Ebay hike in fees to cover up from loss revenue from Google?

[blaze]

The fee hike was a bit jolting and resulted in a loss of share price.

I'm sure they always had this planned, but I wouldn't be surprised if the timing was because they wanted to cover up any loss of revenue via Google.

[diamondgrl]

If they did this because of Google, their share price indeed deserves to go down.

The only economically justifiable reason to raise fees is because the market would bear it and that it would increase revenues (or at least increase it over the projected revenues). Any other reason would be unsound business judgment.

So if the decision was triggered by Google, the real question is why eBay execs weren't smart enough to raise the price to an economically justifiable level before Google acted?

[blaze]

Maybe they weren't entirely sure Google was going to act.

It's probably not something they want to admit that they might have a business model which depends on the search engines somewhat.

It's quite a hike though, and the timing did seem a bit awkward.

[Shak]

:)

conspiracy theories

did u know Google and eBay are think of merging ...

Shak

[whoisgregg]

Haven't ebay fee changes always been infrequent, drastic, and unexpected? This doesn't seem unusual to me.

[blaze]

I think one business adjusting to a major shift in policies of another business is not a conspiracy theory.

Personally, if I was going to raise my prices as a major public company I would do it at a time when it would serve many purposes. Hiding revenue weakness would be one of them.

[sacX]

eBay signalled upcoming fee increases to affiliates about 2 months ago, and increased affiliate payouts.