Or you could look at it as business sellers now having to pay for all the graphs, sales data, research data and other assorted whistles, bells and gimmicks without any further contributions from the armies of private sellers FVF of 12.8% + the same on their P&P costs. For years private sellers have been subsidising all this stuff that we didn't want, never used and a lot of which we don't even understand.
Most private sellers still adhere to ebays old slogan of "List it - Sell it - Get paid" using basic listings, none of the trappings that have been added to and overlaid on the site over the years almost entirely for the benefit of the business community, whether correctly registered or not. Not one of these "improvements" has ever increased my sales in any noticeable way.
Yes, the site is mess and has been heading in that direction for years from the point of view of a private seller like myself as ebay re-configures itself as a site primarily for businesses and where it doesn't matter how many free listings it hands out or how little the fees are right now (don't forget that "Free to Sell" doesn't always mean what it says, even now.)
Like so many others I've stopped listing on ebay, the final insult being when my handful of ads. were all sliced to pieces by hundreds of Sponsored Listings mostly to advertise vaguely "similar" items paid for by business sellers. The final straw being the attempts by ebay to get buyers to NOT buy my items by even bombarding them with alternatives at the checkout. The chickens are definitely coming home to roost, ably assisted by HMRC and its new reporting rules.
It could even be that "Nearly Free To Sell" is a last desperate throw of the dice because ebay might have realised just how thin on the ground real private sellers are these days and the rate at which they're leaving for other platforms where THEY might get a level playing field and the odds on them selling anything aren't so blatantly stacked against them.
It seems to me that the business community is going to have to pay for the resources that are really only of use to them until ebay finds a way to coax back the swarms of private sellers that used to be one of its biggest assets.
Will it succeed? I find it hard to see how. Already there has been an up-swing in private sellers complaining about re-verifying their MP info. for the same reasons as before. Rejection of valid forms of I.D, still not sorted out since they occurred with the original registration, years ago. This is leading to another increase in "Why are my funds on Hold", because they cannot get through the process or were not told by ebay that all new sellers will have funds held.
The site is what its morphed into now and which so many experienced private sellers gave-up on. I doubt inexperienced new sellers will like it any better, nor will they find it any easier to sell on. They may come and try, fail as so many others have already and soon leave again.
