posted on September 30, 2001 09:01:12 PM new
The new fee structure for Business addition is a killer. What else left for this piece of pie, Ebay 4%, Paypal 3% and now AW 1% plus $29.99 monhtly fee. That's about 10% on top what ever we sell, price is dropping due to current economic hardship and auction service providers are rasing fees, sounds like an end for each of us. We know that, we can not avoid Ebay fee but we can avoid Paypal and AW. I currently pay about $20 a month on Power Plan, thats about $400 per year, with new fee structure, I will have to pay about $2800 per year( I sell about $20k per month), that's about 7 times. Should I stay? or Should I go?
posted on September 30, 2001 11:52:02 PM new
HDOASIS,
At the kind of money that you're looking at spending with the new system (and the kind of money you're bringing in in the first place), you're going to be better off to have your OWN management system in place instead of paying to use someone elses. You should post a project on elance to see what it would cost to have a system installed for you on your own server to take care of your customers. Then it would just be a one-time fee and you wouldn't have to pay any more percentages on your sales. Even if it cost you ten grand to get going, you would then have the peace of mind in knowing that you wouldn't have to worry about the growing trend of the auction management companies hiking their prices around every corner. Eventually, they will all come down in price (when they realize all their big sellers have left em for something new) and they'll be begging you to come back. But in the meantime, I'd start looking into what it's going to cost you to get your own solution. THEN you would be able to set it up however you wanted!
would it NOT be much better to reduce your prices and contract more PPL to join, thus, more advertising for your service from the new members through the auction sites with your tag means more joiners, thus, more cash? Do you think the power planers will stay? Can't you grandfather the current power planers? Do you think a person like "I" will stay when I list items from 300$ to 10K and give you another 1% FVF ?
I have been in business since the age of 13, and built many businesses. I sold one business that was doing well. the new owners spent more cash on more business items, cut advertising and raised the prices - the bottom line was a foreclosed house for which they used to acquire part of the loan to purchase the business.
posted on October 1, 2001 08:51:29 AM new
I too, am appalled at the fee restructure. I keep about 100-150 auctions going most of the time, and have been using the power plan since shortly after it's inception.
The new plan isn't an option as far as I am concerned. I will use my remaining 5 months to find a new way to handle my post sale activities and picture hosting.
My biggest beef is with the FVF. Flat fees are the only option with this kind of service, in my opinion. AW helps me manage my sales, but doesn't increase my bids in any way shape or form. Why should AW get a piece of the pie which could amount to a lot of money on some items, when the service had nothing to do with it?
Speaking for myself, the $29.95 fee per month with NO FVF would be more than enough to pay for this service. That would still gross auctionwatch nearly twice as much money as the current power plan with absolutely overcharging for the service offered.
I need eBay, PayPal & Billpoint. I like auctionwatch, but I can do without it.
posted on October 1, 2001 09:30:11 AM new
AuthorizedArt,
My previous post was a bit long, so there were some unclear parts for sure. Existing power plans for Auction Manager and Auction Manager Pro remain in effect until plan expiration (at the earliest in 5 1/2 months).
The Business Plan pricing was not intended to replace the power plan, but only to establish a baseline price for Business Edition. We are creating a new power plan that will encompass all of the AuctionWatch services. The comments on this board have been extremely helpful. Thanks.
posted on October 1, 2001 09:36:41 AM new
Obviously AW management has created a confusing environment among AW user. They need to get their act together and announce feasible fee structure before the users defect to another service providers. I have been enjoying using AW service but I care more about my profit than anything else.
posted on October 1, 2001 10:08:16 AM new
AW Mike,
Thank you for your response and your phone call on Friday.
We will be happy to work with you to help mold your new fee structure for your current power plan users. I am sure we can provide valuable input as to how we feel the fee structure should look to keep us coming back. I will reiterate my comments, and those of several other users on this thread, we WILL NOT use your service if there is any Final Valuation Fee component to the fee structure.
