eBay Plans To Force Small Sellers Out of Business

Written by By: Ina Steiner
Sat Sept 6 2008 21:29:36

Points highlighted and tweeked by eBay Rag Mag

eBay announced a Diamond-level PowerSeller tier in June, and as I blogged in mid-August, more corporate size companies will be joining Buy.com and be allowed to list on the site for free. Now I’m hearing that eBay is introducing a pilot program next month in which a number of manufacturer and big-box retailer catalogs will be launched to eBay. Third-party vendors will work with these sellers to get them onto the eBay platform – no small feat given the quantity of product SKUs in their catalogs.

These Diamond PowerSellers will be given special privileges. Commission (FVF) fees will be negotiated individually, and it’s my understanding that participants in this pilot will not be charged listing fees, nor will they have to meet eBay’s seller standards during the 90-day pilot program, which I’ve dubbed Operation Catalog.

The potential Gross Merchandise Volume of these sellers is enormous, and it fills out eBay’s product line and helps it move toward providing a more uniform buying experience on the site, or so it hopes.

The flood of inventory onto the site in October could have a major impact on certain sellers in categories affected. As I write in tomorrow’s editorial in AuctionBytes-Update, not only will some sellers find themselves competing with the manufacturer of the product they sell, but that competitor is getting free listings and better exposure.

If Operation Catalog does roll out in October as expected, sellers will find themselves going up against competition they never knew existed, with no time to adjust their selling strategy during the all-important holiday shopping season.

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The general consensus among eBay power sellers is that this prospective change might explain…

Limits on listing certain brand-name items
Crackdown on trademark violations
Crackdown on MSRP and MAP on certain brand names
Elimination of Ebay Express
Reverting neutral feedback back to neutral
No more negative feedback for buyers
Limits on shipping charges (to raise item price)
Pushing free shipping (to raise item price)
30-day FP listings (if you sell just 1 you can’t adjust the price)

Looks like the big guys don’t want any “unfair” competition!

Ware all wondering if this is also the reason behind the new payment recieving policies  being that of Pay Pal only.  These larger sellers are not going to be using paypal, so naturally the stay at home moms and single mothers will be the ones to pick up the tabs that the major corporations are building up.