Starting January 19th, 2022, eBay will reintroduce its selling charge for sneakers costing $100 and up. The marketplace used to charge a 10% selling fee until eliminating it roughly two years ago, in December of 2019. About two hours ago, I received a mail from eBay in which the following statement was made, and I quote,
Dear housakicks,
As eBay continues to invest in our platform, we are making changes to final value fees for Men’s and Women’s sneakers listed in the Athletic Shoes category.Effective January 19, 2022, the final value fee for sneakers over $100 will be 8% (7% for Basic and above Stores subscribers). Insertion fees will continue to be waived for listings with a starting price over $100. See detailed FAQ’s here.
eBay is and will remain the most competitive destination for sneaker resale. We have the lowest fees among competing marketplaces and offer the latest resources to help accelerate, grow and scale your business: no-fee verified returns, seller protections and Authenticity Guarantee. To date, eBay has authenticated about 2 million sneakers globally, with a pair of sneakers purchased every four seconds.
The site also published the image below, demonstrating that when it came to selling fees, they were still the most competitive on the sneaker market.
I knew the no-selling-fees program wouldn’t last indefinitely. eBay understood how much money was being left on the table, and given that the platform acquired Sneakercon for the authentication process, you knew they were in financial trouble someplace, so it only made sense for them to reinstate the selling fees. I’m not sure how much this will effect the market. Honestly, even with no costs on sneakers $100 and up, I’ve only sold about 50 pairs of shoes on eBay in the last 24 months, so the issue isn’t the fees or the fake sneakers on the market; eBay is simply not a very dynamic marketplace to sell on. It takes about five minutes to put an item on the site, and once it is published, the buyer must wait for the item to receive enough views or exposure before hoping that someone will buy it. eBay continues to operate under an outdated structure that fails to suit the demands of both buyers and sellers. However, eBay claims to have sold over 2 million pairs of sneakers in the last few years, so something must be working. And it’s possible that restoring the selling fees will lead to another exodus of sellers from eBay to other platforms. The site does not provide any incentives to its merchants, which is a major hindrance to its development. In any case, I’ll be keeping a close eye on these adjustments in the next months.
