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Businesses The Almighty Buck The Internet

eBay Scraps Transaction Fees in China 133

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the capitalism-at-its-finest dept.
PlayCleverFully writes "The US online auction service eBay scrapped all sellers' transaction fees in China, in an effort to compete with local competitors offering free services, including Yahoo-invested Alibaba.com. The online auctioneer announced the changes on its China auction website, saying transaction fees would be waived, but small fees would continue to be charged for listing products on the site's webspace and for "feature" products. eBay's China unit, Eachnet, would also require all sellers to provide authorized online payment mechanisms to improve its credit environment, including PayPal and other escrow services, the announcement said. The move means that sellers won't get paid until the buyers receive and are satisfied with the products, it said."
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eBay Scraps Transaction Fees in China More

eBay Scraps Transaction Fees in China

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  • Capitalism works - for the Chinese.

    Meanwhile in the USA - 98% of patents...what?

    • Capitalism works well at first (Score:5, Interesting)

      by YearOfTheDragon ( 527417 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @03:08PM (#14534069) Homepage
      Capitalism works - for the Chinese.

      Capitalism must be cared for. You must care that there is enought competition. You must divide monopolies. Capitalism need a lot of work.

      It's a system that works, but as any other system, when some people gets too much power the system is corrupted and stops to work.

      In China capitalism is making the government to share its power, so it's working great. In U.S.A. the government is concentrating power in itself and in the big companyes, so capitalism works no more.

      It isn't only a matter of what system you chose, but of whom is using it and how.

    • Definitely. This single example of price competition in China indicates that the entire capatilist economy in the USA is broken and inferior. We should conveniently ignore the facts on this seditious web site [heritage.org], for example.
    • Capitalism works in the United States regardless of patents. There is nothing stopping you from starting a online auctions website.

      eBay will scrap all sellers' transaction fees from today, amid market pressure from local competitors offering free service...


      eBay would be forced to lower it's fees in the US if there was a enough competition.

        Capitalism works in the USA!

  • Moving time! (Score:5, Funny)

    by DaHat ( 247651 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @02:20PM (#14533832)
    Screw all of this talk about moving to Canada or Europe... sounds like China is now the place to live... except for that whole... oppression of unfavorable speech and blocking of websites.

    • Re:Moving time! (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by CyricZ ( 887944 )
      .. oppression of unfavorable speech and blocking of websites.

      With the recent US DoJ request for search terms from a number of the major search engines, Americans might find themselves in a very similar situation with regards to censorship. Except they'll be without the vibrant, rapidly-expanding economy that China current has. Growth is the key to a strong economy. A strong economy without significant growth is not a very healthy economy.

      • Re:Moving time! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by DaHat ( 247651 )
        Head on over to http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2006/01/20 /515606.aspx [msdn.com] to see some info from the horse on what kind of information was requested and given, at least as far as Microsoft search is concrned... it's not as bad as many have claimed.

        • Re:Moving time! (Score:4, Interesting)

          by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @02:37PM (#14533924)
          You realize that this could be the first of numerous future requests, right? And there's nothing stopping the future requests from being far more probing.

          With the first request they:
          CAN see how frequently some query terms occurred.
          CANNOT look up an IP and see what they queried
          CANNOT look for users who queried for both TERM A and TERM B.

          With the second request they:
          CAN see how frequently some query terms occurred.
          CAN look up an IP and see what they queried
          CANNOT look for users who queried for both TERM A and TERM B.

          And with the third request they:
          CAN see how frequently some query terms occurred.
          CAN look up an IP and see what they queried
          CAN look for users who queried for both TERM A and TERM B.

          At that point censorship and persecution is far too close.

          • Good idea! Lets all live in fear of subpoenas because they CAN be abused!

            Better idea... deal with them on a case by case basis and froth when the really bad ones come out... not when there is the potential for a really bad one to be issued.
            • Remember, the "really bad ones" are all relative. That is why this sort of data is collected slowly. It starts out relatively benign. Then the next time around it's just slightly more probing, but not so much as to get people riled up. That process repeats for a while. Soon enough, BAM. There goes your once free nation.

