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

[tkirke]

eBay already takes a hefty fee. All of these so-called "regulatory" requirements are handled by eBay's computer systems. After the cost of developing them, there are no incremental costs as the process should be automatic. Look at charging European buyers VAT. eBay has an automated system in place to charge VAT and pay that to the appropriate authorities. It doesn't cost them any more for each transaction, yet they include the VAT as part of the value that they charge their Final Value Fee on.
The latest "cost" for eBay is to report sales to HMRC. Once they have invested in the system to generate the reports and send them electronically to HMRC, there is no additional cost per transaction.
How can eBay justify charging an additional fee to cover the costs of running their business? Isn't that what the standard fees are for?
According to Google, ebay's Net profit margin was 52.2%. So instead of reducing their profit margin slightly to cover the additional development costs, they decide to screw sellers out of their profit.

[bittyboy101]

It seems that eBay have become even more greedier than they were before !... and have now resorted in even more shady activities in order to cover their costs and BALANCE THE BOOKS because they have now driven lots of small sellers away with their over the top fees and constant sales throttling !

[poppydiddle]

Vinted has its place - I've had excellent sales for my wardrobe items through Vinted without a sniff on eBay, and it's also very dynamic and social. But you can't compare the two if you sell a range of items. Vinted only allow private sellers and primarily for the sale of 2nd hand clothes. If you list other items you are quickly classed as a commercial seller (even when you are not) and if you list the same item on two platforms again your account is blocked. You can also only load a few items a day, and not multiples of similar items, or again they see you as commercial. And, for anyone who thinks eBay has difficult policies then honestly Vinted is like the wild west - some of the arbitrary decisions I've experienced on Vinted for sellers absolutely beggar belief. 

[signs_and_vintage]

I don't know a great deal about Vinted, just out of interest can you give me an example of such decisions? Have a load of old 90s indie tees to list but suspect it'll still be eBay where I get the best response...

[vintageveritas-8]

We don't want 'more features' you make millions in profit and have already increased fees here in UK, how can you justify yet another fee for what? non specific 'increased costs'. Pure capitalist greed and profiteer behaviour. I will deffinitely be selling on different platforms from now on and pulling out of ebay, simply not worth it anymore. I don't know how you can justify your business model when you are just squeezing your sellers until the pips squeak, very very poor ebay! 

[dglocke]

This, on top of CSRs outright ignoring/dismissing counterfeit reports and forced prepaid offers (which don't allow PayPal Credit), makes me think eBay is being run by someone's "computer genius" nephew.

Also, tip for CSRs: if you're going to outright *lie* and say your supervisor will follow-up by email when the above counterfeit failures are reported, at least make up a fake email too.

[pjbracer1]

Yeah they don't care and are overly confident really most of the says are now business and listings are flooded with Chinese listings many of which are duplicated, most don't pay tax either as they "only store stock in the U.K." and a lot of low cost junk where very little is made sub £10 stuff so they need to make more on the bigger value stuff! No investing in stopping the scams or shill bidding! It's just another reason for the likes of Vinted, sphock, gumtree and Etsy to grab a bigger share from the private sellers and the business seller will move to Amazon marketplace for new products at least. The only way to stop blatant profiteering is to stop using them but until people do they will get away with it 

[bittyboy101]

Absolutely ! P J 

I and many many others are now getting fedup and tired of eBay constantly upping their fees whilst degrading their service they offer us...

(1) Extortionate selling fees and suddenly newly made up taxes to hike fees even further !

(2) Low and irregular sales - 2 - 3 sales in one day and then many weeks of nothing.

(3) Zero views on most items sellers have listed on eBay

(4) Pay more for better visibility ! - Total rip-off !

(5) Fees on postage (this has been going on now since 2013 and is well out of order as this is a service)

(6) Poor postage tracking tool - If Royal Mail and Hermes/EVRi can manage regular updates why can eBay    do the same ???

(7) Poor search facilities that never seem to show relevant items and which always seem to defult to USA and China !

(8) Slow payment - No more instant payments - Why get rid of PayPal when you cannot do any better ? - Managed Payments = 100% total downgrade and inconvenience.

