CNN: Thousands Closing Their Ebay Stores

CNN Reports that many ebay sellers are shutting down their ebay stores in response to the latest changes at Ebay.

Listing fees, which increased as much as 500% for some sellers are sending the online entprepreneurs to Amazon.com, Shopping.com, and  Yahoo!

The problem, according to Skip McGrath, author of “Titanium eBay: A Tactical Guide to Becoming a Millionaire PowerSeller,” is that a lot of large sellers were using eBay’s online stores as a dumping ground for non-performing merchandise, cluttering up the space and diluting the platform’s effectiveness.

“There were just so many items that users couldn’t search stores effectively,” McGrath said.

Store inventory listings represent about 83 percent of the volume on eBay’s site but generate just 9 percent of the gross sales volume, according to the company.

Ultimately the success of eBay hinges on the success of the auction format, and the more items up for auction, the better it is for the company.

eBay hopes that by raising fees and reducing store inventories, it will become easier for buyers to find what they are looking for.

“Whenever we do a fee increase, our community doesn’t like it, but I think they will understand the reasons why we are doing this,” Whitman said.

Many sellers said they won’t hold their breath.

Via PowerSellerKing