What's with the weird start prices?

[doomed-doomed]

Just noticed today that most items, instead of starting at typical amounts, eg. £7.99, £19.99 etc, I'm seeing £17.23 or £22.61 etc.

Have eBay done something weird again?

[thebewdley4]

Thanks. That explains why my starting bids on two items I just listed are showing £11.12 instead of £10.

[skwilliamson]

And when you bid on something it seems to change it to some odd amount, too, so a calculated price is not what you intended! It's so confusing.

[zoomingmouse]

I did this list some time ago to get rid of the odd start prices - so if you want £9.99 you'd need to alter your start price to £8.91 so it shows to the buyer as £9.99. 

As someone pointed out though, if Ebay change the fee from 72p to 75p it will all be out again 🙄

Previous Start £     New start £            Buyer fee

6.99                             6.03                             0.96

7.99                             6.99                             £1.00

8.98 *                          7.95                             £1.03       *can't achieve 8.99 due to rounding up

9.99                             8.91                             £1.08

12.99                           11.80                           £1.19

14.99                           13.72                          £1.27

17.99                            16.61                           £1.38

19.99                           18.53                           £1.46

24.99                           23.33                         £1.66

29.99                           28.14                           £1.85

34.99                           32.95                           £2.04

39.99                           37.76                           £2.23

44.99                           42.57                           £2.42

49.99                           47.37                           £ 2.62

[marcxj6]

What do you expect-after all Ebay is American owned and America is chock full of idiots.

[yi2m4u]

Definitely feels counterintuitive.

Under the previous business model where sellers set the price factoring in the commision to ebay on a sale, everyone knew where they were. This new model is based on flawed psychology and will likely fail.

Likely part of a wider strategy to divest itself of private sellers entirely, ridding ebay of its flea market image and leaving them to concentrate on professional sellers.

Unfortunately jealousy of Amazon's success might ultimately cause wannabe damage.

[19vivat]

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

Totally agree. I've never bought or sold on vinted but they seem to be thriving with private buyers and sellers. I think eBay may get be trying to copy vinted. Either way the prices look confusing. Poor marketing.

[coffinswell]

Is this not illegal? Ebay force you to use Paypal which charges a fee for payment insurance. Ebay are now forcing you to pay for payment insurance direct. Is this not a case of mis-selling as they are forcing you to take out two insurances for the same thing? Which will pay out or will they both  say you have another insurance to cover this and neither pay?

[papso22]

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@coffinswell wrote:

Is this not illegal? Ebay force you to use Paypal which charges a fee for payment insurance. Ebay are now forcing you to pay for payment insurance direct. Is this not a case of mis-selling as they are forcing you to take out two insurances for the same thing? Which will pay out or will they both  say you have another insurance to cover this and neither pay?

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Ebay don't force you to use PayPal. 

PayPal do not charge buyers to use their service.

Neither the buyer protection  service nor the money back guarantee are insurance, whether provided by ebay or PayPal. 

If you have an issue with a purchase most people recommend using the ebay money back guarantee first. 

[coffinswell]

ebay DO force you to use Paypal. If you make an offer and it is accepted ebay automatically take the money from Paypal.

I had to pay £3.30 to ebay, over and above the money I pay to the seller, for this "buyer protection" if that's not insurance, what is it?

Similarly, surely part of the Paypal fees (usually paid by the seller) are to cover Paypal in the case of a claim. That is insurance.

ebay money back guarantee is only if you receive the product and it does not comply with the description.  This is covered by the trades description act.

It is mis-selling to  sell insurance to somone who cannot claim or with false pretenses. Having two insurances on the same claim also always leads to problems.

[lucy_farmer]

'ebay DO force you to use Paypal.'

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No. No they don't.

But if you have paypal set up as your 'go to' method of payment, then that's where they'll take it from.... just change that and you can pay from whatever other payment source you choose.

As far as the new 'buyer protection' (the BPF) goes , it's actually got nothing to do with payment protection. The ebay Money Back Guarentee (MBG) has been around for ages and is still in effect. 

The BPF is just an dreadfully badly named replacement for the old private sellers' fees., and covers exactly the same services (MBG, Customer service and secure money processing) as the sellers fees used to.

(All this stuff costs, and ebay wanted to be 'free to sell', so stuck the fees on the buyer; but that money's still got to come from somewhere...)

Ebay's marketing dept. really dropped a clanger calling it 'buyer protection' . It's just business bullsh** spin, and means nothing in realilty.

[coffinswell]

I have reported this to the Financial Service Authority, let's see what they decide.

If ebay persist with this policy I shall refrain from buying from private buyers.

The whole point of ebay in the early days ( I have been a customer for many, many, years) was that there was no buyers premium.

I gave up selling years ago as they kept banning the things I wanted to sell.

[trispiralgoddess13]

I was thinking the same thing so thanks for asking this! I thought it was scam selling but clearly not in most cases. I haven’t used eBay much lately because they’re so expensive! Paying to sell, paying a final value fee, the charges including the p&p costs (what? Postage costs what it costs)!

It sounds like they’re trying to rake in the same amount by redistribution of the cost but with so many other options available and eBay basically becoming a place for businesses to sell poundshop items for more money (not all, I know but it’s nothing like when it started out as an ‘auction site’), it’s just unappealing now. Oh well…there’s always something else which comes along to replace such things.

[jckl1957]

Unless you use listing upgrades (one day auction, reserve prices, listing in two categories etc.) there are NO listing fees and NO final value fees for private sellers any more - this has been the case for the best part of a year.

With Simple Delivery, the buyer now pays Ebay directly for postage and the seller gets a prepaid label or can use a QR code.

I genuinely don't have a problem with people who use the forum to criticise Ebay, but at least make sure you are properly informed before making your points.

[trispiralgoddess13]

Things have changed then. I was going on my last message FROM eBay when I queried everything in my previous post and was told “it is what it is” basically. My last post also stated I am aware things may be different when mentioning the ‘redistribution of cost” but doesn’t alter the OP or the plethora of tat. 

Thank you for you comment but it looks like we both need to get full details doesn’t it? 😊