New regulatory operating fee

[community-team@ebay]

Dear Sellers,

This February, we’re focusing on providing you with new features and updates to help you reach more buyers, elevate your listings, and protect your business.

Learn about the new regulatory operating fee

To address the rising costs associated with the increasing number and complexity of regulations, including consumer and environmental protection, as well as new taxation and customs measures, we're introducing a new regulatory operating fee.

Find out more

Please refer to the link above to view further information on this topic. By doing this, many questions can often be clarified in advance.

We would also like to ask you to stay on the topic with the discussion, as we will remove off-topic contributions—according to our community guidelines.

Kind Regards,

eBay Community Team

[ups-trader]

Fees keep going up.

Q3 results show profit and 700 million disbursed as dividends

https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-inc-reports-third-quarter-2023-results/

I presume someone has run the sum of fees charged vs sales. At all points fees discourage sellers, and at some point enough is enough. 

Grow profits from features IMO. Passing on another 0.35% for "regulatory" things is putting ebay cost of business fees onto customers (sellers first, who then feed it back in to the buyers)

[underkutt]

Don't you already siphon enough from sellers already? Sky high profits already. What about rising seller costs? They have already gone up for sellers recently with many sellers having to pay capital gains tax. Greed.

[the-best-uk-deals]

At this Rate ebay you might as well just take all my profit ? 

Fees on some catogorys already increased %2 this year, shop fees shot up last year also and business sellers have had 0 offers or promotions for a decent while. yet the businesses selling on private accounts enjoy free listings and 0 selling fees monthly..... You know who these accounts are, so stop coming for our profits and start cracking down on thoes cheating the system and you wont need to increase fees. 

[bittyboy101]

Re; new regulatory operating fee

I think this is the last nail in the cofin for many small private sellers.

The eBay fees are already so expensive now and adding yet another new fee is going to push many sellers (both big and small) over the edge ! 

If the fees become any more than they are now, I will have no choice but to cease selling on eBay as it will become NOT WORTHWHILE when eBay are basiclly robbing me in broad daylight now 😞

Selling on eBay has become rubbish during the last couple of years with next to NO VISIBILITY and items not getting any views in the searches.

You keep on upping your fees and inventing new ways to rob the public but you don't really do much to improve the site so that everything works as it should.

Even the postage tracker on eBay has now  stopped working and tracking items - making sellers vulnerable for scammers to open INR cases !

For God's sake eBay listern to your users before you destroy what was once an excellent selling platform for millions of loyal users. 

[kevin.jj]

Profits already cut to the bone,how do seller make anything when you add more and more fees.

[addyeddy]

Oh dear, this along with the chance that I might have to pay tax if I, have a good year, really makes me wonder if it'll be worth bothering with.

I'll try it and see how much more they take, and if it's noticeable I'm out. 

[apautoelectrical]

Another cash grab, at first it will be 0.35% and will grow like all the other fees have.  I'm done.

[plumb_4_ponds]

Not more fee's come on just won't be worthwhile selling after April 8th 👎

[collectors-info]

It will encorage me to use other selling sites from now on, like Facebook & Gumtree in the UK. Its not worth selling small, low price items any more. I hope many more look for alternitives. 

[apautoelectrical]

The greed knows no bounds, this fee will increase just like ever other one.  What gets me is the fact that the fees are calculated on postage costs, which you have no or little control over.

Where is this fee going?  Why is it only certain countries?

Just another fee to go on top of other fees.  It's really becoming not worthwhile to sell.

[andylaaauk]

Another fee being passed on to sellers while making massive profits.  

It's just not worth selling anything on this platform.

[chas231321]

Hi,

Understandably, sellers are not going to be too happy with this news.

To help us appreciate the rationale, it would be helpful if you could share some specific examples of the rising costs you incur for, say, consumer and environmental protection. Do you have to employ more legal staff to deal with consumer law, perhaps? Or pay certain fees to protect the environment? Right now I'm struggling to understand how the areas you list impact an ecommerce platform.

Many thanks.

