Business sellers v Private sellers - A simple solution

[howmuchtobid]

Ebay is clearly struggling to deal with this and I'm not sure they ever will.

A simple and easy to understand solution would be:

Brand new items - all sellers pay a final value fee regardless of whether you are a business seller or on a private account.

Used items - all sellers pay no final value fees regardless of whether you are a business seller or on a private account.

You cannot please everybody however I think this would be a better solution than the mess we currently have.

Business sellers just want a fair, level playing field, what we currently have is nowhere near that.

Ebay bangs on about recycling and reusing items when it suits them, well this is a solution that puts some real meat on the bone.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Why on earth would Ebay allow all sellers of used goods to have fee free?

Considering the fact that they are aiming themselves at being the place to be, for collectible/used etc they would literally be giving away millions in fees.

Why should a seller like this account, selling used clothing be better off than all those selling new clothing?

How is that fair?

Yes, there is never going to a situation where everyone is happy, but that is a major source of their income.

And it then provides a massive incentive NOT to sell new goods on Ebay.

The simple answer is that they need to police the accounts properly!

Yes, there will always be some that slip through, but if they stopped all those really obvious "private" accounts, then the site would be a much better place to sell on.

I mean within a few minutes, I can provide a dozen accounts that are breaking the rules by being "private".

The other big one, is the many drop shippers from Amazon, which are another one that is very easy to spot.

Yet nothing ever seems to get done about them.

[technthread]

Sellers will just list new items as new (other) or used. When eBay clamp down on that the sellers would then deliberately cause superficial damage to packaging etc on new items to avoid fees. Then eBay will clamp down on that by removing new (other) as a condition option.

These ideas always have drawbacks. It is like whack a mole, whenever there is a loophole people will take advantage it just never ends.

I have been very surprised at how many private sellers have been begging for the old FVF fees to come back. I would never have believed eBay could have designed a new system where that was possible. 

[howmuchtobid]

Simple way over that, just have two condition options, i.e.

New

and

Used

Very simple.

[technthread]

If I was a private seller and say I had a new jumper with tags I would just list it as used and say it was tried on for a minute and it didn’t fit. That is technically used. I’d be crazy to list that as new and pay fees. 

[howmuchtobid]

The vast majority of sellers selling used items are trading on private accounts regardless of whether they should be or not.

You should have learnt by now that ebay isn't capable of addressing the businesses on private accounts saga.

[howmuchtobid]

Yes you can do that however the item is still listed as used.

[krafty-kreations]

You should have learnt by now that ebay isn't capable of addressing the businesses on private accounts saga.

I am sure they are capable enough to do it if they so wished, I think they don't care enough

They are more interested in making as much money as they can, with promotions to sell and fees to buy, they don't care how they make the money as long as they make it. 

[howmuchtobid]

Yes I agree with you, I should have added they don't seem bothered about it which they don't.

My point still remains though as it's pure fantasy to believe ebay will sort out the businesses on private accounts saga. They have had a long time to rectify it and it's worse than ever.

[suelel1968]

EBay created the issue with different fees structures. Vted however make no distinction between the two, in terms of fees and say it is up to the seller to follow legal guidelines. Ebay have copied  Vted on all the new fees and delivery, i suspect there is more to come. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

That is an issue, but changing things in the way described, will most certainly not balance things out.

It is however something that Ebay has been addressing, though not particularly well.

As by allowing it, they are literally giving away free money.

So it is in their interest to fix things.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

They have had a long time to rectify it and it's worse than ever.

I disagree with this.

There has been evidence of accounts being forced to change to business.

So though they may not be having a massive crackdown, they do appear to be doing something.
Though I really don't think it's anywhere near enough!

Also, though it has been going on for a long time, it has only really reared it's head, due to the offers given to private sellers.  ie. vastly reduced and free fees.  Prior to that, though it was an issue, it didn't actually create an unfair marketplace.

[howmuchtobid]

Some may have been forced to change however more and more keep popping up, it's totally out of control.

[lucy_farmer]

'I am sure they are capable enough to do it if they so wished, I think they don't care enough'

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ebay bots are very, very good at spotting private sellers and their potential buyers attempting to swap contact details.

Is it really too difficult to write a bot program that simply recognises the words 'brand new' more than a handful of times on a private seller's listings?

Or spotted multiples of the same new things on private listings, or the words 'choose your size' etc....?

And I've never understood why ebay have offered 'shops' , out of stock options and multi buys to private sellers.

It's not just 'not caring enough' about the problem, but actively encouraging it....

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Well, I'm not so sure that it's totally out of control.

It is extremely difficult to gauge when your on the outside, looking in.

Like I said, I think that they can do more, but there is most definitely evidence of them taking at least some action.  But having worked for large companies IT dept's, I know how difficult it can be to get things changed.

It takes forever to get the ball rolling, but once it is, it can go very quickly.

And when it is in their interest to do so, I find it very difficult to believe, that they won't do something.

Bear in mind that the problem is compounded with the overall reduction in the economy.  Sales are hard at most times, but when wallets are tightened, it's get's even more difficult.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I think that Ebay's shops are completely out of date.

They were a good idea when they started them, but now, they are just a waste of time.

Yes, it's nice to have a shopfront, but the way they do things with charging, is so old fashioned as to be ridiculous.  Why should I be able to go elsewhere, make thousands of listings and as a rule, only pay a small monthly fee?  Yet on Ebay, I have to pay just to list items.  The costs can be quite stupid once your talking above a thousand or so.   And even without the shop, your paying listing fee, plus fvf's.  

So any kind of cheap item, the margins are vastly reduced.  

[jonat_broad]

Used items - all sellers pay no final value fees regardless of whether you are a business seller or on a private account.

sorry but eBay at a bare minimum have card processing fees to pay, let alone storage costs, servers, basic overheads like gas and electric. Even if you argue they can cover some of those costs elsewhere (through advertising like Meta would do with their marketplace) they still have to cover the card or payment processing fees to Visa or PayPal.

and on top of that, all you’ll find is sellers list everything used immediately but just make clear it’s new in other ways.

You’d be reliant here on having a system is only as good as the honesty of the users, and unfortunately, well, many, many people are not honest.

[rainbowtrax]

The best way to solve it would be to have one fee structure for all seller types across all item categories. Simple and straightforward.

As others have suggested, scrap the upfront listing fees as they are outdated and restrictive to growth for business sellers. Have optional paid for bolt-ons of shop features and upgrades, some only available to business sellers if they are only relevant to traders, but basic upfront listings free and unlimited for all. This would also balance out the massive monetary disadvantage of business sellers of one-off items when compared to those listing multi-quantity and variation items.

The only "advantages" then left of a private seller over a business seller would be the contact details display and the change of mind returns options. No annoying and confusing BPFs to consider and a level playing field for all sellers. What would we all post about then?

[inpoughkeepsie]

 Unfortunately, the current situation is of Greedbays own doing. Private sellers cottoned on to the 80% off selling fees every 2 weeks and hammered it, thereby creating upset/anger with the business sellers. Then, the totally free for private sellers arrived, at which point many business sellers created a secondary private account for obvious reasons. The only way to recover from the whole mess in my opinion would be to revert back to charging private sellers selling fees, maybe a few % higher than business sellers, cap the amount of listings per month and obviously scrap the BPF/SD which is proving to be vastly unpopular.

[jlovie]

The whole idea of completely free selling for private accounts was doomed to failure.

Evidenced by how quickly eBay had to backpedal and add BPF when they saw how much revenue they were losing.

IMO they would have been better off just reducing the fees all round, maybe to something like 5%.