Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 19.02.25 @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.

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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

[jaby-3580]

I have an established bricks and mortar registered company in Ireland and tried to register as a seller on eBay.ie which appears to run through ebay.co.uk. At the stage where I put in my bank details it came back automatically suspending the account even though I was never asked for any ID, documentation for our company account or have ever listed anything through eBay for the company. I have tried reinging the 0818 number on the website I was directed to, but it has difficulty recognising my postcode (probably as it is Irish). I have sent 5 emails back and forth but still can't get to speak with someone or arrange a call back. Our website and shop sell around €1m worth of products a year and a large proportion are sold to government bodies here in Ireland. I can't seem to get a reason why it is immediately suspended this account, just  a vague email in relation to conflicting with eBay terms of business. Can anyone please shed some light on how to resolve this or give me a contact number to speak to someone. Kind regards,

James.

[reynardnoirrailwayana2015]

Hello Marco, 

Thanks for the response I have asked Customer Service and been told that they are not right, or that they are related to the new rules - we are none the wiser as to what they relate to?

[wellingnorth]

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kat@ebay wrote:

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The flat fee is typically 72p, but we state 'up to 75p' to account for scenarios where variations may occur. 

That is a good question regarding the buyer protection fee for charity listings. Let me get this checked with our charity team and I'll come back and follow up.

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Thank you for that Kat, and that is very interesting about the 72p!

I made a similar point before but it is especially true if the buyer fee may vary - it would be really great if at the time of listing you would allow a seller to choose between either setting a price based on what they want to receive OR based on the price they want the buyer to see. If it's the latter then ebay would dynamically change the price to include whatever the buyer fee may be. You can see on the forums there is a lot of interest from sellers in having normal looking prices presented to buyers, ie 9.99 rather than 10.12, 19.99 rather than 20.23 and a feature like this would cater for that.

[moldosgifts]

This was mentioned last week offers and the BPF , the price paid by the buyer is noy inclusive of the BPF but its being removed from the sellers money, any up date when it will be fixed?

Its still happening . Private members are turning off offers.

Example buyer offers £20 seller accepts expecting £20 but get less £18.50 approx. because of the buyer fee, that the seller has paid so that makes it a seller fee but private sellers have no fees.

[a45heaven]

Is there a 'count ' number available so sellers can  see how visible our listings are at a particular on going time?

It seems that ebay sales promotions follow periods of a fall off in sales, which could be a reflection of visibility.

[a45heaven]

What are the Regulations which are the basis of the 'Regulatory Fees 'which ebay started reaping last year>

[marco@ebay]

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@reynardnoirrailwayana2015 wrote:

Hello Marco, 

Thanks for the response I have asked Customer Service and been told that they are not right, or that they are related to the new rules - we are none the wiser as to what they relate to?

---

Hi reynardnoirrailwayana2015, thanks for your reply.

If you received the wrong information, I apologize on their behalf. However, as advised before, that wouldn't be possible as you don't have a private account. I can see the hold you're referring to, which is a different type of hold, but in order to get further information on it, you'd need to contact our customer service team. 

Thank you,

Marco

[reynardnoirrailwayana2015]

Hi marco@ebay we already have been in contact with eBay CS twice and what you say is directly  contradictory to what they say. When this was pointed out we were hung up on... 

We have no clue why this hold is applied???

[marco@ebay]

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@moldosgifts wrote:

This was mentioned last week offers and the BPF , the price paid by the buyer is noy inclusive of the BPF but its being removed from the sellers money, any up date when it will be fixed?

Its still happening . Private members are turning off offers.

Example buyer offers £20 seller accepts expecting £20 but get less £18.50 approx. because of the buyer fee, that the seller has paid so that makes it a seller fee but private sellers have no fees.

---

Hi moldosgifts, thanks for your post.

We have no further updates on this at the moment. However, I am following this topic up, once I get further updates on this, I will reply to you here to let you know. 👍

Thank you,

Marco

[dave@ebay]

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@mygaras wrote:

Buyer Protection Fee

Just a quick question - what's happened to the notification on an item's listing that the new Buyer Protection Fee has been added to the item price? Last week, if you clicked to view a private listing in the appropriate category, there was a statement/banner to show the buyer that the fee had been added, and how much it was. That seems to have disappeared. Even if you add items to your basket, there is no mention of the BPF having been added - I know, 'coz I checked! This is the same in desktop and app. 

As a seller, there is nothing in the Seller Hub to show which listings have had the BPF added and there have been no updates from eBay stating which categories the BPF has been added to. At least last week, if I looked at my listings as a buyer, I could see the notification on each listing that the BPF had been added, now, I just have to play guess the fee, and check which of my listings have an odd-looking item price. Turns out, the Books Category now has the BPF added and I've had to go through each listing to change the price so that it still ends in a 5 or a 0 (I like prices ending in 5s and 0s, I don't like prices ending in a random 1 or 3, or 7!) That was a fun couple of hours, working out the sums 😂

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Hi @mygaras 

ou can see the fee at the top of each listing in seller hub:

It should still be visible for buyers at checkout where it breaks down the transaction fees. Is it not showing when you are completing a sale?