There is no reason for us to pay a percentage of our sales for your service. Our current sales model includes selling items that average about $125 each, and we sell about 4000 of them per month. Thus the $90,000 plus bill under your proposed Business Plan is totally unacceptable. If we were to sell the same number of $5.00 items our fees for a year would be about $4200 under your business plan. We fail to see where the value the service you provide in any way changes with the value of the item. Especially not $86,000 worth of service difference a year.
Your service simply facilitates the listing of the item for us. We do not use any of your post sale services. And even for those that do use the post sale services the efforts you are paid for do not change if it is a $5.00 item or $5,000.00 item. Your company has provided the EXACT same level of service.
So please explain to us why it is you feel it is necessary to include a Final Valuation Fee component to your service. Everyone posting here I fell has the same exact question. If you need to charge $0.10 or $0.15 per listing to make your business model work. Then that is something you may need to look at. However, your costs of providing this service, and the value of your services, do not change in any way, shape or form with the increase or decrease in value of the items being sold by your customers.
The fee structure that eBay charges is in direct relationship to the value of the service they provide. Under our business model we start almost all of our auctions at $0.01 with no reserve. The immense number of customers they provide allows us to sell these items at a profit. The cost of collecting payment through PayPal, which we do not use for many reasons, and services like are credit card processing company, which is much cheaper than PayPal, are a direct reflection of the amount of money to be collected. Again, these two costs of doing business and the value provided are directly related to the final sale price of the item.
Again I must state that the value and cost of the AW service has absolutely no direct relationship to the value of the item being sold. And thus we will not participate in any fee structure that includes a Final Valuation Fee component.
One last question for AW Mike. If we start to dabble with your new Business software package. How exactly will our fee structure change until our current power plan contract expires. You have suggested that we try it out, but I am reluctant to do so. First I do not want to have to rely on two different methods of listing items. Second, once you have an import utility in place for us to transfer all of our existing inventory items to the new Business software. If we were to switch to it exclusively, how would or fees change?
Before we start on that path I want to be sure that our current fee structure will remain in effect for the duration of our power plan contract regardless of what method or software we use to list our items with your service. We do not want to jump on board with your new Business software if our fees will be increasing prior to the expiration of our power plan.
Please let us know what our options are and what the costs will be for the current online auction manager under the power plan and if we were to use the business software.
And, even though I have rambled on long enough, I would strongly suggest that in the future when you make an announcement that a very popular service like the Power Plan is going to no longer be offered that at the exact same time you offer the replacement plan. It appears by the response from AW to the questions posted by your users that there was a great deal of confusion as to where your fee structures were going. It appeared to everyone here that the Business Plan was going to be the only alternative to the current Power Plan. Clear and accurate communication with your customers is a vital component of doing business. Especially when you are attempting to take more money form their pocket books.
Thank you
eBay User ID "hdoutlet"
[ edited by hdoasis on Oct 1, 2001 10:17 AM ]
[ edited by hdoasis on Oct 1, 2001 10:41 AM ]
posted on October 1, 2001 11:05:18 AM new
hdoasis,
Thanks for the conversation on Friday as well. I understand the many comments about FVF. We priced originally on a FVF rather than a fixed amount for a few reasons. First, most of our larger corporate customers that we contracted with directly preferred having their fees as a percentage of sales (in fact they would end up estimating this percentage if quoted any other way). Second, FVF was a standard component of pricing both for the majority of our competitors (and in each case they are higher than ours) as well as for other service providers. Auction sellers were more comfortable paying a fee when an item sells (we witnessed the responses to Yahoo!'s listing fee only approach). I'll need to think about your comment on PayPal fees really relating to the price of the item. Does transfering $100 cost more than transferring $25 if it's really moving bits of information between qualified PayPal accounts? Maybe it relates to fraud protection. Third, at the average or median item price on eBay and other sites, the 1-1.5% FVF on a per item basis is generally less than a quarter. I know your items sell for over $100, which is one reason I called, and is a primary motivation for developing a new power plan.
