Starting a month from tomorrow, February 18, 2004 eBay plans to increase the monthly subscription fee from from $9.95/mo to $15.95 and a standard listing of 10 days from 20 cents to 40 cents. Unsurprisingly, many sellers are not happy with the increase and are taking their opinion to the eBay messageboards. Some bloggers are posting their feelings as well including dirtylilbeast who rants on eBay’s side:

Ok. Lets look at this objectively. First of all YOURE BITCHING BECAUSE YOU SELL 3000 AND YOU HAVE TO PAY $15 A MONTH IN FEES?? What about REAL business owners who have to pay staff, pay rent, pay TAXES, get business licenses, pay utilities, advertise? AND YOU ARE BITCHING ABOUT $15 a MONTH?! … Its an embarassment that people are bitching about this - ebay is giving them a platform to sell their wares and not asking for much in return.

Of course without sellers where would eBay be? Somehow I doubt the price hike will deter most sellers; the bark will not equal the bite. Perhaps eBay should have institute an annual percentage increase in fees so that everybody sees it coming and can adjust accordingly?

Jefflog compares this to another company: “Does this sound like another familiar company?” (link to Microsoft). I’m not sure where Jeff is drawing the parallel there. 

We’ve used eBay 32 times as of this writing over the years, with relatively good success (100% positive feedback), although I think the process to list new items is a bit painstaking (maybe it’s improved). Yeah, there are programs to make the process faster. I’ve gotten some good deals as a buyer on there, but you have to really watch what you are buying on some things. All in all, good luck to somebody else coming in to steal the eBay thunder because many have tried over the years and all have failed. Good luck to the competition.

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• eBay starts Prostores website hosting
• eBay needs to increase focus on their core collector audience
• Microsoft Office + eBay = reality
• No cash payments allowed in eBay listings