Free listing and no fees for private sellers

[lord_and_lady_m]

Some private sellers have received a stonking offer.

Free to list

Free to sell

Until April! 

Don't know what the T's & C's look like but damn I could do with those types of offers. 

[papso22]

Those business sellers trading on a private account will be laughing all the way to the bank.   

[btr.style]

It's probably the most ridiculous move I've seen eBay do for quite some time. Like I mentioned in another post, we all know about private business sellers and so do eBay. Yet they have truly just handed it to them on a plate. 

All 100% does with unlimited listings is allow those private business sellers to continuously undercut businesses for the next 2 months causing a lot of very sour grapes and abandonment of the platform. 

I had already decided we were leaving eBay after the lack of fee promos, not even at Christmas. This only pushes things to happen quicker. We'll be reserving vintage clothing to our own independent website when it's launched and the rest will follow soon after. 

No doubt we'll see another video soon saying how eBay really support businesses. This move has really shown the opposite. 

[tribalgiftsuk]

Could it be they have made that offer because they have seen a huge drop in private listings going on because of the HMRC stuff. So they are trying their best to keep the private sellers? 

Where are our offers for our loyalty as business sellers? It is getting so bad on here now i have started calling it Feebay  

[tommystrezures]

All I would add lets hope they have read the T & C's and small print before they go mad listing over 30 items........ 😉

[four_mid_able]

From what iv'e seen i can only agree.

I have seen quite a big drop in unregistered business sellers actually listing anything.

Maybe the "message" is filtering through ?.

On the upside though ,maybe sales for properly registered sellers will increase.

Maybe Ebay realise the change to the imbalance may actually benefit them ?.

Kerching either way ?.

[the-nutwood-collection]

Why is there this obsession with encouraging private sellers?  I really don't understand where the business benefit is to eBay.

Many don't offer returns and, when there's a promotion like this, the search is clogged with sellers listing trash.  It costs them nothing - so why not list it?  Some fool might buy '10g of ends of Wool' and pay postage of £3.25.

Do eBay hate business sellers?  Do they want us all gone from the platform?

[kempseykate]

To be fair, there are also many busness sellers who clog up the site with trash - not to mention the ones who use variations to list 'a sample' at 99p, whilst the actual item costs a whole lot more.

As in most areas of life there are good and bad in both.

[bennotbill]

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@the-nutwood-collection wrote:

Why is there this obsession with encouraging private sellers?

---

Because they discovered that there is no eBay without private sellers. They found that out when the site was briefly split in two.

The variety of private sellers items attract buyers to the site who then may go on to buy something from a business seller.

eBay should have already known that before wasting time and money on their failed experiment.

But I have to agree the fees and offers are too one sided.

[thebeautician]

It can be for a very simple reason. Private sellers account for less than 20% of eBay's revenue, however, they are many and their listings drive traffic to the website, which ultimately benefits also the business sellers, especially the high-volume traders. Probably this is an attempt to regain some traffic to the website (eBay has been losing buyers and sellers for a while). 

[the_book_seekers]

It feels like another slap in the face for business sellers.

It may also explained the rise in jewellery FVFs with further rises across other categories allegedly in the pipe line. Somebody is going to have to pay for this promotion and I don't see it being ebay. 

[magpiecorner1]

Also states that long established accounts won't be subject to sales reporting until 2025.

Which I thought was by far the most interesting part of this offer.

[rigged_out]

If eBay put a limit on it. Say more than 30 items as well as more than say £5k (five times HMRC's trader limits) then that will take out any serious competitive businesses. Then eBay could offer free listings and free fees all year round to genuine private sellers (just like in Germany) to keep the site healthy.

[returns_andexdisplay]

The issue with multi variation listings it is good for listing things like fabric, wallpaper and curtains where the seller may offer a sample for 99p yet the price of the item could be much higher. This is an example of where it would be used correctly. I get the issue with seller listing one item but the adding a pen or something similar that has no relevance for 99p 

[returns_andexdisplay]

One of the reason ebay is losing sellers is they don't understand the competition and the way they treat sellers. I can have a shop on likes of Amazon or Shopify and have unlimited listings for around £30. ebay for the same price I get 250 listings and then pay per listing after that or upgrade and pay around £80 a month for 1500. Constant punishments with defects for everything they can think of and the mess they cause with EDD. 

