Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 12.02.25 @2pm

[community-team@ebay]

Hi everybody!

The Community Chat will open at 2pm and will remain open until 3pm on Wednesday. After that it will be closed for further questions. Of course, we will continue to take care of answering any questions that may still be unanswered—We’ll get to everything as quickly as possible.

Please ask your questions in the thread below. In order to be able to answer your questions as quickly as possible, we ask you to have one question per post. Of course, you can make as many posts as you like in the Chat- the more the merrier!

Our eBay Community Team is made up of kat@ebay , dave@ebay and marco@ebay . Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, Fulfilment, Payments, and the Community itself. Anything we aren’t sure on we’ll know the people who will be! Please ask us any questions you may have and we’ll do all we can to support. We understand that certain topics, such as concerns about businesses possibly using private accounts, can be frustrating and important to you. Please refrain from asking the same question repeatedly in our weekly live chats. We assure you that we carefully review all posts in the forum and ensure that your concerns are communicated to the relevant teams for appropriate action.
To maintain a constructive and community environment, posts that repeatedly breach this guideline may be removed. Continued violations could result in further action against your community account. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding in helping us keep our community focused and respectful.

To ask your question, click Reply in the lower-right corner of this post, type your question, and click Reply between 2pm and 3pm. The community team will answer each incoming question in chronological order and will quote the original question in each answer.

Please note that any reply without a question to the community team or discussion replies may be removed from the chat. We want to keep on track to get through as many questions as possible. We welcome all discussion to be moved to the discussion boards.

If you missed the weekly chat time, please ask your question in the community boards and tag us or we will be back next week with another chat!

Many thanks,

Your eBay Community Team

[plum993]

You  may be missing some posters as the chat notification hadn't updated to say todays chat was going ahead.

[kat@ebay]

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@plum993 wrote:

You  may be missing some posters as the chat notification hadn't updated to say todays chat was going ahead.

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Hi @plum993,

Thanks for letting us know. We experienced a tech delay with post. 

Thank you,

Kat

[funkybunnie-direct]

Is there any update on the way to report business sellers 'illegally' selling under a 'private' account?

[wellingnorth]

Regarding the implementation of the new buyer fee, I have some specific practical questions / concerns / suggestions, I don't know if you could pass them on somehow please?

#1
When I list an item I price it on what I think the buyer will pay. The current listing page lets me set the amount I will receive but does not give me easy visibility of the price the buyer will pay (it is possible but only if I click “UK buyers will pay a fee for Buyer Protection” after setting the price).

It would be preferable if on the listings page you had two price fields, the first for ‘price you will receive’ the second for ‘price buyer will pay’. The seller should be able to set the price for either and have the other update in real time - people who are used to Vinted could set the price they will receive, people used to ebay can set the price the buyer will pay.

Similarly it would be good to see the ‘buyer price’ showing as a separate column on the active listings page and in the bulk listing tool so sellers can see the price being displayed to buyers.

#2
Related to this it would be great if further tools were provided to translate between buyer and seller prices. I have a listing where a buyer has sent me a message asking if I will take offers. Previously I might have said yes I’ll take £50 and then if the buyer agreed I would set the best offer auto accept at £50 and tell the buyer to offer £50. Now first of all I have to establish whether any price offered includes or excludes the buyer fee. Then if it does include the buyer fee, there’s no obvious way to find out what offer price I should set to match the price I am telling the buyer.

I don’t know what the solution to this is, perhaps some kind of easy calculator added on the message page to convert between buyer / seller prices. The current implementation of the message page on desktop does not include a ‘send an offer’ feature, that at least would help and I imagine handle the conversion.

#3
In the search results private seller listings are currently showing with odd prices, £26.72, £11.11, etc. Historically an odd price like this has indicated a price converted from a foreign currency and so an international seller. In the search results is there some way you could more clearly distinguish private seller listings, business seller listings and international seller listings? For example for private seller listings you could perhaps show the all in price, but also the breakdown in smaller type - seller price 9.99, buyer fee £1.12, total price £11.11. This makes it a lot clearer to buyers why an item might be an odd price.

This is similar to how it works on Vinted, where there is always very clearly a seller price and a fee added on top - note on Vinted that this is consistent across all sellers as well so on ebay you have more of a job to make it clear what’s happening.

This same issue occurs with saved searches - I usually ignore items with odd prices as I assume they are international sellers

[kat@ebay]

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@funkybunnie-direct wrote:

Is there any update on the way to report business sellers 'illegally' selling under a 'private' account?

