posted on March 7, 2001 01:23:16 PM
Seller's I need your help. How do I word this in my auction? Does this sound clear enough?
"Due to the new fees imposed by my listing provider [name of provider], I must now charge [name of provider] $0.50 per auction for advertising [name of provider] services. Please visit [name of provider] by clicking on the link below my picture. Thank you."
Kelly
[ edited by kellyb1 on Mar 7, 2001 01:24 PM ]
posted on March 7, 2001 01:29:30 PM
Are you planning on passing the costs onto your customers? That's a legitimate business practice, but never tell them you're doing it. Just add $0.50 to your opening bid. If that's no good, add $0.20 to the postage and $0.30 to the starting bid, or soemthing along those lines.
posted on March 7, 2001 01:32:05 PM
It sounds clear enough, but why should a buyer pay for your listing service? If you have to use one (and I don't see why someone would pay $$ to a place like AW when they could do it all themselves with a knowledge of HTML and use their their own webspace to host pictures, etc.), then just increase your opening bid.
Trying to nickel and dime the buyers seems pointless and will likely result in less bids.
posted on March 7, 2001 01:32:53 PM
If you are being serious, my suggestion is to forget putting it in your auction. You want to sell your merchandise not make a "political" statement.
If you are unhappy that your "provider" is charging you a fee find another or learn to do yourself what the "provider" is currently doing for you.
posted on March 7, 2001 01:41:31 PM
While perfectly appropriate to recoup advertising fees from your customers via sales, I strongly recommend that the cost be figured into your shipping/handling fees at end of auction.
Posting a notice, such as you are contemplating, will be a turnoff to potential cusotmers and will do you more harm than good.
I charge $5.00 for priority mail shipment of the goods I sell on ebay. The actual psotage cost is $3.50 and the differnce is retained to help defray the cost of advertising, packaging, replacement of lost goods and other business related expenses. You might want to give this a try.
posted on March 7, 2001 01:46:39 PM
Those kind of terms will be the Kiss of Death for your auctions. If you must increase your charges, do it without announcing it.
posted on March 7, 2001 02:10:20 PM
opps, guess it's NOT clear! I'm telling my customers that I am charging a fee TO THE provider of my image hosting and that it would be nice if the bidder could go to the provider's site.
Guess I would have a hard time collecting the fees from my provider.
My items sell generally sell for under $10.00 and some between $10.00 - $20.00 and a few over $20.00. Over $100.00 a couple times a year. The fees are killing me (ebay's fee increase, postal increase, and paypal's fees)
I just can't afford another fee, and I can't afford to pass any more of the cost to my customers.
posted on March 7, 2001 02:13:53 PM
IMHO I'd rather see actual shipping charges listed in the auction even if they're inflated to cover seller fees. As a buyer, I HATE auctions where the shipping isn't specified (except for those that need a zip code to calculate). I really appreciate knowing in advance what my total outlay is going to be--and if I don't like the charge I just move on or e-mail the seller to see if they'll mail regular or UPS instead of Priority.
