Buyer Protection is coming soon

[nutrafituk]

Just announced - finally some sort of good news for business accounts basically saying ONLY PRIVATE SELLERS will have this fee added (£0.75 fixed + various %). Hopefully that will make a difference for genuine business sellers and make those dodgy ones re-think their position:

We’re excited to announce that from 4 Feb, buyers will benefit from a brand new protection every time they shop on eBay. What’s even better is that this comes at no extra cost to you or your buyers. To give your buyers more confidence and security when shopping, Buyer Protection will be included on every purchase on ebay.co.uk. We’ve kept things simple for you, so there’s nothing you need to do to access this protection. These are all part of our efforts to make eBay the best marketplace for our community. Here’s how the recent changes will benefit you.

Why Buyer Protection is good for your business As a business seller, Buyer Protection is included for free for you and your buyers. They’ll get the protection, without the cost. With Buyer Protection, all buyers and sellers will now get 24/7 customer support where you can connect with a real person by phone whenever you need, or start a chat to get quick answers. We’ve also still got you covered with secure transactions, thanks to payments that are encrypted end-to-end and handled by our trusted payment partners.

We’re always looking for more ways to help drive sales to your business, so from 20 Jan, Coupons, Multi-buy and other discount tools will only be available to business sellers. You can look forward to more exclusive benefits in the future. Learn more about Buyer Protection What’s changing for private sellers

• We recently made changes to our fee structure so it’s free for private sellers to sell on eBay (excl. Vehicles). As part of this, from 4 Feb, a Buyer Protection fee will be added to listings from UK-based private sellers so we can make investments into these protections. This fee will be included in the item price and be paid for by the buyer. As a reminder, this is free of charge for business sellers.

• To give buyers more protection and encourage timely shipment, private sellers will be paid once the item is delivered. There’s no change for business sellers and you’ll still receive your payouts as quickly as you do today.

• We know it’s important to have a fair and equitable marketplace for all business sellers. That’s why we’re monitoring trading activities on eBay to help business sellers using a private account transition over to a business account, or restricting selling activity as necessary.

[game_raid]

That is if they seller has used the simple delivery which I believe is being forced on all private sellers. We use eBay fulfilment and I guess it would be the same process, if a case is opened we don't have to do anything, it automatically gets resolved for us.

At the moment the standard process is in place for those that arrange their own shipping.

[dion5feb2016]

Just had a message that says nothing has changed and that the situation of refunds being the responsibility of the sellers is as per. Confused or what?!

[dion5feb2016]

Nothing else to add except, here, here! Agree entirely.

[myriad*seller]

I'm not sure, I saw messages yesterday that said that eBay would refund buyers but I thought it unlikely as that would cost them a LOT (and I can already see how people working together could scam eBay if this were the case). 

[dion5feb2016]

Can’t find that anywhere and yes it probably would.

[game_raid]

If you use simple delivery then you will be covered as I added above, If you arrange your own shipping then cases will still need to be dealt with.

[dion5feb2016]

OMG the new messaging system, what is that all about. Last week only found out when I trawled the website on my account I had made 2 sales! Nothing whatsoever emailed to me!

[myriad*seller]

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@dion5feb2016 wrote:

Have scanned a lot of the replies etc but cannot see anything about having to refund before the 14 days is up? 

To clarify, at the moment if a buyer does not receive an item I have a set amount of days to refund. That is definitely NOT 14 days. If I don’t refund eBay will do it anyway and I will no doubt have a black mark on my account for not being cooperative. Will sellers be given an extended period of 14 days now before having to refund? So, I refund after say 7 days, the item turns up after that or AFTER the 14 day period. What happens then, do I get my money after 14 days despite having had to refund the buyer. I will not be happy having to refund someone before 14 days as the item may arrive (this has happened to me in the past, things get delayed), then where do I stand trying to get me money. Surely I have made an ‘admission’ that it is lost, do I then attempt to claim from the courier? Hope that makes sense, nothing about this makes sense at the moment!!!!!

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When an item is lost or damaged in the post and has been sent by Simple Delivery, eBay will refund the buyer. Not the seller. The seller keeps the money. 

[myriad*seller]

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@game_raid wrote:

The Item not received cases will still be as normal and inline with when you shipped an item, a seller will still be responsible for dealing with cases.

It's the same as now if you close a case and refund and the item gets delivered a few days later you are left to try and claim from the buyer. If you send an item untracked the chances of a buyer being honest and saying it has finally arrived are very slim from experience.

The 14 days does not come into it, all eBay are saying is funds are released after 14 days if no tracking has been uploaded that's the only thing that is changing.

As with any item sold tracking should be used if viable, then if it is lost you claim from the courier.

What happens if the item is lost in delivery?

If your buyer hasn't received their item and the estimated delivery date has passed, they'll let you know there's an issue by opening an 'Item not received' request. If a buyer opens a request, we'll send a message with all of the details to your registered email address – it'll be available in your Messages too. Once a request is opened, you have 3 business days to resolve the issue. After that time, either you or the buyer can ask us to step in and help resolve the issue.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/paying-items/buyer-protection-fee?id=5594

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How is my item covered?

Items are protected against loss or damage from the moment they are scanned into the carrier's delivery network until they are marked as delivered by the carrier. In the event that a buyer raises a claim for an issue that occurs during transit, you'll not be held responsible.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sellercentre/postage/simple-delivery

[myriad*seller]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sellercentre/postage/simple-delivery 

How is my item covered?