And on your last point, I completely agree. We should have had the new power plan ready to go concurrent with the existing plan. We, no, I made the mistake that the change really affected new subscribers and that existing power plan sellers would be comfortable knowing that their plans are good for the next 6 months. Since I knew we would have a new power plan much in advance of the existing power plan expiration, I didn't focus on our current power plan sellers. I was wrong, I made the mistake, and I'm working now to correct it.
Since you obviously have such large sales volume, I'll give you a call to coordinate your BE evaluation and pricing. Anyone else reading with sales volume of $100,000+/month can also send an e-mail to [email protected]. In general, we are working now on the new power plan pricing. We will announce it at soon as possible. Given your correct feedback about clear and accurate communication, I don't want to rush it and further confuse anyone. Thanks for your continued communication here and directly.
posted on October 1, 2001 12:18:16 PM new
Please DO NOT mistake my referring to PayPal fees as my supporting them in any way. PayPal is the worst company we have ever dealt with online. First they stared out with the promise of "Always Free" to gain about five million users. Then once they had the buyers hooked on the service they reneged on the "Always Free" promise and started charging the sellers fees, since there were fewer of them to piss off.
The premise of their fee structure is that most of the money changing hands is from buyers credit cards to sellers bank accounts. Thus the fees imposed by the credit card companies are set as a percentage of the amount of money moved. This is also ridiculous, but as you said is a function of the fraud protection component of the credit card business.
Now it is obvious that PayPal does make their extra percentage on transaction that move cash form PayPal to PayPal account and they are in effect screwing the sellers out of that money with their exorbitant fees. Just another of many reasons we do not use their service. Their ill conceived fee structure is causing them to miss out on our $500,000.00 a month of business as well.
But many smaller sellers that can not cut a good credit card rate on their own pay for the service of taking credit cards by giving the extra percentage to PayPal. That is part of the Value Added as it relates to the price of the item.
Now your service has absolutely no component that is even remotely related to the value of the item. Your argument seems to premise itself on what some of your high priced competitors are charging and not at all based on the value of the service you provide.
We spoke regarding what other auction management providers are charging for the services we need. Some as low as $10-$15 per month.
You also now indicate that many of the "larger corporate customers" you contract with prefer fees based on a percentage of sale so they would not have to estimate the percentage. But they still have to estimate the dollar amount. With fixed pricing they know the total dollar amount up front.
Listing fees work well because you know your exact total cost up front and not have to guess what they are going to be depending on the sale price of the item. I really do not see how a percentage has any real advantage, other than to AW.
Maybe a tiered approach so it is fair for everyone. A FVF of 1% for 0-$10 items tapering down to 0.1% for $100+ items. You would not of course calculate the rate on each sale, but simply divide the dollar volume of sales by the number of sales at the end of the month to figure where each AW customer would fall into place. That way those "larger corporate customers" could still have the security of knowing what there percentage was going to be as long as they had some clue as to approximately what price their items were going to sell for on average.
Now as for my unanswered question. What are our fees going to be if we try out your new business software you want us to switch to?
Like I have said, we will not use any service that charges us a Final Valuation Fee just to list our auctions. There is absolutely no relationship to the service provided and the final value of the item.
Will the costs of using the business software until the end of our Power Plan contract be in the many thousands of dollars per month? Because that would be totally unacceptable.
I find your justifications for FVF on your plans to be very interesting. I too agree with hdoutlet that charging FVF to users for your service is a mistake. Let me go through your points step-by-step.
1) For your first point, you are casting the blame on large corporate users as to why a FVF was implemented. This struck me as odd, when I realized a recent statement released by your CEO Rodrigo Sales, which was posted on AuctionBytes. If I remember correctly, he said "AuctionWatch will discontinue its efforts in the enterprise market. It will instead focus on the tools and services for individual sellers, power sellers and small businesses, an area that he said continues to generate strong revenues for the company." If these are the current target markets for AuctionWatch, why are you basing your pricing structure on large corporate users? It does not mesh!
