes customers’ objections seriously. According to analysts, this is also necessary, because from October 2006 to September of this year alone, around 53,000 dealers gave up their eBay shops for fee-related profitability reasons. “The fees must be reduced. We welcome eBay’s supposed measures for 2008. This is an absolutely correct step with which eBay is also doing itself a favour”, says Ole Damm, chairman of the Association of German Online Retail, in an initial reaction to pressetext.
Although the estimates represent a considerable economic loss, the company currently sees no cause for concern. According to eBay, however, the adjustment of the pricing model planned for 2008 is not primarily attributable to dealers’ outrage over excessive fees. Nor does it see any “weak figures” with regard to members, says eBay Germany spokeswoman Maike Fuest in an interview with pressetext.
“What is currently certain is that there will probably be a revised fee schedule for our members in 2008. However, this adjustment is not a one-off process, but should be seen as part of an annual pricing model adjustment. Although we are the market leader, that does not mean that we do not closely analyse competitors in their pricing and coordinate our offers accordingly”, Fuest further clarifies. Although eBay is currently confronted with falling customer numbers, the corporation denies this. An eBay spokesman quoted in a current report by the news magazine Focus nevertheless admits declining growth, but denies the large proportion of dormant accounts.
Instead, the corporation reaches up to 19 million people month after month in the Federal Republic alone. According to Fuest, there are currently around 24 million members in Germany who are satisfied with the current range of functions and give the company reason for optimistic growth forecasts. As early as the middle of the year, the New York Times reported that a restructuring of the fee system had been under discussion at eBay since June. The company figures already showed a clear decline of four percent for the US market in the summer compared with the previous year. In addition, the losses for the German business were even greater, as auctions listed in this country collapsed by around 16.5 percent compared with 2006.
Since September, eBay has already been feverishly trying to win back relevant market shares with a new appearance, the integration of multimedia applications into auctions and implemented search options. However, when asked by pressetext, Fuest did not want to comment further on what the new fee schedule would look like. Meanwhile, industry experts are eager to see it and continue to criticise what they consider to be unjustifiably high listing fees.