              Anyone with even the smallest background in world history will know how that that sort of situation has happened time and time again. And the outcome is always the same: tyranny. To think any

      • Re:Moving time! (Score:2, Interesting)

        by aichpvee ( 631243 )
        Growth is the key to a strong economy. A strong economy without significant growth is not a very healthy economy.

        Do you really believe that insane nonsense? Infinite growth in a closed system (ie THE EARTH) is IMPOSSIBLE. It's this kind of thinking that has doomed our economy to an unending cycle of booms and crashes.

      • Re:Moving time! (Score:3, Informative)

        by rolfwind ( 528248 )

        Growth is the key to a strong economy. A strong economy without significant growth is not a very healthy economy.

        I don't know about that, eternal (big) growth is unsustainable if the population of the country levels off or if all the 3rd world countries (cheap labor/new markets) evolve into 1st world countries over time.

        I think growth is needed for a strong economy with a lot of debt (US: Government has 8 trillion dollars debt, individuals even more) and you can see this hit Japan even more, as it's populat

      • Being allowed to move millions of people to build a dam or host an Olympics without the consent of the governed does wonders for the GDP!
        • in China, the government has the right to move people for national causes.

          in America, the government has (unconstitutionally) given the right to businesses to move people if the business will use the land for more profit and taxes.

          which is scarier?
          • By the way, thanks for adding me to your foes list. I'm sure it's due to my reputation as a dangerous religious dissident.

            For what it's worth, I'm apalled by the abuses of eminent domain. But the people who are encouraging these abuses aren't in my camp. They are people like Justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter, and Mayor John Street.

    • And the fog and cloud formations that you later realize are pollution, and the immense gap between rich and poor, and the arbitrary nature of the government...

  • The 21st century will belong to China. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @02:23PM (#14533848)
    Indeed, countries like China and India will be where the 21st century will take place.

    But in the big picture, it is just the typical East-West reversal. Remember, in centuries past China and India were the major world civilizations. The Europe of today is much like the China of the 1200s. And the China of tomorrow will be much like the Europe of today.

    The East was on top for a while, and then various events lead to the West becoming more prosperous. But we see the tide turning one again, this time in favour of the East. In three or four centuries it will no doubt switch back towards the West's favour, and soon enough there'll be yet another switch.

    • "and soon enough there'll be yet another switch."

      The scientific basis and accuracy of your predictions are amazing.

      If you turn out to be right, can I call you NostCyricZamus? ;)
      • Or even better you can call him: A beautiful mind. His analysis was so insightful... I bet none of us ever saw things from this persperctive. It takes a beautiful mind to reach that levels of historical awareness. Thank you /. for bringing this knowledge to the masses at score 5!
    • " In three or four centuries it will no doubt switch back towards the West's favour.."

      It will go much faster, as living standard grows in China much of what are now a benifit for the country will vanish. People will demand more spare time, higher salarys, the country will have to deal with enviromental issues and political issues. Just to name a few.

      They are cutting allot of corners today that gives them an temporary advantage over the west.
    • Civilization carried on in the Islamic world, as well, although Genghis Khan certainly threw a wrench in the works in the 1200s.
      • Actually, the economic center of gravity of the world had been steadily moving west.

        It started in China, moved to India, then to Sumeria, Greece, Rome, Western Europe, US East Coast, US West Coast.

        These days it is crossing the Pacific and is moving towards Japan (it may be already there) and back to China.

