eBay has announced plans to introduce several improvements and upgrades to its Australian site, designed to boost the usability of the site for sellers.
Commencing on 2 May 2012, sellers will be able to post pictures with their items for free, a service that previously required a fee. The aim is to produce a more engaging shopping experience for buyers and to give sellers the best chance to sell their products by producing quality listings.
The changes to picture services are as follows:
- Sellers get 12 free pictures on every listing;
- Free supersize: Enabling sellers to upload larger, more detailed pictures; and
- Free gallery plus: When buyers hover over a sellers picture on the search results page, an enlarged image will appear, meaning the buyer can view the picture without entering the listing.
Another newly free service will be no insertion fees for a seller’s first 30 listings per month. The simplification of the fee structure is intended to make it easier for sellers to calculate their costs, enticing them to post more listings. Flat final value fees will change to the following:
- For sellers without a store there will be a 7.9 percent flat final value fee with $100 cap per item;
- For featured store subscribers there will be a 7.0 percent flat final value fee with $100 cap per item; and
- For anchor store subscribers there will be a 6.0 percent flat final value fee with $100 cap per item.
As well as aiming to produce a more seller and buyer-friendly environment, eBay wants to simplify the whole process from posting a listing to selling it. This simplification has resulted in the following changes:
- Removal of several listing upgrade features;
- Fewer insertion fee tiers for sellers without a store who exceed the allotted 30 free listings per month; and
- Fewer insertion fee tiers for auction-style listings within stores.
eBay hopes to better meet the needs of local consumers with this simplified and improved shopping experience.