[sheba-knows-best]

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@returns_andexdisplay wrote:

One of the reason ebay is losing sellers is they don't understand the competition and the way they treat sellers. I can have a shop on likes of Amazon

---

... and have to pay for returns in fashion whatever the reason, apparently? At least ebay has change of mind/doesnt fit returns which the vast majority of my returners use (thank god). That's the problem with all of these competing sites... it's swings and roundabouts when it comes to understanding sellers' needs. I've been offered 1.8% selling fees and NO returns. Whatnot takes returns to a central warehouse and gets rid of them themselves (I dread to think) - but average sales prices... ouch... not for me, ta. 

For once I agree with the beautician, ebay is using this fee promo to keep its army of private sellers (who are also then buyers and bring other buyers to the site). I have never been so hounded by other sites trying to get me to move from ebay. Clearly something is happening in Pre-loved (I suspect Pro Vinted, but what do I know) and ebay is fighting back. I hope this offer has been targeted with surgical dexterity, but failing that, I guess a sledgehammer will just have to do 😄

[billtev]

I reported one who had over 3000 second hand items and over 1000 new items on their site yesterday - got an email back within 10 minutes from their bot that they didnt seen anything amiss with their listings!! 

[btr.style]

What I see as a massive problem this time regardless of how it may or may not benefit business sellers by driving extra traffic is the nature of undercutting. 

Let's say a business seller has 10 of 1 item and a private business seller has 10 of the same. The business seller could just do 1 listing of 10 items. The private business seller would do 1 listing of 1 during the promo, undercutting the business seller and once it sells, if it's sold between fee promos, the business seller might have a few weeks before the private business gets the promo again to list another one and be undercut again. 

What will happen now is until April, once the private business seller sells 1, they can relist another right away. Meaning the business account will remain undercut for 3 months or until the private business seller has sold all of that stock. By then it will be well into Spring so businesses on the right account will likely have to lose sales and pack away stock until Autumn/Winter. 

I feel the sole reason for eBay doing this is to encourage those worried about this reporting to HMRC to carry on listing stuff due to this huge financial incentive. Unfortunately by doing this they've handed a massive advantage to private business sellers and have destroyed any remaining loyalty businesses like mine had towards eBay who will look at alternatives so eBay operations can be wound down. 

I've been keen to develop a website to go it alone for some time (namely due to the private business fee promo advantage) but haven't as I don't feel our photography skills are up to scratch. Yet after this unlimited fee promo news, I've put my hand in my pocket to fund a mini studio booth and decent camera to take the next step. Maybe it's over-confidence but I just can't continue to fork out 15k a year on eBay fees to list and sell a fraction of our stock range (I'll keep listings to around 250 to not have to pay for extra listings), when I could have our own website with many thousands of items listed for less than the cost of an eBay shop and significantly lower fees to sell. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I can see both sides of this one.

Ebay was built on Private sellers, it's only in it's later years that business sellers have become the norm.

But those private sellers are also the buyers on the site, so having more of them here, should be to the good on the whole.

I do however think that private sellers should not be able list items as brand new, as they simply cannot be, if they are a private seller and reselling something.

I don't see how it's really an issue against business sellers, even if they private sellers do undercut.  As long as they are actual private sellers and not masquerading as a business, they should only have one item to sell.  Which shouldn't really affect your sales in the main.

As regards the fee structure, I've been a long time seller on Amazon, in a completely different field.

The fees on Amazon in the main are considerably higher than Ebay when paying for a shop.

When you allow for all of the additional fees that you are charged, such as storage and so on, it's far more expensive.  And one of the main reasons that I am no longer selling on there, along with the Big Brother attitude of Amazon.

@btr.style   You mention selling on your own website as being cheaper.  But is it really cheaper, even with the lower cost per sale etc?  Did you not have to advertise and continue to advertise in order to get those sales and grow the site?  And that's not cheap.

I'm willing to bet that the overall cost is considerably higher for a website, at least until it's well established.

[magpiecorner1]

Its not a obsession, it is good business sense.

Ebay needs just two things - big sellers and buyers.   

The big sellers are the life blood of eBay - and they are not the buyers.  Buyers are, by a long chalk, private individuals.    Ebay started because private buyers came to the site, and some would have become the private sellers selling on eBay.  Business, and especially big business coming to eBay is the big change but t

he buyers have never changed.  

Now that eBay has tested fee free selling for private sellers in Germany they are testing on eBay UK - which does around 28% of eBay's Gross  Merchanise Volume - just a few percentage points

behind the eBay.com - suggests that Germany has produced favourable figures to an eBay striving to keep sales up for the Big Sellers.

I imagine eBay wouldn't give a toss about whether or not small business sellers are here - losing small sellers won't reduce sales - 20% of eBay businesses will be producing around 80% of sales.