On August 15, 2006, there will be a mass boycott against eBay’s recent fee hikes. eBay store owners are urged to close their doors on this day and completely shutdown their store. Obviously, if only a few people do this, it won’t make a big impact on eBay. The purpose is to show feeBay that we are the ones who pay their bills, and when greed clouds their vision and they make poor decisions like raising fees by 500%, there are consequences. If we can get 100+ store owners to shut their store down on August 15 at about the same time, we can give feeBay a good kick in the pants. I will be closing my store. Will you join me? If so, welcome to the revolution! If not, I wish you all the best of luck dealing with eBay.

The forums are everywhere, this one caught my eye:
eBay Protest

The protest merchandise was soon to follow: Check out this Cafe Press listing:
Cafe Press

As a protest, many eBay store owners began by listing
‘fee hike’ auctions of varied items, a doll without legs
and arms, a card box house (to replace the one you’re
going to loose by closing your ebay store). But eBay
didn’t like the protest so they shut down protest auctions
as fast as they were listed.

I have listed my most recent protest site at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jzc1V_1gC0

Feel free to add your own!

by Pratt Braithwaite

My store…is shutting down
My face…just wears a frown
‘Cause whatever I say
It won’t stop eBay

My yard…is filled with this crap
From toys…to clothes from the GAP
Won’t sell it tomorrow or today
Thanks all to eBay

Gonna go to Amazon or 7Bids
Gonna go to Yahoo or uBid
Because I, I can’t sell anymore, no way
The fees are too high for me on eBay

I sell from the same state as another
oh great, “IT” found out…and they
blocked my account.

Tell me what I did to deserve all this pain
Tell me why PayPal locked up my account again
No I don’t have money to just throw away
Thanks a lot to eBay

So lets all ban eBay

I’m appalled at the recent announcement about the eBay
store fee increase. You can bet that I have already closed
my store, but had I not I would be joining the 8-15-2006
mass store closing being advocated by some ‘eBayers’.
Please feel free to post your own comments about the
feeBay increase, pro or con.