Ebay cutting listing fees…but how about better reporting!
Ebay announced today that it will be cutting listing fees by up to 50% in an effort to stay competitive with up and coming e-commerce sites. They will offset the reduced listing fees by charging more commission for sold items. I first used Ebay when I was in 7th grade and it was and has been a terrific e-outlet to make a few extra bucks on stuff you don’t find useful, but that someone else will. However, I have never thought highly of the way fees and expenses are reported and displayed to customers of the site. It has always been very sloppy and delivered in poor fashion. How many times have you wondered how much, after all incurred fees, an auction cost you to list? What Ebay needs to do is create an “e-manager” for accounts that allows the customer total control over viewing and displaying reports of charges and listing fees incurred over a specific amount of time. The reporting functionality could be added to “My Ebay”, but could blend a simple UI and precise spatial organization to report these key metrics to customers. It would only need to provide users with functionality such as list sorting and detailed views. The detailed view would allow the customer to view the date of the charge and what exactly was included in the charge. Including a reporting mechanism such as this would really be an asset to the bevy of products the company already offers to its customers. It would allow customers to have more faith in the numbers and that is highly important for a web-based auctioneering site.
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January 30th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
excellent point- i agree! not only are seller account fees displayed in a messy way, but the way ebay deducts the money from accounts is equally annoying. i will sell something & a month & a half later a seemingly random $5 will be deducted from my bank account. thanks for posting on this; it’s always irked me