2) For your second point, you say that FVF is charged by the majority of your competitors. I find this to be untrue. I have examined other services similar to yours, and they charge monthly subscription fees... but do not take a FVF percentage. Who are these competitors you are referring to?
3) Your final point, I find to be simply irrational. Just because a 1-1.5 % of the median ebay item comes to around $.25, does not mean that your company should feel justified in charging that. As many others have said, your services do nothing more for a $1000.00 item as it does for a $10.00 item. On the other hand... I am sure that if you raised your listing fees from $.05 to $.30 you would also get a lot of complaints. (although in reality a 500% increase IS what you are currently proposing!) Perhaps if Auctionwatch needs to increase their profits per item listed, they should lay out a long-term plan. Maybe increase listing fees $.05 - $.10 every year. And maybe applying these increases when the economy is doing well instead of in a recession. Just an idea.
Anyhow, some clarification on these points would be greatly appreciated. I understand AuctionWatch's desire to get a larger piece of the pie.... but some more substantial reasoning behind it would be nice. I do look forward to reviewing your new power plan when it is released. I hope you will listen to the posters and choose not to charge a FVF. Thank you, Mike, for your continued communication with us posters, and for your hard work (on what must be an overwhelming project!)
posted on October 1, 2001 03:31:50 PM new
hdoutlet,
I will contact you directly to discuss your question. It may be tomorrow morning, since I need to be out of the office later today and early tomorrow. Since your selling activity doesn't represent the norm, I'd prefer not to discuss your specific situation in a general forum. It may set expectations for everyone that I'm not ready to make. I hope you understand.
eauctionmgnt,
Thanks for your comments. It is an overwhelming project given the diverse nature of the sellers we support (diverse final sales prices, number of listings, etc.). While you are correct that the larger corporations are no longer a focus for us, we did take their feedback as a general indicator of a business mindset with respect to selling in an auction format. While hdoutlet is correct that many want to know specifically their costs, others want to ensure that they never pay greater than X% of sales (so they aren't stuck with a cost that's not covered quite as expected by the sales price, if the auction doesn't go as planned). A majority of our sellers (actually 10s of thousands each month) pay our standard plan rates. Clearly others prefer not to pay a FVF, many of whom are our highest volume business customers. So we need to address those sellers in a new power plan. That statement should give you an indication my current thinking.
The competitors I was thinking of are Andale (at 169.95/month plus 2.3% FVF (for 2,750 listings)) or AuctionWorks (2% of final value fee with a minimum monthly fee of $14.95).
My final point about the average fee was only to show that hdoutlet and other sellers selling higher value items are not the norm. A % fee enables those that sell thousands of lower priced items to use the service economically. Depending upon the fixed fee charged (if that were the pricing model), some may actually spend a higher percentage of their revenue than under the current standard plan, and I'd be chatting with other sellers in this forum. We need now to price the plan to accommodate the higher value items as well, so I'm going to get back to my project. I hope this response answers your questions. Take care.
posted on October 1, 2001 04:16:57 PM new
I feel that I am getting lost in all of this talk. I am a middle of the road small end seller. I do make my living as an auction seller. I list 120-200 items a week. I average about $3500-5000 a month in sales. I knew in the beginning of fees that I with my growing business it would be beneficial to me to go on the power plan. No doubt I have saved a fair amount of money doing this.
I too realize that AW is NOT a necessity for my business. But for approx $35 a month it was worth it to me. at $75.00 a month - it mostlikely will not be. I have now looked at other services like AW which I have NEVER done before. I found two I like, neither have FVF fees. Both are less then the $200 power plan I now have. Neither have a message board, which I have learned a lot from!
But now with all the BIG BOYS speaking out in public, I feel that the new power plan will be developed to benefit them solely.
