Finally - eBay Seller REWARDS! (in the UK for now)

James Scott in our UK office reports on a new program eBay.UK is testing called eBay seller rewards.

The program is keyed off of eBay billings.  They establish a "current high watermark" - basically what was the biggest ebay bill you had.  Then as you increase from that watermark, you get paypal coupons.

Effectively this gives you a virtual break in your eBay fees as you scale - something sellers have been asking about for years.  eBay is one of the only businesses where the more business you do, you actually pay the same, or in some cases, MORE.

It looks like you essentially get 25% of the amount of your increase from the base monthly amount back in a paypal coupon, so you get a 25% discount on growing your business.

Here's an example: (in USD, but currency doesn't matter)

• Your watermark to ebay is $1000 (your highest monthly ebay bill for trailing 12mos)
• During the quarter your eBay bills are:
  • Month 1 - $1100
  • Month 2 - $1200
  • Month 3 - $1500
• You are $500 over your watermark.  So you would receive a 25% coupon ($125) for that quarter.
• In this example it's a $125/$3800 = a 3% discount in this example.

Interestingly, the way this works, the larger the seller you are and higher a base you have, then the lower effective percentage discount you get.

Will eBay try this in the US?  Hard to say, but they are having a big meeting in January with top sellers and that's where things like this historically have been rolled out...

Comments

[Garry King]

As I recall UK store owners had a pretty serious protest boycott going that received a lot of attention from the investment community, and there was a rumor some Wall Street analysts were asking for quarter to quarter / year to year seller retention data. I will be very surprised if the US based sellers will get break on fees that is so predictable - it would potentially reduce management's ability to manipulate the marketplace - as they are so fond of trying to do.

[Randy Smythe]

Not a bad start. The problem is they have a cap of $250 pounds a month. If they didn't have a cap all sellers would benefit. The eBay I remember would never do this on the US site but maybe times are a changin'

While $250 pounds (roughly $400 bucks I guess) is nice to have the % savings is minicule.