Brett Nilsen | October 6, 2022
Last week, eBay held their eBay Open 2022 event highlighting many of the milestones they’ve hit in the two years since starting their Authenticity Guarantee program. Most notably, they announced surpassing 2 MILLION items authenticated. With that type of volume, eBay would be a very high-value target for any shipping company to partner with.
Until now, UPS has been the leader in shipping when it comes to sneaker resale given their affiliations with both StockX and Goat. But, their leading position may be in jeopardy now that eBay, the largest re-commerce marketplace, announced this week that they will be partnering with FedEx.
eBay will be providing free FedEx labels to sellers shipping items to their authentication centers through their Authenticity Guarantee program. Although this will free up costs for sellers, it will tack on a fixed shipping cost of $14.95 to buyers, which is perfectly in line with their competitors StockX and Goat who charge their buyers $14.95 and $14.50 respectively.
As an avid sneaker seller on eBay, this partnership will have a major impact on my business, but overall I feel that it should be a very positive one.
eBay also announced that they will be increasing their seller fee for items between $100 and $150 from 8% to 12.9%, which sounds disheartening at face value, but this new shipping procedure completely offsets that fee hike.
Before, if I were to sell a Panda Dunk Low for $150 with the 8% fee and free shipping (most veteran sellers always swayed to offering free shipping as it seemed to attract more buyers even if there was a cheaper option without free shipping… idk its some psychological thing) this would return me about $130 or $126 depending on where I am shipping to, whereas now, I would be getting $130.65 no matter what.
I know, I know… this is not a major difference. But, there are still some important things to consider…
First, this adds more certainty to what you can expect to earn from your sale. More consistent fees make it easier to price your items when listing.
During their eBay Open 2022 event, they heavily stressed their focus on making the listing process quicker and easier, especially from mobile. So although it may seem trivial to save a few seconds when thinking about a listing price, that time saving still contributes to their goal of a more frictionless listing experience.
Second, there will be less risk when shipping as eBay covers loss and damage protection for the package in transit.
The largest concern from sellers regarding the partnership so far has been that FedEx is notorious for swiping sneaker boxes recently. This service from eBay will absolutely alleviate these concerns.
Also important: FedEx has faster shipping times than UPS (I mean, when the item does actually make it to the destination, that is). This will be a big differentiator for eBay from its competitors as most other platforms use UPS, so for a customer looking to get their pair ASAP (which I imagine is most customers), they will most likely go with eBay to purchase them.
Whether you are a fan of this deal or not, eBay is still the most prominent resale marketplace in the world, so if you are looking to resale an item online, I would still recommend listing it on eBay along with any other platforms you use to capture as much of the market as possible.