Thank you for the clarification. It is greatly appreciated. While I had researched other sites and found no FVF, you are correct that AuctionWatch's pricing appears to be more competitive than the two sites you quoted. However, I must say that I am impressed with Andale's approach to their pricing. Being able to customize your plan to utilize only the features you would like to use would be VERY nice! I for one never use any of the post-sale management features of Auctionwatch, and I'm sure there are many that don't use the inventory-management system. Perhaps while you're developing this new power-plan, you could take into consideration implementing a program such as this. That way sellers could counter-balance rising costs by eliminating the fees for services they are not using. Just an idea! Thanks again for all your hard work.
posted on October 2, 2001 01:38:55 PM new
I couldn't agree more about this service being a convience. I like the service AW provides. I am in the process of getting ready to launch a major charity site and was planning on using Auction watch until the fee restructure. Now it is not affordable. Any chance of introoducing some sort of modified Power plan where there is no final value fee. I cannot justify final value fees for the charity site.
[ edited by cococgld on Oct 2, 2001 01:40 PM ]
posted on October 2, 2001 06:40:54 PM new
It's nice to see that we are getting hit for more money in fees. It's also nice to see that we are currently unable to list due to a tech. problem. It's a shame you don't leave a Power Plan without the post sales material. I don't use and don't need it. Charge the same for Power Plan without the post sales and I would love it. No one is interested in a final value fee. And it's easy to understand why. Postal fees are up, eBay fees are up, economy is down, and auction sale prices are also down.
posted on October 2, 2001 07:39:06 PM new
Downsizing : Double or tripple the fees, Drive away half the customers, Reduce your labor costs most likely your profits will increase. Is this whats happening ?
posted on October 3, 2001 04:15:03 AM new
I have been studying the fee increase and the trial version of Sales Manager since it was announced.
First, we have determined there is absolutely no way to integrate the new software into the system we now use, and that if we did it would become more time consuming, which we absolutley can not afford to happen. So, not using it would disqualify us from the new business plan.
Second, the new fee structure would virtually increase our sales cost and listings dramatically, because as Silver Powerseller we list between 4000-5000 auctions per month with a healthy closing percentage. We will absolutely NOT participate in ANY FVF structure whether it be with Auctionwatch or anyone else. At that point it would become cheaper to develop our own launching site and invite other to use it.
We are extremely glad however that we have until March, when our Power Plan expires to integrate into another listing service, as we will no longer be able to afford to use Auctionwatch Services, although we feel it is the best currently available and probably the easiest to use.
We appreciate the advance notice this time, as we will be able to effectively use it to switch our systems at a reasonable pace.
We appreciate the service we have received from Auctionwatch and are sorry to have to end our relationship come March.
Mark Fisch
Shelbystoys.com
[ edited by pontiacdealer on Oct 3, 2001 04:30 AM ]
posted on October 3, 2001 05:50:34 AM new
I've read these comments with a great deal of interest. I do not know what AW's bottom line looks like, but it must be very weak. I immediately started searching for alternatives as soon as I learned of their fee restructuring. There are many viable alternatives that do not impose the totally unjustified final value fees. If you look at AW's pricing trends, they will be out of business in 24 months. Large ticket sellers can find a better deal. Small ticket sellers will be forced to post directly to ebay. They will try to retain large volume sellers like HDoutlet by cutting special deals at the same time sticking it to everyone else. The real advantage AW has is flexible auction scheduling. That's about it. Most ISP's offer free storage for images. The post sale management feature works at about the same speed as paper tracking. Personally, they can charge whatever they feel the market will bear. I've spent years in banking and consulting. This plan sounds like either total incompetence or a financially strapped company's desperate attempt to save itself.
posted on October 3, 2001 12:50:57 PM new
You compare yourself with a lot of online businesses that are actually giving service for thier increased charges.
What are you supplying for the extra fees.
If i get no extra service for selling 1000 items per month at $100.00 than the seller who sells 1000 items per month at $25.00.
Why should I pay you more than the the person who sells 1000 items for $25.00 each.
What extra service do I get for the money you take from me?
posted on October 3, 2001 01:41:17 PM new
Please keep in mind that there are MANY other online auction listing services out there that are MUCH less expensive as well. AW indicates the few that are more expensive as justification for their fee increases and then censors the boards by removing posts that offer AW users less expensive options.
