Today, September 16th, marks one of the days in which we see some major changes take place on eBay. As of now, sellers are allowed to offer 15, 30 and GTC (Good Till Closed) listings for Fixed Price auctions. In addition, all insertion fees are only .15 cents regardless of cost until the end of the year. There are many ways to interpret these changes.

 There is the general disturbance of sellers at these changes as they seem to take more and more away from the profits of the sellers and into the hands of the Giant eBay Corp. With Buy.com who has gotten promotional discounts for inserting some 500,000 listings to give the illusion that the amount of listings are up, this does not suggest that sales will follow.

To me, the offering of 15 cent insertion fees and to list them at 30 days or longer, is another way for eBay to fudge the marketplace to appear more thriving than it really is. While eBay is still getting hoards of traffic, if you ask me, the general buyer is more cautious with spending than they have been in the past - and rightfully so! Logically, however, I had anticipated online sales to have an increase as driving to stores would be more expensive and more families were having "staycations" rather than leaving home for the summer due to gas prices the way they are.

Additional changes made recently involve the DSR ratings, which have probably infuriated the sellers most above all changes. By removing negative and neutral feedback to buyers, and having buyers to determine quality of service based on variables in the feedback, it leaves the buyers more at an advantage.  Couple this with the fact that eBay decided that it will raise any DVD final value fees to 15% (with everything else at 8%), and that they will install a capped shipping cost of $3.00 for shipping.

To me this indicates some sellers are going to have to rethink the whole eBay selling. Will the prices on eBay suddenly go up? If that is the case, how will this effect overall sales with less buyers buying? And what about the fact that eBay will no longer allow you to accept money orders or checks and that everything will be through PayPal only? These are all crucial changes, each affecting every seller, whether they are DVD sellers or not. Some real consideration about selling on eBay needs to be considered.

Personally, I am chancing it to see how the changes effect me as well as if its worth it depending on the amount and quanlity of sales I get. Listing 30 items is nice because it only costs me $4.50. But if I sell only one $10.00 item, that will cost me $1.50 of the sale, plus about .50 cents to PayPal, minus the $4.50. So ultimately I am making $5.00 on the item. If I paid $5.00 for the item, its a wash and was not really worth it.

The searches have also been changed to beneifit power sellers, or those with higher DSR's. Accordingly, members with a 4.0 or less will have their account suspended. But I am curious how that will play itself out as companies like MovieMars, Red Tag Media, Odd Banana, White Elephant Media, Sysqsystems, dvdlegacy, and other large drop-ship companies who are notorious for advertising items they never have. Will these companies be able to fulfill the new eBay standards? Time will tell.

Lastly, while the search has changed to benefit those with higher DSR's, it appears its not entirely the case, because, for the most part, its a mixed batch when you do a search. When I type in OOP DVD, my search yields 1,333 results. When I check the completed listings, I get over 3,000 results.

And finally, for good measure, eBay says it will offer benefits or something to those who offer Free Shipping. I am not sure if they will get beneficial search results, or if you get a goodie bag from eBay for playing their game. Needless to say, most sellers, if they intend to stay on eBay will find themselves forced to play ball. But some will find minor ways around it. There might be more off-line selling to circumvent the final value and PayPal fees by accepting money orders and checks. I know many buyers who do not like PayPal or don't use it, and it is more than likely some buyers will ask to pay by that method.

So with all these changes, what out of print titles are selling these days? And for what prices?

In the completed search, I see a few copies of the Criterion Collection Wrong Men and Notorious Women selling above the $200.00 mark. A brand new copy at $257 is a nice sale considering in a month MGM will release their version of the Hitchcock classics.  The Human Condition Trilogy still remains a top notch seller on eBay getting $290 for a set in very good condition. Sailor Moon set is up at the $200.00 mark. A very curious sale was for an X-Men 3 Steelbook Futureshop Exclusive sold at $280.00. While I know those Futureshop steelbooks can get quite scarce, I hardly find this one demanding nearly $300 bucks as the film was the worst of the series! Maybe someone can tell me more about this edition as I feel the final price is questionable. 

Since the re-release of Salo, the original prices have expectedly dropped, however, a substantial amount is still to be had. Here is a sealed copy that sold for $171.00. Not as much as you would get, say maybe 3 years ago, but all things considered, it is a good price. I see a few copies of Scarlett, all above the $125.00 mark, while 32 Short Stories of Glenn Gould remains above $100.00.

Now, in the same completed listing search (highest price first), there are 79 pages, each with 50 listings per page, and at this time (September 16), 31 of the 50 made a sale on the first page, while 24 sales of the 50 on the second page, making it 55 sales out of 100 auctions, 17 of which offer Free Shipping. These range from $100.00 to $700.00 (usually for lots). Now at the middle, pages 39 and 40, we see 39 has 47 sales out of 50, while page 40 has 24 sales out of 50, which makes for 71 sales out of 100. These all fell in the $15.00 range with a total of 13 listings offering Free Shipping. And then the final 2 pages, page two has 15 sales out of 50, and on the first page, 9 sales out of 19, all in the penny range, none of which have free shipping.

So, with this estimation, keeping in the area of $15.00, you have the highest potential of selling your item, roughly a 71% chance of selling an item. While, if you are selling high priced items over $100.00, consider about a 55% chance of selling it. And if you are selling dirt cheap items, it probably is not worth your efforts with roughly a (if I did my math correctly) a 34% chance of selling an item.

It we put all this together,  150 sales out of 269 auctions averages out at 55% chance of selling an item. Perhaps these numbers appear optimistic as you have a better than 50/50 chance of selling an item. So theoretically, 20 auctions should yield you roughly 10 or 11 sales. 

In relation, I wanted to see how Best.com is doing with in the midst of all this on a general scope. Currently they are a Power Seller with a 99.6% rating. They have sold over 53,000 items in the past 30 days their DSR is pretty good. Currently, Buy.com has nearly 750,000 item listed. Even at the special price of 15 cents each, it would cost the average person $112,500.00 to list that many items. It appears nearly everything has Free Shipping incentive. In the most recent complete listings search, it shows they have over 300,000 items that have ended. Only on September 16th alone, there are about 303 pages of listings, each with 50 auctions totalling 151,150 items for sale. Of which, I spot anywhere from 3 to 10 sales per page, which would give an estimation of 900 to 3,030 sales for the day of the 16th! Again, if I did my math correctly, they are selling roughly 13% of their inventory, which, in my opinion is not very good.

So what are your thoughts and experience. Do these numbers jive with your own business on eBay? Or are the numbers showing off, while you find yourself suffering one or two sales out of 20 auctions? Let me know in or forum discussion here. I would like to hear from both buyers and sellers!