        (This is not my idea, but I forgot who first discovered it)
        • Absolutely wrong. The first important civilizations appeared in Mesopotamia (that includes Sumeria) this happened long before (-1000 BC) Asian tribes formed into thriving societies. The ancient Chinese civilization appeared in an advanced form around 500-300 BC. By that time great societies had already formed and vanished in the Mediterranean (Minoan civilization around 1000 BC) and lets not forget Egypt which was a prevelant civilization for at least the whole 1000 years BC. And I have no doubt in my min
        • Actually, the economic center of gravity of the world had been steadily moving west.
          So we can save our economy just by slowing down the earth's rotation a bit? Actually it would be kind of nice to have a 25 hour day, so long as I get to keep the hour!
      • A very important factor in the fall of the Islamic civilisation, other than the mongols, was the plague. The mongols carried the plague and it travelled farther than they did. It didn't seem to affect the mongols themselves. It hit both the Islamic world and Europe, though Europeans soon developed a relative immunity against it, but the Arabs didn't seem to and it continued to hit them hard and decimate them until the 19th century. I'm wondering if this is a case of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel the
    • I've got to disagree, this is not you're typical pendulum swinging anymore. In centuries past, nations were isolated. We live in a global economy now with rapid communication, if the pendulum is swinging, its not swinging much, but rather getting comfy in its final place.

      I don't think India and China are going to be where the 21st century happens. Really their only benefit is they have a large population with which to pull work from. With the rapid replacement of manual labor with automated means (somethin

      • At that point India's and China's greatest strength (their population) will be their biggest burden because it will no longer be the nation with the largest work pool, but rather the nation with the most efficient machines. At this point, it seems that a number of nations could take that title, none being China or India.

        I think 2030 is a bit optimistic for a fully automated workforce but I can forsee it being at the middle of a transition period.

        But in any case, won't there still be a workforce? Even if mo

    • Indeed, countries like China and India will be where the 21st century will take place.

      Sure it will. [digitalelite.com]

      Seriously though. While that link is a bit tongue-in-cheek, the reality is that while it seems logical on the surface to assume that China and India will take the technological lead, reality is likeely to prove counter-intuitive.

      It may be non-PC to point this out, but China and India are incredibly backwards countries by Western standards. You think America has problems because some vocal minority wants to r
      • While I can see where you are coming from the point should be made that there is a whole world that is being more and more innovative, and such a place in time like the information age sets up new challenges to what (and who) is the domiant force.

        I am an Australian and I see innovation (the product of any form of R&D regardless of location or input costs) taking place. The 'net makes it easier for developments to procreate throughout the globe in many areas, for example business pratices, innovation cul
        • The 'net makes it easier for developments to procreate throughout the globe in many areas, for example business pratices, innovation culture, etc; which don't attribute them to a geographic reigion.

          I agree. That's one of the reasons why I'm not willing to say others can't catch up, just that they will have a great deal harder time than is normally suggested. Indeed, even with the globalization effect of the Internet, I'm not sure anyone could catch up at this point.

          Set aside all the media hype about funda
          • Hey Tom,

            I looked for an email on your home page but couldnt get the links to work.

            Thanks for replying. I see your point and persepective. I'm just one of those who is backing (believing) in a change in our species.

            But the lead is easier to follow than create. Markets are prone to external factors, meaning they are beyond the control of any leader. Their are no permanent leaders.

            I dont see you as "Pro-USA chest pounding".

            Cheers

            P
    • you're wrong that it will switch back for one very important: depopulation. Europe already has negative population growth and the US isn't far behind.

      Contrary to popular belief, the world isn't overpopulated in any way and the explosive growth in population in India and China, combined with their new economic strength, means they will hold the reins until other high populated areas (such as South America, Africa, or the Middle East) develop economically.

      The lack of population in Europe and North America wil
    • Ibn Khaldun had a theory, although he used city dwellers and nomads based on his personal experience. The perspective may have been too limiting in terms of the relative "virility" of city dwellers and nomads, but I think the basic premise is not bad and can be generalized:: Those who have lots of wealth, spend more time spending the wealth than creating new wealth. Relatively speaking the poorer people are more productive, becaue they are capable of living with less. In essence we're spoiled brats liv
    • Indeed, countries like China and India will be where the 21st century will take place.

      You are basing this idea off of the fact that Ebay is not charing transaction fees? Come on man, you are a known troll but you have to try harder than that...

