Just as the "feel-good" was starting to come back to eBay, the natives are becoming a bit restless again this week. Why? Fee increases! What else? A few news items were floated across the Web this past week revealing what some people are calling "secret" fee increases eBay has not publicized. We all remember the fun that followed last year's eBay Store subscription and listing fee increase.

What started this was a piece over at MSNBC.com. The Red Tape Chronicles revealed a few "back door" increases that sellers are finding out about the hard way.

"For years, eBay would issue refunds to sellers who dropped the price of an item after it was listed. Not any more. And to make matters worse, this "no-more-refunds" fee increase was not part of the fee increase announcement eBay made in January. In some cases, the increase is a stiff 50 percent," wrote columnist Bob Sullivan.

He points out that this end of the refund policy is nowhere to be found in eBay's fee increase announcement back in January.

eBay spokeswoman Catherine England told Sullivan, "It's about the health of the marketplace."

Hmm, where have we heard that before? Tell us what you think about this "increase" in our eBay Forum.

Is That a New Toy?
Let's move on to a happier subject. eBay announced Tuesday the grand prize and first-place winners of the eBay Developer Challenge 2006, which called on members of the eBay Developers Program to submit their most killer and lucrative apps for the chance to win $5,000 and a trip to the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference.

The grand prize went to Eric Smith of gNumber for UnWired Buyer, an application that extends the eBay platform beyond the PC by allowing users to track and bid on auction-style listings from their mobile phones. ECommerce-Guide covered UnWired Buyer's debut in September.

Three minutes before a listing closes, UnWired Buyer calls the user's mobile phone providing them with the listing status and the opportunity to bid. Information such as price, bid amount, and time remaining are updated and relayed to the user in real-time.

The bidding state allows users to quickly enter a bid, or update their maximum bid, with real-time confirmations. Using the custom interactive voice response system menu users can bid anytime during the remaining minutes or seconds of an auction open listing by simply entering and confirming bids using the number pad on his or her phone. Users are notified immediately when the listing ends and will then be instructed to complete the financial transaction through an eBay or PayPal account.

The first place winner, AuctionContact by Alexander Stankovic, enables affiliates to serve up content-related advertisements for eBay listings on their personal Web sites.

Honorable mentions included the following: Gumshoo by Craig Villamor, an AJAX application that remixes eBay data to provide a fresh interface to the marketplace; AuctionWatch GD by Ty Kroll, which allows users to watch eBay listings from Google Desktop; and Auction Monitor by Christopher Wong, which allows users to view their My eBay information using RSS, Yahoo! Widgets, and Apple Dashboard.

Congrats to all the winners.

Groundhog Day
Another month, another contender. Or pretender? JC Samuels Inc. announced Thursday the launch of xsNitro.com, a consumer auction Web site "dedicated exclusively to motorcycles, vehicles, and motor parts and accessories."

Many of you might say, "Why bother? eBay Motors is the one and only king of this hill." Well, according to a company statement, xsNitro should appeal to buyers because it offers "a less expensive alternative that will attract an audience dedicated solely to the motor market. As an incentive to grow the community even faster, the company has decided to remove their auction listing fee. Sellers have already seized the new opportunity, and hundreds of motor auctions are already up for sale."

eBay, eh?
Similar to the partnership with the U.S. Postal Service, eBay Canada has teamed up with Canada Post to make it easier to sell and ship directly from eBay.ca.

According to the eBay.ca site, sellers "can create, purchase and print Canada Post shipping labels in just minutes, directly from eBay. No need to register, just use your existing eBay and PayPal accounts."

Sellers utilizing the service can save eight percent on shipments to Canada and nine percent on U.S. and international shipments.

ChumpUSA
Computer supercenter CompUSA announced this week it's jumping on the eBay bandwagon. Stores in Henderson and Las Vegas are offering services to handle photographing, writing descriptions and posting items for sale on eBay. After the sale, CompUSA will box and ship items to buyers. You can monitor sales online and after an item sells, you can redeem sale profits either in cash or in CompUSA gift cards. If you choose cash, you receive 70 percent of the first $500 of the sale and 80 percent of any additional earnings. If you choose the CompUSA gift card route, you receive 80 percent of the entire sale.

Devin Comiskey is the Managing Editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.

Do you have a comment or question about this article or other e-commerce topics in general? Speak out in the SmallBusinessComputing.com E-Commerce Forum. Join the discussion today!