5 Bucks a Day

I was afraid this was going to happen, and it did.

I sell on eBay still pretty heavily, everything I have is merchandise that I just keep relisting, as one auction ends I start a new one.

The last several weeks eBay has had a promotion where they gave a free upgrade to have your item listed in the gallery (a little thumbnail picture). I never used that on the type of auction I run because it’s typically for cheap consumable merchandise, not something where a picture is particularly valuable to attract attention.

Like imagine you’re selling toilet paper (I’m not, but consumable so similar), would ypu pay an extra .35 to have an extra little picture of a roll of toilet paper visible, if you’re only going to make a dollar anyway if it sells? Me neither.

So I never needed or wanted or chose the gallery option. eBay just stuck it in as a freebie, thank you very much. My percentage of successful auctions didn’t seem to improve, but now the promotion is over.

As I started to do my robotic relisting this evening, I noticed after pressing the submit button that the fees charged were higher than they should have been. Sure enough, I checked my account and now they’re charging me for gallery at .35 per auction.

Neat marketing trick. They give you something you didn’t ask for, and the next time they charge you for what you never asked for.

Now I have to go in to every auction I’m relisting for the next week and make sure I uncheck the gallery option that I never turned on to begin with.

I know I should complain, and if I did I would probably get my $1.05 back because eBay customer service has always been pretty awesome once you get to a real person, but is it worth the time to jump through hoops for 30 minutes to get back $1.05. I have better things to do, like write a blog post.

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