Attention all Jewellery Sellers. Increase in FVF from March

[a_very_vintage_affair]

A little Easter present from Ebay

[peturning]

Ouch!

It's a very strange direction to be moving in. Ebay Germany have abolished all selling fees and I'm sure we're all aware of growing competition from other services in the UK that too charge zero selling fees (they charge buyers instead).

I'm no business expert but it seems to me that growth is reliant on attracting more sellers and these sky high fees do not do that. It also pushes existing sellers elsewhere and opens up opportunity for a competitor to emerge.

[thesmokingrunner]

I have to say I'm not in the least bit surprised.

I stopped selling when Managed Payments was introduced and the FVF increased from 10% to 12.8%+30p, not only because I didn't (and still don't) trust eBay with my bank details but also because of the cynical increase in the FVF - bringing payments in-house should have reduced costs; it only served to increase eBay's bottom line.

I commented to a friend of mine at the time that the only way eBay could increase their profits was to either increase the number of sales or increase the FVF and my guess was that the FVF would increase to 15% within a couple of years. I think eBay are starting with the Jewellery category to see how it goes, but the rather cynical "We're committed to investing ... programmes such as the Authenticity Guarantee" suggests that higher FVFs will be rolled out, at least initially, to other AGP categories and, I would not be at all surprised, ultimately to all categories.

After 7th March you will be paying a whopping £150 (plus 30p) commission on a £1000 sale, including 14.9% commission on the P&P element of a sale. Wow. Just wow...

[darth_baggins]

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@peturning wrote:

Ouch!

 Ebay Germany have abolished all selling fees

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Only for private sellers.

[bennotbill]

eBay has lawyers, lawsuits, fines, and who knows what else to pay. They have to raise some extra money from somewhere and it's not going to be from shareholders or by reducing golden handshakes.

Sadly their blinkered attitude only sees raising fees as the means of increasing revenue. That only works short term and usually results in a further decline.

[merlinwholesale]

I'm already paying 15% but only 6p per order instead of 30p for managed payments, which works out cheaper for me for items I sell under £10.

This was a promotion offered by ebay which I opted in to quite a while ago.  I wonder what will happen to this now?

[happygolucky1968]

I was just thinking that too 

[merlinwholesale]

I can't remember how long the promotion period was for initially.  Would be nice if it was for a year or something.  On my overview page it just renews each month.

[litp*records]

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@darth_baggins wrote:

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@peturning wrote:

Ouch!

 Ebay Germany have abolished all selling fees

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Only for private sellers.

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And sellers pretending to be private sellers..

Once again the correctly-registered business accounts are expected to prop up everyone else.   It is not sustainable.

[thesmokingrunner]

Unfortunately, litp*records, it is sustainable for as long as sellers - correctly registered or not - continue to roll over and pay whatever fees eBay decides to impose.

[tribalgiftsuk]

Sadly it means my handmade jewellery items  that are under £30 will be cheaper on the other platforms that i sell on and savvy shoppers will find better deals elsewhere.  I have always aimed to keep prices the same across them, but this will no longer be possible. I will also reduce the amount of cheaper jewellery i list on Ebay. So other platforms will benefit from this across the board as sellers can alter the prices accordingly on Ebay. 

I will also reduce the promotions spend to absorb this price increase.

Such bad timing when people are not spending as much on lower priced jewellery due to the cost of living. I hope this increase on Jewellery fee's is reflected across the entire global Ebay network. Other countries selling to the UK already have unfair advantages. 

I hope Jewellery components sellers will ensure they list in crafts for findings and beads, or wholesale lots so that the materials costs do not increase also.

[litp*records]

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@thesmokingrunner wrote:

Unfortunately, litp*records, it is sustainable for as long as sellers - correctly registered or not - continue to roll over and pay whatever fees eBay decides to impose.

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True.  It's also like Disneyworld being able to charge $20 for a hamburger because enough people will pay it..  They keep pushing the prices.  But in reality there is no such thing as infinite growth like shareholders want to believe.  Eventually a tipping point is reached where customers will say "no more".  And that is not just based on cost alone, but when the experience stops being fun

[indigo-island]

I'd literally only just pulled this id back out of retirement for handmade jewellery.  Thankfully I was going to reopen my Etsy shop before the end of the month as well. 🙂

[ducatimondo]

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@thesmokingrunner wrote:

I have to say I'm not in the least bit surprised.

I stopped selling when Managed Payments was introduced and the FVF increased from 10% to 12.8%+30p, not only because I didn't (and still don't) trust eBay with my bank details but also because of the cynical increase in the FVF - bringing payments in-house should have reduced costs; it only served to increase eBay's bottom line.

I commented to a friend of mine at the time that the only way eBay could increase their profits was to either increase the number of sales or increase the FVF and my guess was that the FVF would increase to 15% within a couple of years. I think eBay are starting with the Jewellery category to see how it goes, but the rather cynical "We're committed to investing ... programmes such as the Authenticity Guarantee" suggests that higher FVFs will be rolled out, at least initially, to other AGP categories and, I would not be at all surprised, ultimately to all categories.

After 7th March you will be paying a whopping £150 (plus 30p) commission on a £1000 sale, including 14.9% commission on the P&P element of a sale. Wow. Just wow...

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To fully crystalise how bad that increase is, the same £1000 sale would hit you for £69.35 in fees today

That is just ridicuous 😬

[ducatimondo]

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@darth_baggins wrote:

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@peturning wrote:

Ouch!

 Ebay Germany have abolished all selling fees

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Only for private sellers.

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That will in turn only make more business sellers set up as private sellers, like the huge problem that already exists here and that eBay already fail to do anything about.