Thanks,

Dave

[kat@ebay]

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@jaby-3580 wrote:

I have an established bricks and mortar registered company in Ireland and tried to register as a seller on eBay.ie which appears to run through ebay.co.uk. At the stage where I put in my bank details it came back automatically suspending the account even though I was never asked for any ID, documentation for our company account or have ever listed anything through eBay for the company. I have tried reinging the 0818 number on the website I was directed to, but it has difficulty recognising my postcode (probably as it is Irish). I have sent 5 emails back and forth but still can't get to speak with someone or arrange a call back. Our website and shop sell around €1m worth of products a year and a large proportion are sold to government bodies here in Ireland. I can't seem to get a reason why it is immediately suspended this account, just  a vague email in relation to conflicting with eBay terms of business. Can anyone please shed some light on how to resolve this or give me a contact number to speak to someone. Kind regards,

James.

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Hi @jaby-3580 ,

It may have happened if the account registered on the UK domain and when Irish bank details entered it may have resulted in a restriction. This user name that you have posted here is UK registered. Try contacting customer support through the link here.

Thank you,

Kat

[kat@ebay]

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@a45heaven wrote:

What are the Regulations which are the basis of the 'Regulatory Fees 'which ebay started reaping last year>

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Hi @a45heaven ,

Please see the details on it here.

Thank you,

Kat

[mygaras]

Hi marco@ebay  and @reynardnoirrailwayana2015 

Just to add, there has been a hold on my business account too (reactivated an old account, hence the hold). However, when I initially spoke to CS about this, they too told me it was because of the new payment processing rules. I explained to CS that this update applies to private accounts only, and that I was enquiring about a business account. CS then proceeded to tell me that I definitely had a private account. When I insisted that it most definitely wasn't a private account, I was informed that it was actually a 'casual account' whatever one of those is! (And yes, I did check, I was definitely logged into my business account when speaking to CS). Perhaps a bit of staff training is needed?

[a45heaven]

that doesnt identify what the regulations are specifically - i expected dropping out of the new GPRS fee last year would have reduced this

[reynardnoirrailwayana2015]

there really does seem to be an issue here marco@ebay and if there is some problem with our account the issue about the new payment system seems to be preventing us actually working out if there are any issues at all. 

[kat@ebay]

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@wellingnorth wrote:

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kat@ebay wrote:

---

---

The flat fee is typically 72p, but we state 'up to 75p' to account for scenarios where variations may occur. 

That is a good question regarding the buyer protection fee for charity listings. Let me get this checked with our charity team and I'll come back and follow up.

---

Thank you for that Kat, and that is very interesting about the 72p!

I made a similar point before but it is especially true if the buyer fee may vary - it would be really great if at the time of listing you would allow a seller to choose between either setting a price based on what they want to receive OR based on the price they want the buyer to see. If it's the latter then ebay would dynamically change the price to include whatever the buyer fee may be. You can see on the forums there is a lot of interest from sellers in having normal looking prices presented to buyers, ie 9.99 rather than 10.12, 19.99 rather than 20.23 and a feature like this would cater for that.

---

Hi @wellingnorth ,

That's an understandable point regarding normal looking prices. I'll share the feedback with our team.

Thank you,

Kat

[marco@ebay]

Thanks for your reply, reynardnoirrailwayana2015.

Due to the reasons given above, we are unable to provide further information on it. You will need to contact customer service for further assistance on it.

Thank you,

Marco

[dave@ebay]

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@a45heaven wrote:

Is there a 'count ' number available so sellers can  see how visible our listings are at a particular on going time?

It seems that ebay sales promotions follow periods of a fall off in sales, which could be a reflection of visibility.

---

Hi @a45heaven 

The traffic section in Seller hub will give you break down of Impressions, Listing views, Click through and Sales conversion rate. From there you can filter it from 30 to 90 days and also by a custom date range so you can see your performance during a certain time and compare it against the promotion period. 

Thanks,

Dave

[kat@ebay]

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kat@ebay wrote:

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@wellingnorth wrote:

This has been discussed quite a lot on the forums, but I wanted to see if you could please give clarity regarding a possible discrepancy with the buyer protection fee as it stands please?

The page here https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/selling/pricing-items/buyer-protection-information-sellers?id=55... states that the buyer fee is "A flat fee of up to £0.75 per item, and 4% of the item price up to £300"

Currently an item listed at £10 has a buyer fee of £1.12 whereas at 4% + 75p you might expect it to be £1.15.

Is this working as intended? I couldn't find the exact post but someone suggested that the 'up to' 75p may mean that you are varying this 'flat' portion of the fee and are in fact charging 72p, could that be the case?

Apologies if this has already been answered, I saw a response about VAT calculation before but I wasn't sure if that was a separate issue.

I have a second question as well regarding charity listings if that's okay?
Under the old system seller fees were discounted if an item was sold for charity, I wondered whether you could clarify what the situation is regarding the new buyer fee on charity listings?

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Hi @wellingnorth,

The flat fee is typically 72p, but we state 'up to 75p' to account for scenarios where variations may occur. 

That is a good question regarding the buyer protection fee for charity listings. Let me get this checked with our charity team and I'll come back and follow up.

Thank you,

Kat

---

Hi @wellingnorth ,

After checking in with our team, currently the discount fees for charity listings are not included on the buyer protection fee. I have shared this with the development team and given other users examples from here on the boards. If any future change happens regarding this we will update the community.

Thank you,

Kat

[kat@ebay]

Hi @clocla-0 ,

After linking in with payments they have advised that yes the amount for postage labels does come out of available funds. Pending funds is also used but usually in case where there is nothing in available funds. That is how it is set up.

The information pages showing you can pay with pending funds is allowing for situations where sellers don't have any funds in available and know they can pay with the pending.

Thank you,

Kat