The eBay Reseller Marketplace
eBay advertises that any reputable seller that needs to liquidate excess inventory can sell in the Reseller Marketplace. It is interesting to note that Marketplace Sellers do not need to be eBay PowerSellers to sell on the Marketplace site and the sellers do not have to follow standard eBay policies.
Listing Options
Auction Listings
Available to both Basic & Extended subscribers
- Listing duration: 1-7 days
- Listing fee: $20 per listing
- Final transaction fee: 3.0%
Fixed Price Listings
Available ONLY to Extended subscribers
- Listing duration: 1-30 days
- Listing fee: $1 per listing
- Final transaction fee: 5.0%
Basic Subscription $79 /month
Extended Subscription $149 / month
As an eBay Powerseller, I looked at the Reseller Marketplace a few times but I don’t find the Reseller Marketplace to be a very good product sourcing tool. For one thing, most (but not all) of the items offered in bulk cannot be resold on eBay for even the purchase price much less at a profit. As an example:
On eBay, the Griffin reflect nano case was sold by one seller for $1.95 each and, more recently, even lower. In about 7 weeks, only 4 of this item was sold by this seller despite the great (cheap) price and the shipping was only $3.99.
on eBay Reseller Marketplace: a bulk offering of 46 units just sold for $101 ($76 +$25 shipping) more than $2 per unit delivered. Since this item cannot even be sold for $2 on eBay there is no possibility for an eBay Powerseller to make money with this item.
And sellers on the Reseller Marketplace do not have to follow the same rules as eBay sellers so Powerseller buyers need to pay careful attention to each Marketplace seller’s terms.
For example, eBay recently sent out an email welcoming a new Marketplace seller “MXPorting”:
Note that MXPorting includes their website directly in this listing and, in addition, tells the potential buyer that the cost of shipping will be revealed to them AFTER they place a bid not before.
Note also that this particular Marketplace seller also requires sellers to pay the PayPal fees (and is likely allowed to do so because the company is located in Mexico) but also requires the buyer to use a SOT (secure online transaction) service to pay for the items.
The Reseller Marketplace is available only to current eBay Powersellers. Access to this Marketplace is a free benefit of the eBay PowerSeller program although I am not sure how valuable this “benefit” is to Powersellers. I am disappointed that eBay has not done more to work with liquidators and manufacturers to offer great bulk deals to eBay sellers.
Another example of one (or actually in this case none) rule for the chosen few, and many rules for the rest of us. I don’t even want to ask about the mythical ‘level playing field’.
In Australia, eBay is offering Gold PS access to sourcingforebay.com, which they claim is the latest product sourcing site for Asia. I haven’t bothered visiting it as whatever they’re trying to sell isn’t my area of interest (books), but PS who have visited the site say it’s full of overpriced products, many of which are knockoffs or cannot be listed on eBayAU without violating policy.
Judy
November 13, 2008
Lord Donohoe forbid those pesky smaller sellers access to anything which might enable them to hang on at eBay. After all 10 years, 100% and 4.9,4.9,4.8 and 4.7 doesn’t make you at all trustworthy or responsible, and we are just so darned noisy!
Henrietta
November 13, 2008
I was listing an item on the site live deal and they have an option of using a paypal button for payment. I just happened to look at the terms and they are charging 10% – yes 10% for the use of PayPal.
mechelle
November 13, 2008
Very interesting article. Thanks so much for the info !!
crystal
November 23, 2008
I work for a large direct import wholesale company in the midwest. I was just denied access to the Reseller marketplace. We want to market to Powersellers and sell them products at a good price. They just said they were not adding any new wholesale customers at this time. Is this unusual? We are a 4A1 Dunn & Bradstreet company with a 64 year reputation so I am not used to being refused access. Confused in KC?
Kellie
June 3, 2009