Just having a rant about private seller fees and promoted Ad's, don't mind me.
Summary: darktints shares their frustration with high eBay fees, particularly for promoted listings, after concluding that the charges exceed the expected promotion rate. They describe additional charges related to postage and taxes, which they find unfair and misleading. wheretheloveb agrees and shares similar experiences, noting that promotion is almost necessary for visibility but comes with high fees. alix-1200 provides a tool to estimate fees, explaining how eBay calculates them. sml192 and jonatjonatjonat discuss the inclusion of postage in fee calculations, expressing concerns about fairness. The conversation highlights dissatisfaction with eBay's fee structure and the exploration of alternative platforms like Vinted.
Not looking for an answer because I'm pretty sure I know it already. I used to use ebay a few years back privately and I even ran a business account for a few years. Ultimately, I had to end the business account as the fees meant it was no longer viable for my small business to continue selling on here.
With new competition in the private selling space from Vinted, ebay chopped all the fees on private sellers so I decided to clear some bits out from the loft and sell them.
Had a few fee free sales that went off ok so I thought, why not pay % promotion fee to get things out the door a bit faster.
Just sold my first item through promoted listings now and was very happy to see that an item I selected a 14% promotion rate is more than 26% after all there trash fees and taxes have been added on. It was only a small item and I'm glad this small item was the first to sell as I now have a chance to take down all my listings before ebay get their grubby mits on my money.
The item sold for £4.54, I got charged £1.22 in fees for a 14% adrate. The breakdown for what the fee is based on includes cost of the item, cost of postage and packaging which I don't even see as ebay manages postage and import tax which is is a con as its a domestic sale between private individuals.
So if you promote your items, you dont just pay an ad fee to promote the item, you pay to promote shipping companies and you pay to promote some junk sales tax that ebay slaps on. All of it gets wrapped up and has 20% VAT slapped on it also. What a load of trash!
Now I've promoted my listings, I can't sell anything within 30 days or the thieving hustlers will charge me for promotion even if I end the promoted items on my listings.
And ebay wonders why they losing custom. Anyway, rant over, sorry to burn your ears off.
wheretheloveb
·2 weeks agoWelcome to the new world of ebay.
Keep ranting, because if everybody rants, ebay might take some notice, although I doubt it.
I've been banging on about this in numerous other threads. Promoted listings is basically a monumental increase in seller fees but done by stealth.
The trick is to tell people to promote and get ahead of everyone else. The reality is if you don't promote, you hardly get seen.
If I read it right, you promoted at 14%. This is a very high promotion rate and probably because ebay was suggesting that you use this rate ? I think most people only promote at 2 or 3 %.
Either way, it's sheer corporate greed. If not , it's ebay trying to recover lost revenue from sellers and buyers moving to other platforms.
My rant ))
darktints
OP2 weeks agoYou know what though, I knew i was signing up for 14% and was happy to pay that. It was a low value item and it beats throwing it away. If ebay makes 14% on top, I would have been fine with it. To have 26% sliced off the top is just pure greedy and not upfront and honest with the seller. Glad I found out through something small and not one of the more valuable items I had listed.
Went through afterwards a de-listed everything I was selling (I had about 60 listing up before this).
Just in case anyone from ebay is reading this, this little incident inspired me to purchase a showcase with my items on Vinted this evening - Vinted says thank you!
wheretheloveb
·2 weeks agoI've dipped a toe in Vinted. The surge of interest in items as soon as they went live was unbelievable. A few sales were made aswell.
Don't know how you found it but the site is very automated with limited features. They're also really hot on policy breaches. I got a 3 day ban within 2 days of being on the site !
darktints
OP1 week agoYeah Vinted is very "one size fits all" in terms of how you use it, but the results speak for themselves over there. My days of business selling online are firmly behind me now though so they are perfect for selling a few trinkets from the loft.