Blackthorne Software Discussion Forum: Seller's Assistant Release: A simple answer the the question of user fees

By jerry straw on Wednesday, February 07, 2001 - 12:53 pm:

We have been looking at this all wrong. What does business do when confronted with increased costs? Answer: Pass the expense along to the customer. That is the intent of ebay and it should be ours as well. Everyone should create a new catagory of expense behind shipping and handling and insurance called "ebay overhead expense". Put it in the tax message box of ad studio and make it a percentage of sale. Your customers will gripe, but where else will they go to get deals that we offer. We have Johns example of how to deal with that. Even hough I get paid like a migrant worker to toil on ebay, it's not quite like work. And even though we get our heads bashed like baby seals, it could be worse. This same situation happened to me in another business and passing on the expense so pi**ed off the authority that they stopped charging it. All the heat went to the authority. We can even get a jump on BT/ebay by charging the fee immediately, before the charges kick in.

By ray p (acyberguy) on Wednesday, February 07, 2001 - 01:36 pm:

Ahhhhh!!!
Very interesting and food for thought!

By jerry straw on Wednesday, February 07, 2001 - 02:19 pm:

Ya know somthing. I just remembered when ebay hammered us all about charging extra fees for shipping and hanlding. They assumed that boxes for shipping appeared out of the ether and packing material fell like mana from heaven and they pontificated that it was abusing the customers to do so. Well, what a difference a year makes. I now think that passing on the user fee as a tax is entirely appropriate. I know that it will p**s of ebay but they p**s me off. I put my 40hrs in on the net after my 40hr work week for what? to hear a sermon about abuse and watch them become millionaires by abusing me? I don't think so. How do you explain this John?

By Dan DeArmond (castingold) on Wednesday, February 07, 2001 - 02:38 pm:

Not a good idea to pass this to the customer I don't think...
BUT...
I do like the idea.... and WILL implement it immediately to add a line to my auctions telling EVERY auction buyer (and potential seller) what Blackthorne and E-bay have cooked up! Good thinking!

By jerry straw on Wednesday, February 07, 2001 - 02:48 pm:

Customers pay their own freight, I think ebay is just another common carrier in the same sense. Again, where are they going to go. Sooner or later we are going to charge sales tax to out of state customers by law. Should we eat that too????? If we don't wake up and take care of business no one will do it for us.