      I don't see China/India becoming a power in my lifetime. Or my childrens. Or their childrens. They have people. They don't have much more than that. PhD's per capita? No. Resources? Not really... middle east and Russia, and neither of them are getting anywhere qu
  • money doing this? The answer is simple: volume.

  • That's great (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22, 2006 @02:23PM (#14533852)
    because eBay just raised fees for US sellers again.

    • Re:That's great (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @02:29PM (#14533884)
      And, like it or not, the Chinese market dwarfs the American market. Remember, that holds true even today, without the full Chinese market being completely realized and integrated. Once the Chinese market really gets going, coupled with that of India and other Asian nations, traditional markets will look quite irrelevant.

      Even with significant wealth, a 300 million body US market is still quite insignificant when compared to the 2 billion person Indian and Chinese markets.

      EBay is quite lucky to be able to tap into such fantastic financial resources so early on. If they can maintain a foothold in those markets, they will become extremely prosperous.

      • My guess though is that more people won't mean more power in the long term. I'd suspect that as the world grows, the real measure of strength will be something of a exploitable natural resources per person measure. I don't know what china's sitting on but it better be big.

  • It's all about a bigger marketplace (Score:4, Interesting)

    by morcheeba ( 260908 ) * on Sunday January 22, 2006 @02:24PM (#14533853) Journal
    Yahoo Auctions beat Ebay to the Japanese market by only 5 months [businessweek.com], and it has dominated there.
    • Taiwan and Hong Kong have a similar situation where whenever people talk about online auction, they mean Yahoo Auction. China, on the other hand, is quite uncertain as the Chinese find the idea of "pay first, then wait for shipment" is quite....ridiculous.

      My advise: Never do business in China unless 1. you have someone you trust that lives in China 2. You are extremely good at approaching the limits of laws without being illegal.
      Law doesn't mean much in China....

  • the article is misleading.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by 512k ( 125874 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @02:24PM (#14533856)
    it's not a %9 increase based of the auction ending price in the US, it's a %9 increase of their current percentage. %2.75 to %3 in this case. Ebay has 3 levels of pricing, %5.something percent for the first $24, %3 for the next 25-999 of value, and around %2 for anything over $1000. The people who make a living bulk importing brand new things from China and re-selling them on ebay are NOT going to be happy about this.

    And you can always set your searches to be US only.
    • The people who make a living bulk importing brand new things from China and re-selling them on ebay are NOT going to be happy about this.

      Actually, almost all of the Chinese listings are in Chinese, and very few of the sellers will be able to speak useful English to any degree. It's almost impossible for any 'average' ebayer to buy products from Chinese sellers, so I don't think those bulk importers have to worry yet.
  • in an effort to compete with local competitors

    Apparently the extra value eBay brings to the table in China has been priced above its actual worth. Nice to see them essentially admit this in not so many words.

  • Ebay just raised their fees (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ebay just raised their "mid-tranche" fees to 8% (oh yea, they prefaced that by lowering their insertion fees for "low-tranche" items by $.05) ... IMHO the fees ebay charges have gotten way too high! I sold a $92 item and after paying for the ebay and paypal fees came away with a little less than $80

    12/92 = 13%!

    I think they're just shooting themselves in the foot because I'm not using ebay half as much as I used to and I'm sure I'm not the only one they've turned off.
    • "oh yea, they prefaced that by lowering their insertion fees for "low-tranche" items by $.05"

      That "lower tier" is $0.99 or less. I decided to sell some of my duplicate Animal Crossing-e cards and, doing the math and including PayPal fees, there are very, very few things in this world you could sell on eBay for $0.99 and come out in the black.

      As far as I'm concerned, lowering the percentage for that tier is an empty gesture when you are all but required to accept PayPal to make a sale and they charge a flat
    • eBay's no different from a casino now. They have analyzed every possible profit making angle, and any which way you try to sell, they'll come out ahead more than 50% of the time.
    • You're not, no. I used to do a reasonable amount of business on eBay, but nowadays, I don't anymore - it's just not worth it. Considering that there's no guarantee that things will actually sell and that you have to pay a significant fee even when they don't, I've pretty much stopped doing business on there. Not that it will matter much to them, of course, but as soon as there's a worthwhile competitor (Yahoo does not count; they're probably even worse then eBay in terms of corporate ethics, if that's even
  • So what eBay is saying is now that we own the North American market, we'll keep raising the fees.

