Recently some of the fees on eBay were raised and what was the immediate reaction from some sellers?

“We will all boycott eBay, that will bring them to their knees.” They cried.

What a load of old rubbish.. eBay is a massive company that makes billions of dollars in profits and a few whinging sellers throwing their toys into a corner and sulking is not going to make one iota of difference.

Wake up to reality eBay can do what they like it is their ball. They can put the fees up, they can change the rules, they can have the worst customer support system imaginable and when all said and done there is nothing anyone can do about it except walk away.

Any company that can grow and develop the way eBay has is not going to do anything to seriously jeopardise their position in the market place.

Since they went public their first responsibility has to be to their shareholders and they are always going to be looking for ways to increase the profits. But that is only the same as we are all trying to do with our eBay businesses.

Quite honestly we should all be used to price rises by now. Look at what has happened to fuel, gas and electricity over the last few months. But just because the prices have gone up does not mean that we are all going to stop driving or turning on our air conditioning or heating. I am sure that owners of bricks and mortar businesses have seen their rents and business taxes rise over the years. So why get all hot under the collar because eBay have raised some of their fees?

As long as your business is all about selling on eBay you are going to be totally tied and reliant upon them. I have no reason to believe that eBay will not continue into the foreseeable future providing a service the same or similar to the one that is available today. But perhaps we should be looking for ways to reduce the reliance on a company over which we have no control.

Just because eBay is the market place that finds the customers for us it does not mean that we cannot develop a relationship with that customer outside of eBay. Normally you will have an e-mail and physical address of your auction customers and you should be using these to build a customer list. Many sellers who started out selling purely on eBay now find they are making greater sales by e-mailing or sending offers by snail mail to their loyal customer list.

The big advantage of this is of course it does not matter how high eBay fees go up because you so not have to pay any fees to sell to your list.

My advise is to stop worrying about the odd fee increase and get on with building your customer list and developing your business both inside and outside of eBay. It is a lot more profitable than whinging.

About The Author

Dave Bromley has been an eBay fan and writer for seven years. He runs one of the UKs leading eBay auction information sites http://ukauctionline.co.uk and offers a monthly newsletter and 6 part eBay mini course to anyone who registers at his site.