EBAY has been hit by mass desertions, with almost 800 Australian store owners walking out on the internet auction giant in the wake of a large fee hike.

‘We are rebalancing the market towards our core listings, the listings that have made eBay so strong,’ Simon Smith, eBay managing director
The $US38.46 billion ($51.3 billion) Californian company jacked up fees and reduced the promotion of fixed-priced store listings after its financial results showed its high-margin auction business slowing.

Figures from website ListMy Store show the number of stores fell from more than 14,000 days after the fee hike was first announced to 13,244 this week. EBay does not release store data.

EBay promotes itself as a supporter of small business.

Research it commissioned earlier this year from ACNielsen shows that more than 17,500 Australian businesses used the auction site as their primary sales channel. A further 35,000 Australians used it as a secondary income source.

Under pressure from Wall Street analysts, eBay founder and chairman Pierre Omidyar - who Forbes estimates is worth $US10.1 billion - has turned the screws on small sellers, increasing store rental from $9.95 to $14.95 monthly and increasing insertion fees from 10 cents each to up to 50 cents each. Final-value fees have almost doubled.

Posted: 09|6|06 at 7:32 am. Filed under: Auction News.