A WebmasterWorld member is a bit disappointed at an email he received from Yahoo which says that Yahoo will be raising the price of the minimum credit card amount to $250, up 10x from the previous amount of $25. Here's a snippet:
Effective October 15, 2008, the minimum account-renewal amount for all credit card-funded Product Submit accounts will increase from $25.00 to $250.00. This means that you must make a minimum payment of $250.00 each time you add funds to your Product Submit account. The increased account minimum will allow you to continue to participate in the new bidded marketplace, while reducing the risk of frequently having your products taken offline because of a $0.00 account balance.
Why did Yahoo do this? One thought is that Yahoo may have had to pay the transactional fee and didn't want to. It's also thought that Yahoo is about to lose a good number of small business subscribers who are not willing to pay $250, so Yahoo's savings may also be its loss.
A number of people are looking to leave Yahoo due to this price increase. I can't say I blame them.
Forum discussion continues at WebamsterWorld.
Update: Yahoo has sent us a statement on this news:
Last week, we did announce that beginning on October 15, Yahoo! Product Submit merchants will be asked to renew their account balances in a minimum amount of $250. After careful consideration, we found that the current minimum of $25 ran out quickly, forcing the merchant to increase their account balance again, or risk having their products taken offline due to a zero balance status. With this change, we hope to reduce the number of times merchants need to replenish their Product Submit accounts and ensure longer periods of product uptime on Yahoo! Shopping. I think you'll also find that this new minimum amount is in line with the industry's competitive norm.