We have found several that offer a wide range of service options, some more advanced and some simpler. The costs are far ranging as low as $10.00 to $15.99 per month flat fee for the basic services such as auction scheduling, feedback tracking and the such to more advanced offerings.
I am happy that Mike at AW wants to work with us to establish a fee structure appropriate for very high volume sellers and those that sell big ticket items as we do.
Yet with all that is going on I have yet to see the answer to the most simple question.
WHAT JUSTIFICATION CAN AW PROVIDE FOR RAISING THEIR FEES SO SUBSTANTIALLY BY INCLUDING A FINAL VALUATION FEE COMPONENT?
WHAT EXTRA FEATURES ARE SO VALUABLE ABOUT THIS SERVICE THAT SOMEONE SELLING $100 ITEMS SHOULD PAY SO MANY MORE TIMES THE AMOUNT FOR THEM VS. THE SELLER OF $2.00 ITEMS?
How can this possibly be justified with the services that AW is proving in their new Business software package?
They ONLY response to this any of us have seen so far is THE OTHER TWO HIGH PRICED SERVICES, THAT NONE OF THE AW USERS USE BECAUSE OF THEIR HIGH PRICES, ARE CHARGING ALMOST THAT MUCH. So AW's attitude is SO WILL WE.
I hope that Chris does not immediately remove this question from the board as he has removed so many other of my posts. Censoring your PAYING customers is no way to run a business. If you can not compete with other services then get out of the business. Don't hide from them and pretend they do not exist.
PLEASE Mike for the sake of those sellers that you are not selling $100,000.00 or more per month. What rational for these massive fee hikes can you really make?
Why should the guy selling 500 $100.00 items per month pay $750.00 per month in FVF and the lady selling 500 $2.00 items pay only $15.00 per month in FVF? Have you not provided the EXACT same services? Why charge the first guy 5000% more in FVF's?
If your company just need more money to stay afloat, then be HONEST with your customers and simply state; "it cost more to run this service than we are collecting in fees". Then charge ALL of us more in an even handed manner. You will get A LOT more support from your customer base if you do things honestly and evenly than the current approach of; "Hey the other guy charges more, so we will too" or "That the corporate accounts, that we have now abandoned, prefer Final Valuations Fees". Because it has to be blatantly obvious to you guys at AW now that NO ONE supports the approach you have take so far.
(Please do not LOCK this thread until we receive answers to our questions)
posted on October 3, 2001 02:35:48 PM new
hdoutlet,
I thought we had a good conversation on the phone, and I've called you again subsequently to discuss your account. I've stated many times that I was working on the FVF issue for you and for others who have similar concerns. I continue to do so.
Since I receive e-mail notification on this thread, I know the message that was deleted. It basically promoted a competitive offering, so I have to support the decision that the moderators made in deleting it. I doubt you would prefer to have eBay or anyone else promote competitive products on your auctions. We feel the same way about our site. I apologize if you were offended by the removal of the message. It wasn't personal by any means.
The pricing structure we adopted in March accounted for both folks with high value items and sellers with lower value items. By enabling the choice of whether or not to pay a FVF or yearly subscription, we were able to provide fair pricing to both groups. About 90% of our sellers chose to pay the FVF (in addition to the corporate businesses), possibly because they preferred fees that were always covered by sales, possibly because they sell lower value items or lower total merchandise sales, and they were generally also comportable with FVF pricing. I've looked at the numbers and several existing power plan subscribers would actually save money by converting to the new plan (folks with lots of listings, lower merchandise sales). But the power plan was important to sellers such as you, and we recognize that (especially now). I've repeatedly stated that we will be providing an additional new power plan, and I've hinted that it will most likely not include any FVF component. If you want to talk some more, I can describe the tradeoffs I'm struggling with. It's a very diverse group of sellers and no size fits all.