[poppydiddle]

Hiya,

I bought some expensive lipstick 'brand new', what I received was a lipstick chopped up with a knife and stuck together. Reported it and Vinted said I had to pay £3.00 to return it to get a refund (which I ended up having to do). As the seller was selling dangerous/unhygienic goods I asked why I should I pay return fees. Vinted response was their decision was final and I should report the listing. When I said I couldn't because I'd bought it ergo it was no longer listed, Vinted basically said tough, their decision is final and if I continue to pursue it they may have to block me! The seller subsequently re-advertised the lipstick so I reported and the reply was there was nothing wrong with the listing. Over the following month I then had numerous of my listings taken down for nonsense reasons. 

A friend listed some sheepskin boots (just like Uggs but not branded). Her listing was taken down because 'you're not allowed to sell real fur'. When she queried why hundreds of Uggs were allowed to be listed, she was 'reminded' that fur isn't allowed - as if Uggs are not sheepskin!! If she relisted then they would block her account.

There's a great 'self-help' Vinted UK group on Facebook, worth joining and reading up on the hurdles before you start to sell there. And a tip from me - don't use Royal Mail on Vinted because Vinted basically wash their hands of you, if the buyer says it's not received then, despite RM evidence of delivery, you've probably lost your item and your money.

Re your indie tees - vintage stuff doesn't seem to sell that well on Vinted. 

[badger1-0767]

should have put Richard

[the-best-uk-deals]

Private accounts get monthly offers for %0 selling fees or reduced selling fees, The current promotion is free FvF fees you just pay the 30p -

[badger1-0767]

havent had an offer in 2years🤔 part of the  no 80% offer Club

[poppydiddle]

Please post the link for the Free FVF offer - I'd love to see the Ts&Cs of who it applies to.

I have only seen the following promotions, often highlighted on HotUKDeals -

80% off FVF + 30p listing fee

70% off FVF + 30p listing fee

£1 Fixed Price FVF + 30p listing fee

They are not offered to all private sellers, some get one of the above for a period of time and then no promos for a year or more. Some get one offer and a few months later get another and then nothing for ages. It's fairly random from what I've seen. 

The only time I have seen Free FVF + 30p listing fee is when eBay make a specific offer to someone who has a fairly new account and has bought a couple of things - this is to 'encourage' them to start selling. I have never seen it offered outside that scenario.

The other context to the promos is that private sellers can't claim operating expenses such as tax deductions for working from home, can't set fees or postage off against tax etc. Nor should they as they are not running businesses. I do think some business sellers wear blinkers when it comes the FVF discount for private sellers. As a private seller I look back at the glorious 'pre-business sellers' days of eBay - with rose tinted spectacles! A far bigger problem that affects everyone is how many Chinese companies appear to be operating pretending to be UK and the rubbish Search Engine results that seems to cough up spurious results.

[poppydiddle]

I hope it comes back to you soon. Have you tried the other promo links (70% and £1)? One might work x

[jond1492]

Oh, just *bleep* wonderful!  More fees for sellers, that get passed onto buyers, meaning higher costs to both, and ultimately less sales being made by either.  Bravo eBay!  Just keep screwing your customers over, with yet more unnecessry fees that are totally unjustifiable.  And, pray tell, exactly how many MILLIONS in profit did you make in the financial year for 2022/23?  Clearly not enough for your company/management it would seem!

[poppydiddle]

This is the most fantastic reply to a question I have seen - super helpful, comprehensive and right on the button. Thank you so very much! x

[signs_and_vintage]

Cheers, had a feeling it would be a case of 'better the devil you know', my partner had some great bargains on there but surprised to hear it's just as much buyer unfriendly as seller, usually it is skewed one way to give buyers the best experience even if it means treating sellers badly, after all, it's not their money. Thanks for sharing!

[doumind_7]

Well it's a miserly 0.35%. With ebay's massive worldwide profits surely they could quite easilt absorb this cost? What with increased post charges it's barely worth selling low price items.

[poppydiddle]

I found the 100% off FVF Offer - I hope it works for you, unfortunately it doesn't for me. The link to the offer and the Ts&Cs is here - https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/get-100-off-fixed-order-level-fee-of-30p-and-variable-percentage-fi...

[poppydiddle]

Ta daa - I've found the 100% off FVF Offer. It's for private sellers by invitation only (but try it over the next few days even if you haven't got an invite or if it rejects you, these promos sometimes trigger later for some accounts). Fabulous offer, unfortunately I'm not (yet) invited😬 but I hope some of you are x

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/get-100-off-fixed-order-level-fee-of-30p-and-variable-percentage-fi...