[joebloggz]

It really does amaze me how Ebay is quick enough to add fees or increase them but cannot fix the glitches the site has. I do not know how you can justify another fees grab when Along with the glitches but the fact you make so much profit yearly. This is nothing short of aggressive capitalism and shows the contempt you have towards your sellers here on Ebay. I think you have shot yourselves in the foot here as they say. I simply will not use Ebay again to sell or even buy from now on if this is how it is going to continue. At least *bleep* Turpin wore a mask.

[spacedodyssey]

I have a private account, Yes Zero Lisating Fees, Wrong , I pay nearly 14% sellers fees

Where do you get your information

[laski-4]

I have to seriously consider if it would be better to sell on Vinted, prices might be lower but 25% seems to go to ebay anyway and that's not even considering the "promoted listings" element 

[txt.ltd]

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@andylaaauk wrote:

Another fee being passed on to sellers while making massive profits.  

It's just not worth selling anything on this platform.

---

You can just pass it on to the buyers.

[poppydiddle]

I'm trying to understand how the Final Value Fee and the Regulatory Operating Fee and the Listing Fee affect the final price that I will charge buyers so I can make sure my listings properly cover all costs.

The Listing Fee is 30p per item listed.

The FVF is applied to the Total Sale Price including Postage and it is a fixed percentage (depending on the category). I don't think the FVF is applied to the 30p Listing Fee, but I may be wrong.

The Reg Op Fee is also a fixed percentage applied to the Total Sale Price but in the email sent out today it says it will be applied to "the item price, postage, taxes and any other applicable fees), and is subject to VAT. This implies that the Reg Op Fee is applied to both the FVF and the Listing Fee ie it is a fee on a fee and there are now two fees applied to postage - FVF and ROF.

I have a spreadsheet that I use to work out what I will net after all fees, postage etc are applied to my asking price so I can work out whether it is worth selling something. I don't want to get it wrong. Has anyone worked up the £20 example used in the ROF email showing all fees that are applied to a Total Sale Price please?

Thanks much

[txt.ltd]

Cheers for the update on the new fees, eBay.
I'll let my buyers know by increasing my prices to cover it.

Have a good one!

[txt.ltd]

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@poppydiddle wrote:

I'm trying to understand how the Final Value Fee and the Regulatory Operating Fee and the Listing Fee affect the final price that I will charge buyers so I can make sure my listings properly cover all costs.

The Listing Fee is 30p per item listed.

The FVF is applied to the Total Sale Price including Postage and it is a fixed percentage (depending on the category). I don't think the FVF is applied to the 30p Listing Fee, but I may be wrong.

The Reg Op Fee is also a fixed percentage applied to the Total Sale Price but in the email sent out today it says it will be applied to "the item price, postage, taxes and any other applicable fees), and is subject to VAT. This implies that the Reg Op Fee is applied to both the FVF and the Listing Fee ie it is a fee on a fee and there are now two fees applied to postage - FVF and ROF.

I have a spreadsheet that I use to work out what I will net after all fees, postage etc are applied to my asking price so I can work out whether it is worth selling something. I don't want to get it wrong. Has anyone worked up the £20 example used in the ROF email showing all fees that are applied to a Total Sale Price please?

Thanks much

---

If you are having trouble covering fees in your sales prices, use this formula:
(sum of fixed costs) / (1 - (sum of variable costs as decimal))

e.g.:

Fixed costs: 1.20 postage; 0.20 packaging; 0.30 per-order eBay fee; 2.50 goods
Variable costs: 12.9% eBay final-value fee; 16.67% VAT (use 0.2/(1+0.2)); 0.4% loss rate

If VAT-registered, use all NET (VAT-exclusive) values in the formula.
If not VAT-registered, remove the VAT variable cost.

What about your profit? It can be included as either a fixed 'cost' or a variable 'cost' (as a % of the sale price.)

Let's run the formula to get a sale price that covers all our costs and guarantees us our desired profit.

If desired profit is a fixed value of 1.50:

(1.2 + 0.2 + 0.3 + 2.5 + 1.5) / (1 - (0.129 + (0.2 / (1 + 0.2)) + 0.004) = sell at 8.14

If desired profit is a fixed 10% of the sale price:

(1.2 + 0.2 + 0.3 + 2.5) / (1 - (0.129 + (0.2 / (1 + 0.2)) + 0.004 + 0.1) = sell at 7.00

Break the figures down to see that everything is covered and you get your desired profit.