Buyers Protection Fee

[drip_dry_dust]

I wish eBay would offer a button. Which the buyer could opt-in/out of this protection fee, before purchasing an item. I'm losing sales because some buyers don't agree with the protection fee, that eBay is making them accept. I get it, we all want to be protected. But if a buyer doesn't want that protection. Why make them pay for it?

[jonat_broad]

Because one of the things in the buyer protection fee is the benefit of…

Secure transactions: All payments are encrypted end-to-end and handled by our trusted payments partners.

so essentially you are covering the cost of eBay’s payment solution.

if the buyer opted out, eBay wouldn’t receive any fees for the transaction. And you’d beg the question as to who would optionally chose to pay more money.

im not saying BPF is right. It’s quite clear just some form of seller fee would be preferable, but eBay aren’t going to make an outright loss on a transaction.

[action_man]

Hmmm.... is this true? Because if eBay are telling customers that they are paying a "Buyer's protection fee", they think that money is going towards.... er... their protection. They don't think it's going towards eBay's payment processing costs.

That is once again blurring the lines of what they are actually paying for. The intended purpose is "buyer's protection". To say this includes an element for secure transactions is a joke. All transactions on a platform run by a global company should be secure anyway as an absolute standard. It is part of the core of what eBay does.

Transparency is what is important, so people can trust the company. Without trust, people will stop using the platform. People need to be able to take eBay at face vale. If "Buyers protection fee" doesn't mean purely that, then the communication is shady and people are not being treated in a transparent manner.

[edwardian-dreams]

So their payment set up wasn’t secure before?

[jonat_broad]

Has anyone actually read the buyer protection page? Fairly open as to what it includes I’d say? Its specifically three things.

https://pages.ebay.co.uk/buyerprotection/

any of them?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/selling/pricing-items/buyer-protection-information-sellers

[jonat_broad]

All transactions on a platform run by a global company should be secure anyway as an absolute standard. It is part of the core of what eBay does.

you are aware though that to have a secure payment gateway isn’t a free thing though?

[jonat_broad]

I don’t believe I suggested that.

im sure it was secure, but for it to remain secure, it requires staff, technology, research. All of which needs paying for.

why do they need a secure transaction setup? Why, it’s for the buyers…protection.

[action_man]

Pages that people have to search for to find out that a Buyer's Protection Fee doesn't just mean a Buyer's Protection Fee, it also includes other things. Plus, those same pages make it clear that the buyer's fee has been introduced because they made it free to sell for private sellers.

https://pages.ebay.co.uk/buyerprotection/ That page says:
"We’ve made it free to sell for private sellers, so it’s easier than ever for more sellers to bring you a wider variety of things you love. To support this change, we will charge a buyer fee to cover Buyer Protection services...."

https://ocs.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/paying-items/buyer-protection?id=5594 This page says:
"We've made it free to sell for private sellers. To support this change, we charge a buyer fee to cover Buyer Protection services..."

So the "It's free to sell" TV advertising campaign has only been giving half of the story then. For months it never said anything about any upcoming buyer fees. As far as I'm aware, even after 4th February, there was still nothing about it. Only that it is "free to sell".

@jonat_broad  : "you are aware though that to have a secure payment gateway isn’t a free thing though?"
Yes, I'm perfectly aware of that. What's your point? It has nothing to do with the way the "Buyer's Protection Fee" is being sold to customers. By calling it a "Buyer's Protection Fee", it should be just that.

I understand what you're saying, but it's either transparent or it isn't.

[lucy_farmer]

'why do they need a secure transaction setup? Why, it’s for the buyers…protection.'

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Well, it's for every ebay users protection isn't it?..... I wouldn't want to buy *or* sell on a platform with a 'leaky' transaction setup!

I think what's winding edwardian up is the bullsh** spin put on to the introduction of the BPF.

It's being 'sold' as though it were something new and wonderful that buyers didn't have before.

Along with the '24hr' CS. Now admitted to being run by bots outside office hours, so no different to the existing CS.

And the 'protection' that's exactly the same as the existing MBG....