---

Hi @funkybunnie-direct ,

We have no recent update. There is this link to report sellers here.

Thank you,

Kat

[petercarty11]

Will offers made by both sellers and buyers on private listings be inclusive of the Buyer Protection Fee?  This was raised one of the forums earlier and is causing a certain amount of confusion.

[marco@ebay]

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@wellingnorth wrote:

Regarding the implementation of the new buyer fee, I have some specific practical questions / concerns / suggestions, I don't know if you could pass them on somehow please?

#1
When I list an item I price it on what I think the buyer will pay. The current listing page lets me set the amount I will receive but does not give me easy visibility of the price the buyer will pay (it is possible but only if I click “UK buyers will pay a fee for Buyer Protection” after setting the price).

It would be preferable if on the listings page you had two price fields, the first for ‘price you will receive’ the second for ‘price buyer will pay’. The seller should be able to set the price for either and have the other update in real time - people who are used to Vinted could set the price they will receive, people used to ebay can set the price the buyer will pay.

Similarly it would be good to see the ‘buyer price’ showing as a separate column on the active listings page and in the bulk listing tool so sellers can see the price being displayed to buyers.

#2
Related to this it would be great if further tools were provided to translate between buyer and seller prices. I have a listing where a buyer has sent me a message asking if I will take offers. Previously I might have said yes I’ll take £50 and then if the buyer agreed I would set the best offer auto accept at £50 and tell the buyer to offer £50. Now first of all I have to establish whether any price offered includes or excludes the buyer fee. Then if it does include the buyer fee, there’s no obvious way to find out what offer price I should set to match the price I am telling the buyer.

I don’t know what the solution to this is, perhaps some kind of easy calculator added on the message page to convert between buyer / seller prices. The current implementation of the message page on desktop does not include a ‘send an offer’ feature, that at least would help and I imagine handle the conversion.

#3
In the search results private seller listings are currently showing with odd prices, £26.72, £11.11, etc. Historically an odd price like this has indicated a price converted from a foreign currency and so an international seller. In the search results is there some way you could more clearly distinguish private seller listings, business seller listings and international seller listings? For example for private seller listings you could perhaps show the all in price, but also the breakdown in smaller type - seller price 9.99, buyer fee £1.12, total price £11.11. This makes it a lot clearer to buyers why an item might be an odd price.

This is similar to how it works on Vinted, where there is always very clearly a seller price and a fee added on top - note on Vinted that this is consistent across all sellers as well so on ebay you have more of a job to make it clear what’s happening.

This same issue occurs with saved searches - I usually ignore items with odd prices as I assume they are international sellers

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Hi wellingnorth, thanks for your post.

We understand where you're coming from, so I will be passing on your feedback on these changes and suggestions for improvement. Anything else, please feel free to let us know, and we will always be open to suggestions.

Thank you,

Marco

[dave@ebay]

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@petercarty11 wrote:

Will offers made by both sellers and buyers on private listings be inclusive of the Buyer Protection Fee?  This was raised one of the forums earlier and is causing a certain amount of confusion.

---

Hi @petercarty11 

The auction or offer price you see on the site will always include the Buyer Protection fee. When you enter a starting bid, we’ll add the Buyer Protection fee so you can see what the buyer’s minimum bid amount will be.
As the Buyer Protection fee is variable, the amount that you actually pay is calculated as part of the final auction selling price, so there won’t be any surprises when you go to pay at checkout.

Thanks,

Dave

[funkybunnie-direct]

Thanks Kat. I am more than happy to continue doing this (at the end of the day I am working for ebay without pay), but I have yet to see any seller acted upon. Would ebay not consider it worthwhile to have a dedicated means of reporting? And a dedicated team to action these reports? At the end of the day if these sellers are correctly registered it will boost ebays revenue greater than the new 'rules' for private sellers that are being introduced.

[moldosgifts]

There was a question the boards about offers and BPF.  The offer of £54 was accepted but they didn't know that include the BPF so they on got paid £51 or thereabouts,

The email apparently did not make it clear.

So how should the communication of these accepted offers be improved it needs making very clear who is paying what, what it includes and what the seller will get.

[kat@ebay]

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@moldosgifts wrote:

There was a question the boards about offers and BPF.  The offer of £54 was accepted but they didn't know that include the BPF so they on got paid £51 or thereabouts,

The email apparently did not make it clear.

