JS_Harris - 1:11 am on Jul 29, 2009 (gmt 0)

Not good, here's why.

EBay Inc will slash fees by 20 percent for its top-rated sellers

Translated Ebay just slashed commissions from affiliates who send the buyers to ebay too. When this is added to the OTHER unmentioned fee reduction (5 free item listings per month) it's the affiliates who are seeing less incentive to send traffic to ebay.

Its latest move, announced on Monday, is aimed at rewarding the most reputable sellers, who drive shoppers to the site and give top customer service

Sellers don't drive shoppers to eBay, affiliates do, and if those top sellers have a website that DOES in fact drive traffic they are earning a commission from EPN already, it's allowed.

I find the moves interesting overall but not from an affiliate point of view, eBay stands to be chasing off several affiliates, especially if things like Adsense begin to pay more with much less work. (I hear it's close already)

edit: as major companies like Yahoo! become EPN (eBay partner network) affiliates there is less need for smaller affiliates, might these moves also be designed to squeeze out the small affiliates? Yahoo's new front page has eBay offerings, with affiliate links, as does the new Yahoo! toolbar.

eBay used to be a site where everyone took part, today it seems leadership is steering towards keeping the biggest sellers happy and making it harder for the smaller affiliates to stay with the program while courting the likes of Yahoo! There will be no growth with this approach, eBay will live or die based on the future whims of its super affiliates, the mom and pop affiliates will be gone for lack of income.