Yes, we all know that these things have to be paid for, but the patronising carp about them being new, enhanced, improvements..... oh for crisssakes 🤢

[m25jet]

Basically eBay screwed up big time when they made it free for private sellers to list on eBay.  Somebody at eBay clearly must have realised this, yet rather than revoke their badly thought out changes and put things back to how they were before eBay decided to make it free for private sellers to sell on eBay, they decided to try and recoup the lost money by charging an extra fee on all private sellers' listings.

Despite the fact that eBay clearly appear to believe otherwise, the vast majority of people are not idiots and can see right through the illusion that eBay have attempted to create with regards to their claim that these new charges are for the eBay Buyer Protection Fee, as this has, until recently, always been something that was available to buyers for free on all listings, regardless of whether the seller was a private seller or a business seller.  As a result of this many people will just end up steering clear of private sellers' listings and will either purchase items from listings where this eBay Buyer Protection Fee is not imposed - currently only on business sellers' listings, although it wouldn't surprise me if eBay were to impose the Buyer Protection Fee upon business sellers as well at some point within the next twelve months - or alternatively buyers will end up buying the same item elsewhere, whether on a rival online selling platform, or via High Street retailers for items that can easily be found that way. 

One of the worst things about eBay deciding upon this course of action is that it is currently hitting many private sellers hard, making their items seem less attractive to potential buyers, and if it carries on then I don't think it will be too long before private sellers become an extremely small minority on eBay, before eventually being squeezed out of the market altogether.  However, I can't help but feel that this is something that eBay are actually actively working towards achieving, so by making it as inconvenient as possible for private sellers to sell on the site eBay can then focus on their long-term goal of either forcing private sellers to convert to Business Seller status or driving them off of the site altogether, thus eventually making eBay site a business sellers' only site.

[jonat_broad]

The Buyer Protection Fee does NOT equal the Money Back Guarantee! Frankly though, including the Money Back Guarantee in it for Private Seller sales would make a whole lot of sense by the sounds of it.

ebay are very clear what the Buyer Protection fee includes - and it doesn't include the means to get a refund.

Predominantly - this fee is to cover their secure payment provider which is for buyers protection. ebay can't say that its a card processing charge so they have added some other things to it as well.

Its poorly titled clearly, as everyone things its just an additional money back guarantee for some reason.

[davidninetynine]

<< Its poorly titled clearly, as everyone thinks its just an additional money back guarantee for some reason.>>

Indeed they do -  for the perfectly good reason that ebay's spin and lies led them to believe that it was so.

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[action_man]

@jonat_broad  "ebay are very clear what the Buyer Protection fee includes - and it doesn't include the means to get a refund".

_________________________________________

I think doublespeak was fine in 1984, but it's 2025 now.

[m25jet]

Whatever you want to call it, the vast majority of people who notice that eBay have imposed these new charges can see quite clearly that this is just a moneygrabbing exercise from eBay...

[jonat_broad]

I'm not questioning if people thing its a moneygrabbing exercise.

To be fair - the thread has gone completely off track. The whole point of this was a question as to why don't ebay make it an optional charge. I would hope the reason they can't do that is obvious.

I'd say, if ebay were to change - they should go back to seller fees for all, have them have parity completely and not offer any ludicrous 80% off weekends.

[derpybay]

Oh no, it's not a mistake. They're losing market share to a Vertain site who shall remain unnamed, and so they're changing everything on the private sellers side of things to be more like them. Despite the fact that the people who stay here, stay here because we like how it was done here. 

Let's look at how the rival site operates:
No seller fees 

Buyer fees 

A postage system that is functionally identical to the so called simple delivery

Simplified listing

Minimised descriptions and titles 

A focus on bundles, so as to combine postage

Arguably we don't have the last three, though ebay have tried their best to minimise descriptions, and all this AI and app stuff is their attempt at simplified listing. Hopefully the bundle thing will come and be implemented well (hahahahaha). 
The thing is though, rival site is 2nd hand only. Has a minimal business presence, and those that are there are the little interesting ones. It's kind of fun to browse through, like rummaging through someone's loft. Ebay is not fun. Which is fine, I also need to buy new things sometimes, but halfway copying something when you cannot capture what makes it work is an extremely foolish idea, and I don't think anyone has understood that. Yet. They will.