new buyer protection fees

[katieslittleshop]

Buyers wont be interested in my small items. They were paying between £2.69 - £3.00. Now they will pay over £4.00. My ebay days are over 😞

[chelseachrisuk]

Thought I would see how it plays out if i buy more than one item from the same seller.
I put 3 individual items in my basket, then went to my basket as clicked on pay this seller..
When i scrolled down, ebay is showing that I will be paying the Buyer protection fee on all 3 items.hence 4% + £2.25 (75p x3)
This seems extremely unreasonable as the items are all from the same seller and presumably would be sent together.
If the 3 items were advertised in a multi listing, and bought together, you would be charged  4% + 75p and not £2.25
Where's the logic in that.

[goodibags]

The 'logic' is that Ebay providing the 'special protection' service allows them to masquerade as the seller. So they can charge whatever they want to and it suits them to charge per item.

The official rationale being communicated is that if a buyer doesn't like it they don't have to buy. How clever is that?

The Buyer Fee conveniently excludes the actual postage, so the 'supplier' (i.e. private seller) of the products can send them together if they wish. Or they can send separately too but at a higher cost to themselves.

[8tracksteve]

Yes John 100% agree it should be an option and not mandatory.  Before if a buyer wasn't happy with an item ebay withheld the funds until the matter was resolved if not then ebay would refund the buyer the full amount.  Now they are charging buyers  for this , every day we see on social media warnings of scammers but certain people/ companies can do it legally !

[prsmusic]

Tyranny
Regards

Gary

[epicbuildsuk]

Ebay please, please change this ASAP. Buyers go to ebay because of convenience and ease of use. I am getting so many buyers confused about what is the actual final amount they would pay and it puts them off. Have this fee payable by the sellers, it would make things a lot easier for buyers. This new system is plain bad.

[8tracksteve]

Doing that would be the same as reintroduction of seller fees at an
inflated amount, thats not the answer. The answer is to remove it and
continue the way it was and putting seller fees on hold until matters are
resolved.

[strontiumdogma]

Calling it "buyer protection fee" really is gaslighting of the highest order. Buyers are already protected by a slew of consumer laws for one thing.

No, this is an eBay protection fee. Protecting eBay's profits.

At least the protection part is accurate, that's what gangsters call it too.

[prsmusic]

They only make $1500 a second its not enough

[epicbuildsuk]

Either way this new system is confusing, and it's causing buyers already to buy from other platforms instead. Not a smart move in my opinion.

[8tracksteve]

Correct

[shammyjack]

This KRAY TWIN style buyer protection racket has done it for me . Managed to avoid up till now as it is slowly implemented across all categories but it is now impinging across categories   I regularly buy from . Just turned down offers from sellers who I often buy from and explained to them that I will not pay a buyers fee , just the same as I refuse to pay Amazon a monthly fee for the " privilege ? " of buying from them . 

 Goodby  eBay until you see sense and stop being greedy ! 

[8tracksteve]

Exactly as you describe it, a racket

[insidethe93]

I love (loved) eBay for enabling me to buy lots of small crafting and stationery items from decluttering private sellers. I came to eBay yesterday determined to get past my dislike of BPF and to shop here as normally as poss.

I didn't mind seeing a widespread mix of "odd" prices e.g. £5.66. I got used to it. In a way it's a quick way of distinguishing private and business sellers. It doesn't matter as much as sellers might think that prices should end in 95p or 99p. But seeing the mixed prices everywhere reminded me all the time of BPF (which my head calls "fee" and my heart calls "tax"; I believe it's a charge for consumer protection I already have by law for free). The reminder of BPF was continual and it became annoying: I don't like having to think about it while I browse; I don't want the complication; I don't want the time-consuming bother of having to keep checking the BPF amount at check-out (eBay please also show it broken down in listings). These irritations overcame my loyalty to my regular private sellers. I want to continue to support them, but will be cutting back thanks to eBay making BPF a conspicuous and constant irritation.

So I bought from a regular business seller then headed off-site because, eBay, what you've done is encourage me to explore elsewhere!

I bought 31 items, total £80.34 = average £2.60 per item, plus a pleasant browse and thus a site I'd re-visit. Previously that £80.34 would've been spent on eBay! Worse, eBay, I'd actually come to eBay to spend that kind of money but BPF drove me away.

Now that eBay's driven me to explore elsewhere, I'm learning that I _CAN_ find things that, when I joined eBay, were marvellous to find so I stayed with eBay and didn't look elsewhere. Now I've found about 10 sites/platforms to explore that before I didn't know or, despite knowing they existed, I preferred eBay. That's 10 new places to explore and spend money that before would be spent on eBay.

If my experience becomes common for eBay buyers thanks to BPF, the user base will shrink. New buyers will appear, of course, but how many of those will stay knowing they have to deal with BPF when they can simply shop elsewhere?

[8tracksteve]

100% right, So buyers need to pay more for a non existing service and
sellers will sell less, this stupidity only benefits ebay.

[insidethe93]

For those 31 items, if I'd bought them on eBay (and that many wasn't unusual for me in one spree), with BPF, the 75p flat rate would mean a charge of £23.25, and that's without the added percentage.

[8tracksteve]

Yep in theory they would make £277 from my items listed (if they sold) if
they were priced at £3.99 there's less than half listed at that price so
they would make ££££ more than that for higher priced items... in theory
... but they won't because buyers just won't buy the same way as they did.

[someones*treasure]

Yes your right

[desl4561]

" Now that eBay's driven me to explore elsewhere "

Thank you for a well written and thoughtful piece.

You are of course spot on. There are many places to explore as a buyer. You probably won't find the volume of choice elsewhere but yes other buying options are plentiful. It's also worth pointing out that for the buyer eBay offers great protection. You may not receive the same levels at other online stores.

As a seller eBay has immense power for obvious reasons. It's huge. Your product is far more likely to be viewed and purchased on eBay than anywhere else in my 20 years of experience.

The new buyer protection fee turns listing an item into a mathematical problem. I'm sure regular private sellers can quickly grasp the concept. But what about occasional sellers? They think oh I'll list that record for £10. Then when they've gone through the process find the asking price is actually £11.83. That's not right, so they revise the listing. All double checked. Again, £11.83. Next off to customer service....and so on. It's equally confusing for auction listing and buy it now listing. 

We know eBay have to charge fees. Would be wonderful to keep allowing private sellers to escape all fees. It had to stop.

I just don't think this buyer protection fee is the way to go. Charge the seller after the sale eBay.

[desl4561]

Yes it looks like eBay are stopping private sellers of low value items. The 75p fee is a killer. 

If they just based it on percentage it wouldn't be so bad. 

If you sell a £800 watch the fee is 75p 

If you sell a £1.35 sticker the fee is 75p

Options:

If you sell many stickers at £1.35 become a business seller. If you don't it's farewell my Spanish lady (a line from jaws, the movie)

Buyers will no doubt go elsewhere if the sellers bumps the sticker price up to £2.10.

[desl4561]

Buyer protection fee 

From the perspective of eBay it makes little sense profit wise. They will lose many small sellers presumably?

Just charging a fixed percentage fee at the close of sale it would surely solve matters for all. eBay would keep making money from private sellers of low value items. 

The 75p fixed fee is a killer