So how should the communication of these accepted offers be improved it needs making very clear who is paying what, what it includes and what the seller will get.

---

Hi @moldosgifts ,

Do you have the item number for this offer so we can look into it?

Thank you,

Kat

[a45heaven]

dave@ebay 

As the Buyer Protection fee is variable, the amount that you actually pay is calculated as part of the final auction selling price, so there won’t be any surprises when you go to pay at checkout.

But that will affect the maximum bid, or is this fee exceeding the bidders max, or limiting their bid?

[rog_911]

I'd like to make a formal complaint about the Buyer's Protection Fee. It makes items so much more expensive! It puts off Buyer's. I just bought something on Reverb that I  was going to buy on Ebay.

If you sell something and perhaps even make a profit you should pay a fee. If you spend your hard earned cash there should be no fee.

Other platforms will be rubbing their hands at Ebays badly thought out policy.

[moldosgifts]

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kat@ebay wrote:

---

@moldosgifts wrote:

There was a question the boards about offers and BPF.  The offer of £54 was accepted but they didn't know that include the BPF so they on got paid £51 or thereabouts,

The email apparently did not make it clear.

So how should the communication of these accepted offers be improved it needs making very clear who is paying what, what it includes and what the seller will get.

---

Hi @moldosgifts ,

Do you have the item number for this offer so we can look into it?

Thank you,

Kat

---

No it wasn't my thing was just relaying the details of the post

[marco@ebay]

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@rog_911 wrote:

I'd like to make a formal complaint about the Buyer's Protection Fee. It makes items so much more expensive! It puts off Buyer's. I just bought something on Reverb that I  was going to buy on Ebay.

If you sell something and perhaps even make a profit you should pay a fee. If you spend your hard earned cash there should be no fee.

Other platforms will be rubbing their hands at Ebays badly thought out policy.

---

Hi rog_911, thanks for your post.

Yes, that's no problem we can pass this on for you no problem, so your input can be taken into consideration. However, please note that we don't follow up on this kind of feedback/complaints, and this doesn't necessarily means that changes will be made around your comments and/suggestion.

Thank you,

Marco

[kat@ebay]

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@moldosgifts wrote:

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kat@ebay wrote:

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@moldosgifts wrote:

There was a question the boards about offers and BPF.  The offer of £54 was accepted but they didn't know that include the BPF so they on got paid £51 or thereabouts,

The email apparently did not make it clear.

So how should the communication of these accepted offers be improved it needs making very clear who is paying what, what it includes and what the seller will get.

---

Hi @moldosgifts ,

Do you have the item number for this offer so we can look into it?

Thank you,

Kat

---

No it wasn't my thing was just relaying the details of the post

---

Thanks @moldosgifts ,

The offer price should include the buyer protection fee. Can you share a link to that specific post and we can have a look into it.

Thank you,

Kat

[funkybunnie-direct]

Thanks Kat. Is it possible to have a dedicated way to report these sellers?

[darth_baggins]

Re buyer protection fee. I have an item on my watch list from a private seller that I've bought several times. It's gone from £1.25 to £2.02. Can you explain why this is good for anyone but eBay please?

All it's achieved is to give the general image of eBay suddenly becoming more expensive to buy on and will undoubtedly deter buyers.

Sites like Money Saving Expert are already carrying stories like 'eBay is more expensive to buy on from February 4th' - while I know this not factually correct, this is what a lot of people are taking away, that eBay is more expensive.

I'm no more protected with this fee than I was without it as a buyer.

[sp6a]

The eBay App has stopped working on my phone.  ( Please read on below... )

I am in no doubt as to why, and know where to find information on which versions of the eBay App are avaiable for each Platform ( iOS or Android ) and which version my phone is ( samsung Galaxy S8 Edge on Android 9 ). However, like many, many others, I suddenley cannot any longer use the eBay App on my phone and understand that there is NOT going to be any fix for this.  The only solution is an expensive UPGRADE my to phone hardware as it is limited to Android 9.

The suggested workaround of using eBay in a browser is not practical for me ( or why did eBay create the eBay App at great expense ? ).  So I won't be doing that.  Whilst I spend £1000's ( please take a look ) on eBay for my business and hobbies, I will now have to rely upon limited laptop access, morning and evenings and won't be able to keep up with things during the day.  ( Often when needs arise too ).

I am very disapppointed at this and would like to know how many other eBayers like me are affected by the sudden, unannounced move ?

Many thanks - Noel ( sp6a )