Private sellers to have sales funds held

[wyattharrisx]

Changes from now for new private sellers and from next year for existing private sellers means their funds from a sale won't be available until after delivery but no change to business sellers availability next day.  Seperate to this eBay are also mandating UK Private Sellers will all have to use eBay Managed Shipping

I wonder if this will encourage more private sellers who should be a business to convert..

[kath3735_wxmjn]

as a private seller i would be ok to pay a flat fee (with the odd promotions for everyone) and even to wait up to a fortnight for payment.  As a private seller i will not be told how to post my packages.  I paid fees for years before they made it free and managed ok.  As you say buyers may well be put off by paying fees as well now,  for me it is a lose lose situation so i will also help e bay to lose.  Do the moderators actually report back all these latest whinges and depth of feeling?.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

hate to say this but why would 'real' private sellers be interested in any of that?   As i understand it HMRC do not allow expenses, postage etc against private sales.  Anyone who is doing it for profit will already know all that surely?.

[krafty-kreations]

Somebody just wanted to advertise their services.

[peturning]

Strange. When you first start selling on eBay this is how it is - you don't get paid until delivery confirmed - but do it enough and it used to be that eBay would begin to trust you and following some verification steps you would begin to be paid immediately.

Just feels a little bit of a punishment for good sellers. By all means make immediate payment something people need to maintain and potentially lose if they don't fulfil their side of the deal but if the system had been working until now I don't see why to change it, new sellers could still be subject to waits.

[bittyboy101]

Private sellers to have sales funds held

...BECAUSE eBay now have been forced/shamed by another competing site called V***** to not charge private sellers selling fees... so now the only way eBay are going to make any money from private sellers is to HOLD AND INVEST all private seller's funds in one giant pool for a few days...

This seems like the real reason why this change is now happening....

I would much rather pay a standard/reasonable selling fee and be done with it so I can have INSTANT PAYMENT AND INSTANT ACCESS TO MY SALES MONEY !   NOT EBAY'S ! 

[vintique*violet]

Stipulating and controlling our every move on the platform and garnering interest on our funds! 

Not just days it will be weeks of " holds"...until they sort the " system glitch" or the " buyer" opens a case/ closes a case etc etc... there are so many pitfalls. 

Meanwhile on " paper" to their shareholders eBay will look like the stars are shining more brightly than ever. 

IMO... It will all go poof! 

[bittyboy101]

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@vintique*violet wrote:

Stipulating and controlling our every move on the platform and garnering interest on our funds! 

Not just days it will be weeks of " holds"...until they sort the " system glitch" or the " buyer" opens a case/ closes a case etc etc... there are so many pitfalls. 

Meanwhile on " paper" to their shareholders eBay will look like the stars are shining more brightly than ever. 

IMO... It will all go poof! 

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Agree 100% !

[theelench]

It was when I started selling as well.

Holds on the first few sales, paypal verified my bank, address etc and that was it.  I'm still using paypal on the other site and never had a hold or request to re-verify anything.

I read the, now increasing again, posts about ebay demanding re-verify this, that or the other, give us your photo, STILL with the creaky old system used for signing-up to MP, we'll send it to the backroom in California, with all the rejected documents or lies about a photo being the ONLY accepted solution that produces weeks of delays with horror and disgust.

If it's all so vital why hasn't the system been improved to make it user friendly and QUICK. (Because holds produce more interest for ebay?)

Paypal/ebay made millions/billions from money left in our wallets back then, no-one cared because they provided a useful service.  Ebay missed the boat by not having wallets ready to go when they bulldozed everyone (except those that left) into MP.  They rushed it to get a stake in adyen when they took over processing, probably with a back-hand deal to ebay who quietly let the promise of wallets wither and die rather than spend the time and money to get it going.

Now ebay needs more cash again so its been dusted off and forced onto private sellers who have grown away from the idea during the long wait, so to get the cash it comes with a compulsory hold, which will put yet more private sellers off using ebay.  Plus ebay gets yet more bad press for doing it this way.

I wonder whatever happened to the billions of income ebay predicted it was going to make from payment processing?

[pcmp_caravan_hire]

I might be looking at this in a simple way, flat fee for all, once a week payouts for all, no fees for buyers, let us sort our own postage

[johnwash1]

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@kath3735_wxmjn wrote:

as a private seller i would be ok to pay a flat fee (with the odd promotions for everyone) and even to wait up to a fortnight for payment.  As a private seller i will not be told how to post my packages.  I paid fees for years before they made it free and managed ok.  As you say buyers may well be put off by paying fees as well now,  for me it is a lose lose situation so i will also help e bay to lose.  Do the moderators actually report back all these latest whinges and depth of feeling?.

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Just to be clear, since I'm unsure what you mean by "flat fee", I'd be content with a return to the fee structure pre-October.  I certainly wouldn't be happy with a monthly fee to use the site, or listing fees.

Though, having said that, those with long memories will recall when there were listing fees for everything except 99p items.  That worked fine for me back then, I listed items as auctions starting at 99p, and sometimes had some very pleasant surprises.  But the days of bidding wars are long gone.  Most buyers today want instant gratification, hit that blue button, buy it now and ignore auctions.

