Final value fee increase for Jewellery

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Final value fee increase for Jewellery - UK eBay Community

[kempseykate]

Well, that could go one of two ways.

It will either focus ebay's attention on the revenue they are missing from unreg business sellers, and we will see lots of posts on here about being forced to upgrade.

Or, there will be even more unreg business sellers in that category.

Not very good news for business sellers of low value jewellery - that's some increase 😞

[darth_baggins]

Ouch. More listings going on Etsy then. eBay seems to be determined to drive sellers away.

[magpiecorner1]

Straws and camels' backs comes to mind.

That's more than 15% increase - 16% if you are not VAT registered.

[tribalgiftsuk]

Ive just seen that and im so annoyed, i do sell a lot of low value jewellery that i make myself and i am already competing with China, who are getting reduced postage prices. I will have to list more jewellery on other platforms and sell more other things here when i can get a decent profit margin after the excessive fee's and promo's. 

Not much notice given either..... i could rant for ages about this! LOL

I will also reduce my promo fee's then by at least 2% on those lower priced jewellery items as well. and i hope others do like wise.  What a ridiculous time to increase this. It could have been raised for higher priced jewellery items only, not for the cheaper items. Im waiting to hear if RM plans any price hikes in April.... all in all another spanner in the works! 

[theoriginaldeal]

Effectivly it is 2.4x the fee on items at around the 1000 mark.

Old fees inc Vat on £1000 was £74.94

New fees inc Vat on £1000 sale £179.1

Unless i am missing something.

[4_bathrooms]

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@theoriginaldeal wrote:

Effectivly it is 2.4x the fee on items at around the 1000 mark.

Old fees inc Vat on £1000 was £74.94

New fees inc Vat on £1000 sale £179.1

Unless i am missing something.

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Old fees:

£450 @ 12.9% = £58.05

£550 @ 2% = £11.00 

+30p: £69.35

+VAT: £83.22

New fees:

£1,000 @ 14.9% = £149.00

+30p: £149.30

+VAT: £179.16

Still a heck of an increase though (215% on a 1,000 item).

[btr.style]

Painful. If eBay consider upping the fees by even 0.5% on clothing, we are shutting down and moving from eBay. Had it not been for their greed over the past few years (No fee promo since 2022 and that was 25% off), I might have considered otherwise, but enough is enough. 

We have other options, admittedly it could cause a bit of an inconvenience but it's an absolute joke trying to earn a living getting bugger all help or any sort of nice gesture off eBay. I said at Christmas, everyone is struggling at the moment really with increased costs everywhere so it would have been nice at Christmas for eBay to have given out some sort of fee promo to businsess as a small boost for all the hard work we put in. We all got nothing though whilst private account businesses got their massive 80% off fee promos as usual. 

[bennotbill]

Someone has to pay the costs of eBay fines/lawsuits and ongoing legal costs. It's not going to be the shareholders.

And the authentication dream isn't going too well either or they wouldn't be laying off all those authenticators.

I imagine that this is just the start, or rather a follow on to all the recent staff layoffs.

[ojewellery]

Jewellery has traditionally been a higher priced category to list in - used to be 25% on Amazon.  It wasn't that long ago (or my memory may be playing tricks) that eBay dropped the fee on percentage over £400.  It seamed odd when authentication was then coming in that eBay would make a smaller (proportional) amount on these items, when the handling overhead cost is so much higher.

Ever the optimist, I hope that authenticity creates more trust in buying jewellery on eBay.  I'd hope that marketing of jewellery trust on eBay will justify the higher platform fee.  I've not seen anything yet in the retail press, mainstream press, online press, even particularly promoting trust in the jewellery on the platform - whilst on the platform.  Hopefully this is to follow - feels like a missed marketing opportunity.

eBay just became my most expensive platform I sell on, followed by Debenhams then Amazon, Etsy and Shopify.   

It feels like everytime I push hard and inch ahead, what ever gain I make gets clawed back somehow!