You are very close on your last statement. We need to structure our service fees to ensure we are able to cover basic operating costs as well as to invest to provide additional functionality, such as the Business Edition release, which adds many requested features and generally simplifies the listing process. We also continue to make improvements that may be less visible to you, but improve overall service quality. Most, like using the eBay API, do carry additional non-trivial costs. We try our best to offset sellers' costs by promoting partners in various ways, including offering free listings for payment partners like we did with Citibank in September and are continuing in October. We will continue to identify these offset opportunities and provide them to you.
We'll also continue to listen to feedback while figuring out the new pricing for power plan. Please know that it's coming, please know I understand the concerns about FVF and perceptions of fairness and rate increases, and know that I'll do my best to balance your needs for profitable sales and our ability to continue to help make those sales as efficient as possible.
If you have concerns, call me. You have access we unfortunately can't provide to everyone. Trading messages here won't help me reach closure for those waiting to see the pricing. I'm dancing as fast as I can.
posted on October 3, 2001 05:35:34 PM new
AW meffle;
Why do you insist on direct contact with your so called power sellers.
As a whole I would wager a guess that if you totalled all the so called "little people" sellers up that a great portion of revenue comes from those of us that sell lower value items rather than $100.00 items.
"Trading messages" here is the only way all your sellers are going to undertand and support the changes.
posted on October 3, 2001 06:07:32 PM new
barebones1,
You are correct. A great portion of our users sell items valued well under $100 (as is true for auctions in general). In fact, a FVF pricing method benefits these folks disproportionately compared to sellers like hdoutlet, which is why his situation, with $500,000 in sales/month, is unique and warrants an individual discussion. While the discussion with hdoutlet applies somewhat to everyone, it doesn't apply that well in a broad context. I'd prefer to focus on ensuring we provide additional pricing plans that meet the needs of a broad group of sellers rather than discuss rationale for the pricing plans that have been announced. I sense that if everyone had a choice between seeing a new pricing plan they could evaluate with their own selling experience and having a further discussion as to why the existing plans include a FVF, people would prefer to see the new plan. That's all I meant by that. Didn't mean to imply I didn't want feedback on this thread or that I was just looking out for a select number of "power sellers." We have thousands of sellers on power plan and thousands on standard plan to consider. That's what takes time to evaluate.
posted on October 4, 2001 02:24:39 AM new
I'm glad to read here that consideration is being given to a new Power Plan.
I might also make a small suggestion. When you reach Silver Powerseller Status with eBay, they immeadiately provide you with a phone number so that you can call in instead of communicating through emails or posts.
While we are not in the sales dollar volume range of hdoutlet, we still could not afford to pay and FVF, and do not see a reason to pay any, as there is NO additionla service provided by AW for an item that sells for $100 over an item that sells for $10.
We have gone from "Free" to paying thousands of dollars per year.
If you are concerned with raising your operating income, you may need to become the highest price service to cover the number of defections that could be suffered as a result of users finding other services.
As hd outlet has, we are currently researching and evalutating the other services, many, many of which are priced less than we are paying now.
In addition, after evaluating the new software package, that you say must be used with the business plan, we continue to find no way to integrate that into our system, just as we can not use inventory nor the Post sale process that AW provides, as they are too time consuming and do not integrate with our operations.
We decided to stay when the pricing plan came out earlier this year, as we like the service, in spite of the few problems over the last couple months, however, to be honest, it's not THAT good.
We did find one feature that we LOVE in another service, that we would like to have had with AW. When creating an auction, they allow you to scheduule it in multiples instead of copying it 10 times and doing the scheduling. In addition, you can mutliple scehdule it to start, like every Tuesday at 4:15PM.
Please take into account with the new "Power Plan", that many of us using that, do not participate in the inventory and post sale management features, and maybe that should count toward the new pricing system.
And while I am here writing, and this does not directly apply to this post, I have noticed that AW is exceptionally slow this week, and we are using a DSL connection.
posted on October 4, 2001 09:05:03 PM new
Jeesh! Can we you make this anyone complicated? I can't even figure out what plan I'm on anymore, let alone what you're charging me
