Posted By:
Chris <If eBay went to free listings site-wide (excluding eBay Motors, which is implementing a quasi free-listing model next month), it might have different Final Value Fees (FVFs) for different categories, just as Amazon.com does. It could also impose a monthly subscription fee, with exceptions for certain sellers.>
So what would this mean for the collectibles categories?
It seems like a higher percentage of collectibles shoppers prefer auctions over fixed price listings compared to other goods/categories, but high FVF's combined with no listing fees would obviously decrease the number of true auction format listings a great deal.
If they cared enough about their collectibles categories to examine them separately, then they would probably make less intrusive changes, but I really don't get the impression that they care...