    Does anyone know of any other good online auctions?
    Maybe its time we start to take our money to the competition so we can get a break like the Chinese.

  • 1. Give away the service
    2. ????
    3. Take over market share
    4. Raise prices again
    5. Profit!

    So they just need to figure out how to steal the market share and they are good to go.
    • 1. Give away the service
      2. ????
      3. Take over market share
      4. Raise prices again
      5. Profit!

      So they just need to figure out how to steal the market share and they are good to go.

      Step 2 is "Wait while the market works."

      Indeed, at this point all they would have to do is outlast their competition. The market itself will likely lead to consumers going with the lowest-cost option. So there are no unknown steps in this plan.

  • Fortunately for EBay (Score:4, Funny)

    by ztucker ( 938031 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @02:52PM (#14533992)
    In an unrelated move, the Ebay subsidiary PayPal tripled its "seller protection fees" for as yet undisclosed reasons
  • 1.x Billion Chinese = 1 Big (potential) Market But the bottom line is just how many can/will buy/sell using their system. Its like the last comment about how the seller doesnt get paid till the buyer is happy. Reminds me of NAFTA and Mexico. Vast potential market, but didnt quite work out that way. Dont get me wrong, theres alot more net centric user potential in China, but like India even with the massive amount of people, you still have to grow your client base and that may take more time then even a alte
    • The Chinese "we have big big potential market, make you lots big bucks" line has been suckering American business in for some time now. It's only a big market if they'll let you into it, and even if you do manage to successfully "partner" with a Chinese firm, odds are that it will end up not being your business anymore. Japan has been remarkably successful at keeping foreign corporations out of their markets, and China is doing much the same thing (although in a different way.) Until U.S. corporations wake
  • With all additional service fees they hit sellers with, it often adds up to 7% of the sale price. Because of this sellers can't make money or are forced to tack on outrageous shipping and handling fees. I haven't bought or sold an item through ebay in ages. Because it's just not worth it. And the reason for that is not lack of items to buy, but ebay itself pricing its sellers out of the market.

  • Ebay's Failure (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bellum Aeternus ( 891584 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @03:06PM (#14534063)
    My time in China showed me that Ebay is failing, not because of competetive pricing, or a poor cost model but because their major competetor is home grown and plays to the Chinese cultural prefrences. Ebay has been hesitant to branch their code base to make Ebay-China more Chinese friendly -- and therefore no cost cutting measure is going to save Ebay in China. Just look at how wonderful Ebay did in Japan. http://news.com.com/2100-1017-845099.html [com.com] It's the cuture stupids , it's the culture!
    • Even the article suggests that Ebay lost to Yahoo! because they were late getting to market in Japan. Metcalf's law really applies in ebay style auctioneering. In the absense of software interoperable with ALL auction sites, the largest site will have huge advantages over competitors identical in operations. If bidders have to use the website to find auctions and bid, then they'll gravitate to one or two sites, the ones with the largest selection. The primary function of this is the number of people visitin
  • Oh no, the pricing model of the 1990's is back. eBay has forgotten it is a publicly traded company and shareholders want money. If Yahoo (or whoever) wants to do it for free, that's their problem.
  • Just to set the record straight, and in case anyone was confused by this statement:

    ncluding PayPal and other escrow services

  • Just my 0.02c (Score:4, Interesting)

    by squoozer ( 730327 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @04:33PM (#14534499)

    I'm pretty new to the whole eBay thing (about a month) but I have to say as a new comer I am stunned by the complexity and cost of it. The fees are nothing short of scandalous and the number of things that you have got to get your head round before being able to sell well.... The whole auction thing is dead in most markets as it is dominated by businesses setting start prices which are what they want for an item (erm, I'm guilty of that too but that's not the point). To top it all the site is slow and generally confusing. I'm surprised no one has taken the market away from eBay.

