Creative Compulsion

Yes, I admit it. I let my blog suffer a slow, torturous near-death the last couple of months. Christmas kind of snuck up on me and before I knew it, I was knee-deep in work and no time to myself. It hasn’t changed too much; things are still fairly busy, but at least I’ve been able to catch my breath.

Some interesting things going on in the near future at eBay. Scot Wingo confirmed on his blog the other day that eBay has been “telegraphing some big changes coming to the fee structure“. A couple of the ideas being tossed around are category-specific fees and bulk listing discounts. Scot also reintroduced his “3F” approach to cleaning up eBay, proposing that fraud and finding need to be cleaned up prior to a fee adjustment. I couldn’t agree with him more. My guess is… NOT gonna happen.

Further speculation regarding the new fee structure is that eBay will lower listing fees (and include free or lower cost gallery) and increase the backend (FVF) fees. I guess I’ll reserve my opinion until the adjustments are announced. My guess is that this will be a boon for some sellers and a death toll for others. What I can’t wrap my head around is the whining that is already taking place on the eBay boards. Do these people just like to complain?

Listen folks, if you’re not willing to adapt your business to the changing times, economy, market, etc., etc., then perhaps sales/business isn’t the career for you. By adapt, I don’t even mean adapting to sell on eBay. If eBay has priced themselves out of the market for you, explore your alternatives. Be ready to do some work and research. If you’re not willing to be flexible and change/adapt your business plan to remain competitive (or afloat!), then you really should consider a regular 9-5er with a dependable paycheck.

I realize eBay is no longer the only “show in town”, but if you’ve ever run a B&M and seen the numbers that flow through on a monthly basis, you’d have to agree that it’s still a pretty decent bang for your buck. No matter what, the expected announcement next week should prove to be interesting (if nothing else, entertaining!).