eBay’s Nutty UK Pricing Premium

In the US from June 16th one has been able to list 5 items free a month.  Well not entirely free as the offer only extends to the insertion fee itself – a saving of $0.75 is still a saving.  Without further analysis is does look a lot like the offer is actually not that special as there is a flat rate 8.75% success fee on those 5 items and I seem to recall it was previously tiered.

If anyone has a copy of the pre-June 16th fees I’d love to know what they were.

But that’s the US.  I have 2 eBay accounts; one in the UK (where I live) and one in the US which serviced our New Zealand address more effectively.  Neither are highly used but just occasionally I want to buy something or in the case of now need to sell something.

In the UK that free listings offer is no where to be found on eBay’s site, and to make it worse eBay actually charge:

• tiered insertion fees ranging from zero for < £0.99 items to £1.90 for items over £100 and multi-list items,
• success fees are a flat rate 10% with a maximum of £40.

If I sold a bike for say £200 (c. $300) here’s how the regional pricing works out…

It costs 21% more to sell the same item through eBay in the UK than in US.  Is the US offering less of a service, well you could easily argue a bigger audience should mean more potential bidders so should really command a premium.

But the reality is there is NO difference in the offering from eBay that I can discern other than a 21% premium for living in the UK.

And who said the internet was breaking down international trading borders?

I have 2 eBay accounts; one in the UK (where I live) and one in the US which serviced our New Zealand address more effectively.  Neither are highly used but just occasionally I want to buy something or in the case of now need to sell something, but…

I’ve talked about eBay’s listing and success fees before on Twitter but having received an email today offering up free listing insertions I thought it best to write down just what eBay are doing with pricing and where I think they are going horribly wrong.