    • The love of my life (domestic ebay guru) has started only to bid on "Buy It Now" items. Its too big and fast in some categories to bid effectivly. I have seen items go for little more (or less) than then manufacturer sells them for. Perhaps there is a good market for mini site holding mini auctions of targetted products.
  • "WTO" and "anti-dumping laws."

  • Bootleg Central (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mrshowtime ( 562809 ) on Sunday January 22, 2006 @09:01PM (#14535688)
    Ebay has a serious, serious, problem with China and it's "goods" provided/exported. I love how they raise the rates for legitimate US sellers, but ignore the fact that now the Chinese Bootleggers list for FREE, totally screwing anyone selling dvds on ebay. Do a search for the Sopranos on ebay and you'll see what I mean. Ebay is bootleg city and has really done nothing to stem the tide of Chinese bootleggers on ebay. I have seen a LOT of Chinese bootleggers that sell only bootleg dvds that have THOUSANDS of positive feedbacks and are ebay Powersellers and are relatively untouchable. Hopefully ebay will start to take China more seriously and suspend the bootleggers, especially now that they are not making any money for ebay and are effectively tying up the ebay system. Of course, this won't happen, especially with ebay now asking sellers to waive any and all rights and protections if they want to sell on the new ebay express site coming soon.

    • Really? That's outrageous.

      On an unrelated note, I needed to purcahse a few DVDs. **click click** ebay.com

    • As much as I hate buying bootleg items, if you go to Shanghai, most *government* shops sell bootleg DVDs. Now this indicates that whether or not it is illegal it is accepted by the Government *and* the greater community over there. eBay is an international service, they should NOT dictate to one nation another nations values (whether positive or negative). You need to be more tollerant.
      • Yeah, that's easy for you to say when you, or your government ain't paying for anything (the intellectual rights, the ebay fees, the residuals paid to those who worked on the movie/show or the cost to create the material in the first place.) We are not talking about competition, we are talking about unfair competition. Let's see how "tolerant" you would be if the roles were reversed.
        • Um, I don't think I'd mind if roles were reversed (note: neither am I chinese or blood related). If Australia suddenly got into China's position of ignoring US Copyrights I'd be more than happy. But then perhaps US will send over their troops.
        • This is totally offtopic, but regarding your sig:

          "I didn't accept 'wasn't optomistic it could be done' for and answer"

          I read it several times, and still can't quite parse it. What do you mean?

  • Foreign company enters market, dumps product at below market cost to make sure that local competitors can't get a foothold.

    I know I've heard this one somewhere before...

  • What would happen if someone in China opens up a private mailbox service (similar to Mail
    Boxes Etc or Postal Annex) and take advantage of the China Ebay and their policy of
    weived fees.

    If ebay sees that you hava a China address, would they give you the China rates?

    If you are a seller, you don't have to worry about having your China address in your
    transactions. It's only the buyer who has to have a good shipping address.

    Perhaps we here in the U.S. would need to have two ebay accounts. One that we use
    to sell (with a China address) and the other we use to buy (with a good U.S. shipping
    address.

  • Wasn't it a few years ago that Microsoft said it was ok to steal their software as long as you were Chinese?

    And now eBay says you don't have to pay fees if you are Chinese?

    American history used to have Jim Crow laws of segregation. Sonds like some kind of new segregation is forming on the internet.

    If someone can afford to give away their product for free, then those of use who are forced to pay the subsidy should really consider boycotting the companies until their price models are brought into a balanc

    • The reason eBay China scraps the listing and final evaluation fee is because eBay China is at the loser end of the scale. There are other bigger online auction sites in China that attracting much higher traffic, have bigger user communities, better service and best of all FREE. Like the native 'taobao dot com' (means treasury hunting), a subsidiary of Alibaba - Yahoo's Chinese partner. Which I think it is very unfair to other eBay user in the world. I am guessing the only non technical issue to stop a Chin

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