Taipei, Aug. 1 (CNA) Reacting to complaints from dissatisfied users, Yahoo! Taiwan further explained at a press conference Tuesday a plan to start charging transaction fees for its online auctions.
Users have been complaining about an abrupt change in the past week following the announcement by Yahoo! Taiwan -- Taiwan's largest portal and operator of online auctions -- stating that it will start charging a 3 percent transaction fee on most auction items.
Yahoo also charges users for listing and various other functions.
Yahoo! Taiwan is not the first auction Web site to charge transaction fees and its rates are lower than those in Japan and the United States, according to Charlene Hung, Yahoo! Taiwan's vice president of e-commerce.
To reassure its users, Yahoo! Taiwan will conduct seminars throughout the country and improve its services, such as the mechanism of buying and selling and promotion of its auction service, Hung said.
It will also award each seller with five free item listings per month and raise the maximum compensation fee from NT$7,000 to NT$10,000.
Hung refused to speculate on the potential loss of users after the new plan is implemented. Taiwanese users of Yahoo's auction services have established a union and plan to negotiate with the company, while other users plan to simply use other free auction services.
The auction service of Yahoo! Taiwan was launched in 2001 and boasts 3.7 million listed items. According to market research group ACNielsen Corp., Yahoo captured 57.4 percent of all Taiwanese auction users, compared to 4.9 percent for eBay, which ranks in second place.