Ebay raising fees again!!!

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Posted By: <b>Neal</b><p>Ebay hopes higher fees will reverse trend<br /><br />SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- EBay Inc. is about to find out whether a fee increase will help the company reverse a strategic error and boost revenue - or drive away some of its highest-volume sellers.<br />Starting Aug. 22, the San Jose, Calif.-based company will raise the fees it charges to those who sell items through any of its approximately 500,000 online stores, which are set up more like a retail site than eBay's traditional auction listings. <br /><br />The increases come about two years after eBay reduced those same fees in order to give the feature a boost. <br />While the increases may appear small -- amounting in some cases to as little as $1.20 more per item sold - they've already set off a backlash that has resulted in a boycott among some eBay sellers. <br />EBay hopes the extra fees will encourage a certain amount of store operators to switch back to selling items through auctions, or "rebalance the marketplace," as Chief Executive Meg Whitman said on a conference call last month. <br /><br />Investors and analysts will be looking to see if the move can boost growth at eBay. <br /><br />The new fees initiative comes on the heels of eBay's second-quarter financials, reported in June, in which net income fell by more than half, hurt by the cost of employee stocks options and higher operating expenses. <br />The company's gross margins during the quarter, or revenue minus product costs, and its operating income both fell as a percentage of sales form a year earlier, as it spent more on product development and marketing. <br />Worries that the company's sales and profit growth are slowing have helped push its shares

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Posted By: <b>Paul Moss</b><p>Good!<br /><br />Hopefully this will cut back on the tons of overpriced crap that clutter searches.

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Posted By: <b>steve f</b><p>It's gotta be due to rising crude prices.

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Posted By: <b>Joe D.</b><p>rising crude prices? we should put solar panels everywhere.... and then tell the oil producing nations - thanks but no thanks.<br /><br />That will bring down the eBay listing fees <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br />(serious about the solar panels, not about the eBay listing fees)

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Posted By: <b>Judge Dred (Fred)</b><p>At about $8/watt (for an installed system) solar is still a bit pricey. The payback for an installed system (depending upon where you live) is about 8 - 10 years. Then you get the next 15-20 years as a bonus. <br /><br />Ebay is going through growing pains. It'd probably be more profitable for ebay to collect insertion and final value fees from auction items than only an insertion fee for a fixed sale item that may or may not sell.<br /><br />Somehow I don't think that this will impact people selling quality vintage cards.

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Posted By: <b>Judge Dred (Fred)</b><p>Steve, you may not be far off about rising crude prices because it impacts their energy costs to run their data centers. You wouldn't believe the amount of power that some of these systems consume. Overall, I don't think that they're hurting too bad, they just want to maximize their profits.

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Posted By: <b>steve f</b><p>Wait, no they can't! Anywaze Fred, Conversion doesn't look too cumbersome;<br /><br /><img src="http://www.network54.com/Realm/tmp/1155837413.JPG">

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Posted By: <b>Judge Dred (Fred)</b><p>Did you get that picture off of ebay?

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Posted By: <b>steve f</b><p>Fred, here's a link to those doohickeez. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.gosolar.u-net.com/Portable_solar_power_systems.htm" target="_new" rel="nofollow">http://www.gosolar.u-net.com/Portable_solar_power_systems.htm</a>

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Posted By: <b>Gilbert Maines</b><p>If this stuff worked you could put a windmill on the roof of your car and drive for free just from the power you produce by going.<br /><br />And anything in a house which has a payoff of 8 - 10 years is paying off for someone else, because the average person moves more frequently than that.

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Posted By: <b>BcD</b><p>buying more shares! <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14><br /><br />