Buyer Protection fee and bidding increments.

[brianstrebor]

From a private seller In the good old days you were able to bid in increments of .05, .20, .50, 1.00, 2.00, 5.00 according to the price. Now with the addition of the buyer protection fee I guess there will be some confusion?

[goodibags]

I imagine the increments will be exactly the same, even tho' the starting price may look ridiculous. e.g. £1.78 instead of 99p.

Bearing in mind, the buyer fees will already be included in what bidders see and bid.

They should really shift the minimum bid increase rates (20p more, 50p more, etc.) to allow for the swingeing 75p fee, but we'll have to wait and see.

[brianstrebor]

Interesting time. If you want to list a private auction item so that a buyer will see a .99p start you now have to actually list it with at .23p to allow ebay to add their new fees.

[ncmetrobus]

What is actually happening now is that the bid increments are applied to the NETT bid, which is not the amount you put in but the price less 75p less 4% (or whatever it is today).  This means as a buyer the effect works differently depending on whether you are bidding on something from a private seller or from a business seller.

Not only is this another confusing aspect of this Buyer Protection fiasco, I don't believe eBay's customer service advice on automatic bidding is correct.  Certainly I consider that the bid I make is the amount I enter after I hit the button on the listing that says "Submit bid" followed by "Review bid" and then "Confirm bid".  I don't see what else my bid could be and I suspect there's potential for legal challenge on this aspect.

Not fully thought through is an assessment that comes to mind.

[papso22]

 Certainly I consider that the bid I make is the amount I enter after I hit the button on the listing that says "Submit bid" followed by "Review bid" and then "Confirm bid".  I don't see what else my bid could be and I suspect there's potential for legal challenge on this aspect.

Why do you think it doesn't work like that?  I think it does.  The BPF is always included in the amount the buyer sees when they are bidding.  It is only on the bid history page, which is primarily for the benefit of the seller, that it shows as net of the fee.

[ncmetrobus]

But the bid increments are based on what the seller sees and not my bid.  I recently won something with a £5.89 bid where the difference between the NETT bids as seen by the seller was just 20p.  Had this bid been with a business seller the amount I would have paid would have been 30p more (as my maximum bid was sufficient).  I'm hardly complaining about benefitting but bid increment between my bid and that of the under-bidder was not as eBay said it would be.  That's what's wrong - they're not behaving by their own stated rules.

[papso22]

Is it not as ebay said it would be once you add the BPF?

[ncmetrobus]

That may be, but there is no clarity as to what constitutes the bid.  Is it what the seller sees or what the buyer bids?  To me it must be the latter as, for the reasons already stated, that was my bid as every action I took in making it referred to it as the bid, not the reduced value.

I have just found one item where the current bidding is at the right price to show the issue.  It is showing currently at £5.20.  If I was to make a bid it is asking me to bid a minimum of £5.41.  Note that this is not even a 20p bid increment!  Everything now behaves inconsistently depending on who the seller is - as a buyer I am not interested because in the collectables area that I buy in there is no practical difference, to me. 

[sml192]

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@ncmetrobus wrote:

I have just found one item where the current bidding is at the right price to show the issue.  It is showing currently at £5.20.  If I was to make a bid it is asking me to bid a minimum of £5.41.  Note that this is not even a 20p bid increment!  Everything now behaves inconsistently depending on who the seller is 

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If it is a private seller then the bid increment will have the 4% BPF added to it, hence 21p instead of 20p.

The maximum bid that you enter will always be inclusive of the BPF.  However, the bidding history excludes the BPF as it is primarily intended for the sellers use.

As to what actually constitutes the bid that really depends on from whose perspective you are looking at it.  From the buyer's perspective it will be the amount including the BPF whereas from the seller's perspective it will obviously be the amount excluding the BPF that is relevant.

As you say, all very confusing and lacking in clarity!