eBay's 5 Free Insertion Fees for Online Auctions

Recently, eBay issued the following announcement about their new listing insertion fees:

Here is some exciting news about $0.00 Insertion Fees. Starting June 16, you’ll get 5 free Insertion Fees every 30 days for Auction-style listings.

Here’s how it works: Regardless of your start price, your first 5 Auction-style listings will have NO Insertion Fees when you list with eBay’s Sell Your Item form or Simple listing form.

The Final Value Fee for these 5 listings with $0.00 Insertion Fees will be 8.75% of the sales price or $20, whichever is lower. Any additional items sold during the same 30-day period will have the same Insertion Fees and Final Value Fees as they do today. Learn more.

Choose the option that works best for you, based on how you list:

• eBay’s Sell Your Item form or Simple listing form – If you’re currently using one of these forms, you can either take advantage of the 5 free Insertion Fees every 30 days, or opt out by listing your items via an eBay tool or third-party listing solution.
• eBay tool or third-party listing solution – If you’re currently using one of these tools, you can either take advantage of this new pricing structure by listing your first 5 Auction-style listings every 30 days through eBay’s Sell Your Item form or Simple listing form, or continue with your current practices at the current pricing.

We’re continuing our efforts to lower the upfront costs of selling on eBay. The 5 listings with $0.00 Insertion Fees are especially helpful if you don’t sell a high volume, but offer the kind of unique and hard-to-find inventory buyers expect to find on eBay.

eBay Forums Posts

Is it just me or has the 5 free insertion fees robbed you too? Let me give you a rundown of how you lose. With free insertion listings, you are charged a flat FVF of 8.75% or $20 whichever is lower. Normal auctions charge 8.75% of the first $25 then 3.5% of the remaining up to $1000 i think. So, heres an example of one of my "free listings" this month:

Normal auction:
Starting Bid: $0.99
End Price: $75.00
Insertion Fee: $0.15
Final Value: $3.94
Total: $4.09

Free insertion auction:
Starting Bid: $0.99
End Price: $75.00
Insertion Fee: free
Final Value: $6.56
Total: $6.56

THANKS EBAY!

Other postings had this to say:

Good, I thought I was the only one who saw this as a scam. Shame (on) you eBay.

I think Ebay was hoping you and the rest of us wouldn’t notice.

While its not a scam or a rip off per say it's misleading and
that is wrong.
Whether you had the time to read the whole explanation on
"free listings"--and dutifully compare the FVF's--the fact
that ebay has the possibility to make more out of it in the
end--provided your junk even sells... is typical corporate BS.

One posting had this suggestion:

It’s a bargain if you know how to work ebay. I put up 5 auctions
that were over $9.99 starting price but knew wouldn't go over
$25.00 selling price.

Therefore, I saved .55 cents on each listing. Only 2 of the 5
sold which is average for ebay. The other 3 didn't cost me
anything and were relisted in my store for .03 cents.
That's how you've got to figure it.