February 2008

My friend Lauren Kerstein is an expert in the field of working with children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders. She recently told me about an idea she had to create a website dedicated to featuring books on Autism.

Based upon her deep experience with the subject matter, Lauren put together a categorized list of useful books on Autism. I was glad to help her out from a technical perspective, and last week we launched the Autism Asperger Books website.

Lauren also just became an author at Autism Asperger Publishing Company, as her first book called My Sensory Book is pending publication. She describes the book as follows:

My Sensory Book is a workbook designed to assist children with understanding their sensory systems better and the impact sensory input may have on their emotions. This text is set up for adults to use with children and older children to use on their own. It may be helpful for use at home, in school and in the community.

It is insipring to see how people like Lauren can make such a difference and help other people in their line of work.

As someone who sells items on eBay periodically, I found it surprising that eBay has announced a new fee structure that gives sellers like me less of an incentive to sell items through their site.

The new fee schedule (basic fees and feature fees) will take effect on Feb 20, 2008 that reduces insertion fees, increases final value fees and does not refund reserve fees. According to an announcement from Bill Cobb, President of eBay North America, their goal in making these changes was to "improve the overall experience for our customers."

However, the new fee structure will have the opposite effect on me. Here is a comparison of fees before and after the change for a typical auction that I would run on their site with a starting price of $0.99, a reserve price of $24.99, and a final value price of $75.00.

Fee before the change: $3.89 ($0.60 insertion fee, plus $0.35 gallery picture fee, plus $2.94 final value fee, plus $0.00 reserve fee [$1.00 reserve fee refunded if item sells])

Fee after the change: $5.49 ($0.55 insertion fee, plus $0.00 gallery picture fee, plus $3.94 final value fee, plus $1.00 reserve fee [reserve fee not refunded if item sells])

There would be a $1.60 increase in cost for a typical item that I would sell on eBay. If the item doesn't sell, my fee would be $1.95 before the change vs. $1.55 after the change, which is a $0.40 decrease in cost compared with the old fee structure.

But, my goal is to sell the item, not to have it listed and then expire unsold meanwhile paying eBay just for the privilege. Because my items sell virtually every time, I don't feel that the risk of having an unsold item needs to be mitigated. The benefit of a $0.40 savings for having an unsold item does not offset a $1.60 increase in cost to sell the item.

Needless to say, this new fee structure doesn't quite satisfy their goal of improving my overall experience and encouraging me to list more items on eBay.