it would be interesting to see a graph showing the total number of listings and sales in each category (separately for business sellers and ‘private’ sellers) month by month since everything became free for ‘private’ sellers.
it may be that there has been such a massive pile-on of ‘private listings’ and private sales that eBay are laughing all the way to the bank because of what is now being generated by the buyers protection fee on top of shop fees , promoted listings and commission from businesses. If this is the case, nothing much will change unless business revenue starts falling off significantly.
But if there hasn’t been a massive increase in revenue from the buyers protection fee, then this way of operating would need more income from businesses (from final value fees in particular) in order to balance the books, let alone achieving the goal of increasing revenue.
Is that happening?
if it is, then there will be lots of businesses on eBay who are now doing much better, while there are some others - perhaps in certain categories - who are struggling. If that is the case, then nothing is likely to change for them.
if it isn’t, and the ‘no fees for private sellers’ experiment is actually failing, and is resulting in reduced income for eBay, private sellers will have to be made to pay more fees at some point.
And that would at least level the playing field to some extent between private and business sellers, and help any businesses suffering partly as a result of the sea of ‘private’ sellers in their category.
I guess only time will tell which way things are actually going
