eBay is going to lower it’s fees in 2008. Since affiliates get a % of those fees (and if you use auctionads/shoppingads, your part of an eBay affiliate) you can expect to make less if your an eBay affiliate through Commission Junction or use AuctionAds / Shoppingads.

eBay plans to cut the fees it charges sellers across auctions in its three biggest markets — the United States, Germany and Britain, executives told investors. Next week, eBay will announce changes in the pricing of its services and improvements in the way buyers can rate sellers, Donahoe said.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/22808450/for/cnbc

Personally, I think eBay needs to really shore up it’s affiliate program and make it a bigger incentive for webmasters to place eBay ads on their site. I think they should be taking care of the top line and drive buyers to buy more often, instead of lowering fees and saving the seller money.

A study from the University of Maryland suggests eBay buyers save billions of dollars every year by purchasing via online auctions rather than conventional retailers. A research study by two statisticians from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business—Wolfgang Jank and Galit Shmueli—finds that consumers save billions of dollars every year by buying products through the online auction service eBay rather than going through conventional retailers. The study claims to be the first time the overall economic impact of online auctions—specifically eBay—has been quantified. 

So why would you cut the fees charged to sellers? To get them to sell more? They are going to do that anyway. You need to just drive more buyers to eBay. A great way to do that is through affiliates. How many people think to buy an automobile part on eBay and then have a mechanic install the part. You can save alot of money doing that kind of thing. But, many people dont know that. Websites such as my automobile forums can help educate them, and are more likely to do so if eBay provides a decent incentive to do so.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 1:20 pm and is filed under Basic Rants and Raves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.