Changes to eBay Stores

This entry will be in two parts (or more) because I have an awful lot to say about the changes to eBay stores. First of all, the changes are long overdue and for the most part good. If you don't know what the changes are, for the most part, they will help you make a better store. That's not my concern. My concern is with the referral fee credit and what that means. You can read about it here

Basically you get a credit on your final value fees if YOU bring a visitor to your store. Now many of you will go yippie and start bringing visitors to your eBay store. But wait, here we go:

My problem with the referral credit is this (and I'm quoting from the eBay website):

Please remember: All of the following conditions must be met to qualify for the credit:

* The buyer must enter your eBay Store or go to one of your Store Inventory listings directly from a location outside of eBay.
* The buyer must go to your Store because of your promotion.
* The buyer's Web browser must accept "cookies."
* The buyer must purchase the item during the same Web browser session used to enter your Store.
* The item sold must be in Store Inventory format.

Wow. What's this about? Let me go over some issues I have with this:

First, the main, overwhelming benefit of eBay is that it brings buyers to YOU not that you bring buyers to eBay. You pay eBay those fees because eBay has this enormous built in following, does all this marketing and attracts thousands and thousands of visitors daily. Visitors you would take a very long time to build on your own. That is the primary reason you are paying those fees (or at least it should be).

Secondly, the minute you have to drive YOUR OWN visitors to your eBay auctions or your eBay store is the minute you need to stop paying those fees and do your own thing. Why spend the money and the effort to get your own visitors AND pay the fees? WHY?

Third, few buyers buy on the first visit. That's ecommerce 101. I've read it in a study before, you can read it if you do some research. Many buyers will visit your site a few times before they buy, even if they buy the same day. Sometimes they want to check out another site, sometimes they want to think about it. But you will not capture all sales on the first visit. So what does that mean, well that means the you won't qualify for the referral credit most of the time.

Someone once mentioned that maybe, maybe eBay has it set up this way because it would be difficult to track buyers. BS. eBay has some of the most sophisticated tracking abilities you will ever find anywhere. Otherwise, how do they know how to keep suggesting other stuff to you if they aren't tracking you? The reason this policy is in place is because it makes financial sense for eBay. Most people who sell on eBay don't have the ability to even notice something like this, they don't have the ecommerce acumen to see the flaw with this. So most will be perfectly happy to drive their own customers to their store and pay for it.

More coming in part 2...