[the_book_seekers]

 I'd hope that marketing of jewellery trust on eBay will justify the higher platform fee.  I've not seen anything yet in the retail press, mainstream press, online press, even particularly promoting trust in the jewellery on the platform - whilst on the platform.  Hopefully this is to follow - feels like a missed marketing opportunity.

The only marketing I've seen for some considerable time is for motoring parts and Love Island. ebay has been missing marketing opportunities for years.

[pg_kicks]

They will advertise it, as they do for sneakers but its terrible advertising and directed at the wrong people ie the people who already know about it. They need to make a bigger deal of it on the site too, if I click on an item with the scheme it should be in bold, at least the same size font as the title and emailed to every buyer after they have purchased as we all know some buyers dont read the listing, its a great scheme (when it works) but they just dont seem to push it correctly. The amount of runners I get who have no idea about it when eBay insist of your average running shoe being checked shows they are just focusing on the 'sneaker heads' and no other markets.

[ojewellery]

@pg_kicks its good to hear marketing will follow.  Maybe as the sellers in the field, we need to be proactive and recomend locations we think our customers are likely to be.  I might give it some headspace and send off a few emails.

For jewellery, there are so many small independant retailers that I think eBay could pull onto the platform as well as gaining end customer trust.  

[pg_kicks]

I've spoken to them and the person I speak to agrees with me, and not just in an eBay customer service style of agreeing, its just a long road but it is slowly getting better. Its annoying as eBay dont ever reach out to its customers, we are experts in your own field and could help them but it just seems like they have plans set in stone and until it goes wrong they dont ever think of anything differently.

Hopefully you have somebody who is high up in the jewellery section, its a life saver having somebody you can contact, its been the best thing to come out of the open event for me.

[affordable-luxury]

Does anyone have any senior contacts who we can speak to about this?  You can't increase sellers fees by 214% overnight?  This is DEVASTATING for people who deal in the £450 to £1000 range.

[ojewellery]

They can and they have - whether such short notice is good business sense is another issue.  I'd have liked three months for this sort of change to schedule price reviews etc.

Deep breath in.  Business will find a new way forwards, I try to avoid knee jerk reactions - don't think mine generally are my best life decissions. 

All similar jewellery price point sellers will be in the same boat so the effect will be even.

The 214% isn't across the board, its a worst case scenario.  For most items its going to be in low percentages.  Take a £500 item and revisit our numbers.  Can you absorb any, can you tweak your price points - your items are rare and special how tight are the price brackets.  Experimentation may show you that they aren't as tight as you thought

In answer to your question did you get the jewellery prices are changing email?  If so, there is a link you can follow in this to express your thoughts.  Might be worth writing as a word doc then sleeping on it in an attempt to be constructive in your comments.

[affordable-luxury]

They are going to kill this category at £450 to £1000.  The margins are not there anymore.  The 214% increase will affect most of my listings, it is not a worst case scenario for me.  You can't impose such a crazy rise with 1 months notice.  Yes they can and they have, and they will suffer the consequences.

[4_bathrooms]

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@ojewellery wrote:

The 214% isn't across the board, its a worst case scenario. 

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It isn't a worse case scenario...215% is the increase for a £1,000 item. Due to the loss of the discounted rate for the portion over £450 the higher the price, the higher the increase. The other poster has an item listed for £1,999.99:

Old fees:

£450 @ 12.9% = £58.05

£1,549.99 @ 2% = £31.00

+30p = £89.35

+VAT = £107.22

New fees:

£1,999.99 @ 14.9% = £279.86

+30p = £280.16 

+VAT = £336.19

An increase of over 313%...

[affordable-luxury]

The link in the jewellery prices changing email just takes me to a standard help page.

[affordable-luxury]

It isn't as much as 313% because it's only 4% over £1000 on a £1999 sale.  But they must reconsider this, or they will see sales in this category DROP OFF A CLIFF.