Items are protected against loss or damage from the moment they are scanned into the carrier's delivery network until they are marked as delivered by the carrier. In the event that a buyer raises a claim for an issue that occurs during transit, you'll not be held responsible.

It hasn't changed for normal deliveries 

But if you send via Simple Delivery, eBay refunds the buyer 

[bravergrace]

I believe that Etsy already covers the risk of items arriving late or going missing in the post altogether, so it can certainly be done.

In fact, it should be good for sellers, because it will finally give eBay an incentive to deal with serial claimants. 

The false INR problem (ie people claiming non-arrival for anything where the tracking isn't updated), will be virtually non-existent - but eBay will be charging everyone who buys from a private seller 75p + 4% to "cover the risk" of the item going missing in the post, plus taking a rake-off from the "Simple postage" that buyers will be paying for.  

Say this means eBay will be making £1.5 on every £2 sale - in return for refunding the occasional buyer for an item that goes astray.  That's a good profit for eBay, but expensive for buyers.

[myriad*seller]

£1.15 to insure a £10 item which will undoubtedly arrive...

I can expect a lot of pushback against this from buyers as currently that protection is free AND it actually benefits sellers who don't have to refund

It doesn't give the buyers anything they don't currently have except a "helpline" (which is currently available for buyers during waking hours anyway!) . Now they will be able to call CS at 4am!! Wow!

[bzmotman]

Hopefully you are right and there will be a lot of pushback towards Private sellers. As a Business Seller I am looking to capitalise on buyers dislike of the fee. My immediate thought was to include something as simple as "No Buyers fee to pay" in my listings.

As Ebay aren't telling them I'm contacting my regular overseas buyers this weekend to let them know about the fee and to reassure them that it won't apply to my sales. I'll probably put a note into all my domestic sales for the next few weeks as well.

[game_raid]

Why would you want to do this? The fee is never seen by any buyer, it is up to the seller if they want to leave prices as they are which makes their items more expensive or absorb the fee.

[game_raid]

Simple delivery isn't mandatory as yet, I was referring to how things are now and how they are handled.

As far as I'm aware it is only opt in currently with no date set when it becomes compulsory.

"If you use simple delivery then you will be covered as I added above, If you arrange your own shipping then cases will still need to be dealt with"

[nax2025]

For low value items it's better taking yourself to AliExpress as they have a far wider choice and I always check them before committing to buy anything on eBay. In most cases it's a better deal on Aliexpress, particularly with user images and videos uploaded to the product page with their feedback. They also have a buyer protection plan, and they give partial or full refunds when the item doesn't arrive on time.  It's worth making written lists of what you want to buy and then do it in bulk so you can take advantage of combined shipping and the numerous money off vouchers they have site-wide. eBay has no real feedback on product pages beyond seller's feedback, which is automated now anyway. eBay is a dinosaur.

I have already reported eBay to Ofcom regarding their "free to sell" advert campaign which has proven to be highly misleading, then just a few short weeks later sellers being forced to lose £1.75 of the item's value snatched by eBay, who think they can skirt around the rules by pretending that the customer pays for it, when in reality customers will go elsewhere where the item is priced at it's actual value without a £1.75 premium tax for being an eBay customer unless the seller takes the hit to sell it at market rates.

It's no different to when Uber, Deliveroo etc started slapping fees on both the customer side and the business side after spending money advertising to bring in customers, and would you credit it, there's been a massive drop in the use of such services and the revenue of the companies has only accelerated the losses.

Whether you choose to look at it as the buyer having to pay even more tax on top of the 20% VAT the treasury steals, or as a massive scam on eBay having rug pulled private sellers after spending so much money on advertising to revive a dying platform, the end result is the same - it's more expensive for buyers to come to eBay, and they will lose any loyalty they had to the site.

Just download the info you need, withdraw the last of your funds, and then use the "close account" button by searching in the help guide on the main site.

As a late-stage capitalism slave if you don't withdraw your labour then the slave masters will continue to take more and more until they break you. That's the only way they can extract wealth from you, so cut them off and stop being their primary breadwinners.

Don't be a slave. Walk away, untangle yourself from this shareholder infinite money farm.

[sml192]

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@nax2025 wrote:

Whether you choose to look at it as the buyer having to pay even more tax on top of the 20% VAT the treasury steals,

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There is no VAT when purchasing from a private seller unless the item/seller are located overseas. 

[dion5feb2016]

Yes, just realized that they are STILL saying free to sell in their ads. Surely misleading.

[insidethe93]

In addition the eBay FAQ says "At checkout, you will see the fee amount underneath the item’s name. Click on Buyer Protection to see what protection is included and a detailed breakdown of the price."

How many buyers will look at the charges and decide not to buy after all? So I wonder how long eBay will provide such details. They seem to be a law unto themselves.

Somehow it seems unfair to charge for every transaction even if buying multiple but separate items from the same seller. Does that mean, for instance, a charge per different colourway I order of the same artwork?? - for eBay that's fee-money for old rope. Only if you're buying multiples of the same item from the seller is the buyer fee limited to once. eBay is charging multiple times for 'buyer protection' - that's a canny way for eBay to rake in "profit".

It's the way eBay spins the charges as helping the buyer/seller that also annoys me, that and charging BOTH a flat fee AND a percentage.

[dion5feb2016]

We can only hope that with all these comments etc eBay will maybe take notice. Have to go now, some flying pigs to feed!