So we simply need ebay to realise the new idea is rubbish and return to pre-October.  Anyone seen any airborne pigs?

[willowbay1207]

But they are also going to charge private sellers a percentage fee much like pre October but also charge buyers 5%. A killer. Also pick the postage for you. No thanks.

[willowbay1207]

I also get mine picked up by Royal Mail, so cheap and reliable. Nothing goes missing and most is trackable.  Can you opt out of this managed shipping though. I dread the thought of Yodel or Evri delivering or attempting a delivery 

[theelench]

I think what is meant by "flat fee" is a single price for every listing, like business sellers all pay 35p for every listing.

I do remember when every listing, even by private sellers, attracted a fee, it was on a sliding scale and at least for the sort of prices I listed at (£10 - £20) it was ridiculously cheap, like 5-6p, so no-one minded.  But you can bet that wouldn't be the case these days.

Apart from the crooks, I really don't think many private sellers object to paying fees, as long as they look like reasonable value for money for the service provided, i.e small.  It's ebay that decided to give private sellers free listings, I don't recall ever being asked if I wanted them. 

You recently asked me if paying fees on the other site was a good idea, when I could go for the no fee deal and pay nothing.  Yes, it is still cost effective, but when I can sell a £10 item with £3.50 postage for a fee of 50p + a listing fee of 10p I'm not going to begrudge them the money for finding me a buyer.

I'd rather pay a known listing fee + a known percentage FVF than have "Free to Sell",  but knowing that without getting involved in the convoluted and treacherous waters of Sponsoring every listing to get even a sniff at a sale.  Would it even be worth the hassle for a £10 item?

[valueaddedresource]

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@johnwash1 wrote:

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@kath3735_wxmjn wrote:

as a private seller i would be ok to pay a flat fee (with the odd promotions for everyone) and even to wait up to a fortnight for payment.  As a private seller i will not be told how to post my packages.  I paid fees for years before they made it free and managed ok.  As you say buyers may well be put off by paying fees as well now,  for me it is a lose lose situation so i will also help e bay to lose.  Do the moderators actually report back all these latest whinges and depth of feeling?.

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Just to be clear, since I'm unsure what you mean by "flat fee", I'd be content with a return to the fee structure pre-October.  I certainly wouldn't be happy with a monthly fee to use the site, or listing fees.

Though, having said that, those with long memories will recall when there were listing fees for everything except 99p items.  That worked fine for me back then, I listed items as auctions starting at 99p, and sometimes had some very pleasant surprises.  But the days of bidding wars are long gone.  Most buyers today want instant gratification, hit that blue button, buy it now and ignore auctions.

So we simply need ebay to realise the new idea is rubbish and return to pre-October.  Anyone seen any airborne pigs?

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@johnwash1 sorry for the confusion, when I used flat fee earlier, I just meant the same fee across all transactions on the site, whether from private or business sellers, and I would imagine others mean that too.

We don't know yet whether that will be a set dollar amount or a percentage, my usage of "flat" was just to indicate it would make the most sense to me for eBay to make the fee the same for all buyers.

[pcmp_caravan_hire]

Yes agree , i am just unhappy with so called private sellers with 10000's transaction under cutting geniune business sellers as they now pay no fees, any system with fees is got to work better than now

[pcmp_caravan_hire]

Yes my use of the flat fee, is just to make it fair to all, like someone said like the old days! i just hope they dont go down the route of charging buyers, i dont mind my money being held for a week, let ebay make the interest,

I have a business account with low value items and it is getting harder to compete with private sellers with the same amount of listings as me , but paying no fees the buyer is going to go to them as they can out price me

[battlezone]

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@peturning wrote:

...if the system had been working until now I don't see why to change it, new sellers could still be subject to waits.

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Why change it? If I was the cynical type I'd suggest that this way eBay get to hold a larger amount of money in their coffers for longer, thus earning them more interest. 😇

[kath3735_wxmjn]

sorry i was thinking along the lines of the same FVF for all business and private sellers but like you i was 'happy' with the system in place, the promotions (for those of us who got them regularly) was an added bonus but unlike many i listed all the time not just when the bonuses came out.   My line in the sand though is the simple delivery and i will not be doing it.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

Must have missed that bit in my disgust at the simple delivery, what is this percentage fee about??

[5216elisabeth]

I totally agree with this.  One of the reasons I haven't felt inclined to use Vinted is because I need to choose dispatch options which are convenient for me to access, eBay lets me choose what works for me.  Which company delivers it generally has less significance to the buyer as it turns up at their door regardless. But they can choose not to buy from a particular seller if they don't want a particular delivery service.  Facebook, well it's the plethora of scammers.  That's just 2 things.  If all sites operate the same way there is essentially no USP for any of them when trying to attract sellers and buyers.  I don't see how that helps anyone including the sites themselves.  I suppose it will be much easier to move selling activity from one site to another if all we have to do is change where we write the listing though!  I may be more inclined to try Vinted for private selling if eBay introduce all these things.