eBay Plans for Removal of Unproductive Items

eBay execs recently told Citigroup analyst, Mark Mahaney, that plans are in the works to increase average Revenue Per Listing (RPL) by removing unproductive listings, driving higher conversion rates, and increasing average selling price according to an article on Auctionbytes. This has led to wild speculation of the eBay discussion boards about the definition of "unproductive" and also about the definition of removal. To many sellers on the Stores discussion board, "unproductive" is defined as listings that do not generate significant revenue for eBay, despite the the fact that many of these items may be part of an individual seller's business plan.

The consensus among the few sellers that have learned about this possible policy all seem to agree that a major fee increase is in store for sellers this year. Many sellers were predicting a summer fee increase prior to this announcement, but now feel that the increase will be a very significant increase that will force sellers to price items very low and reap very low profit margins, just to ensure that items sell. It is not uncommon for eBay to raise fees during the summer to boost lagging revenue created by a seasonal dip in number of listings on the site.