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

[pjbracer1]

I get that but I bougth an air compressor for an old Range Rover and it failed after 6 months and Ebay did nothing as it was past the 30 days and said I had to take it up with the supplier, or my credit card company, the credit card company will do nothing as I didnt pay the supplier directly I paid a 3rd party Ebay wh then release the funds to the supplier so I needed to take it up with Ebay! All of that hassle and loss of money as its a China supplier registered with a UK accountancy somewhere! The are ways around this and you have to play their own game! Most of the items are from different Chinese suppliers but are all the same actual supplier just with muliptle Ebay shops. Same goes for all the scams where you sell and item in good faith with all the pictures and if there is a blemish it stated and pictured yet the buyer can just use it, wear it and break it and then just send it back for a refund, so not only do you lose the money you also lose the item! 

Ive sold quite a few items where this has happened, and the cost of shipping is at my expense also, with several being returned as they arrived late having used Ebays shipping service which I will no longer do in favour of special delivey myself as then it arrives on time and has insurance so if the buyer does complain it arrived damaged then there is some recourse! 

Fact is the other options are no better or worse in terms of protection or service but are cheaper to operate from. Purchasing expensive items on any platform like this is always risky and anything that is like a cosmetic, perfume or relates to health I wouldnt touch as people cant be trusted, that said if its a well known store on any platfrom its safer.

Lets face it Eaby is not in business to help people its just a business that sells advertising space for a fee they dont give a hoot about fair, scams, or anything like that in the same way FB do nothing about fake news scams etc... The only way to make them wake up is to just stop using them. 

This is more aimed at sellers rather than buyers and if the seller all swithc platforms or at least dilute some of their sales to the others then say 20% dip in sales will be noticed. And if sellers add in the fact that there may be less protection on some of the other sales platforms they can build that in and just write off the occasional loss and will still probably be more profitable per item with the lower fees and endless taxations and low service levels Ebay has been shoe horning in over the last few years! Complacancy always leads to a fall! Just look at Tesco and Asda now hving to actively advertise that they are the same price if not cheaper than Aldi or Lidl! They have had years of price fixing across the big 6 and using the extra to dabble in other markets like mobiles and insuracne all being held up by the paying customers. Along comes a couple of Euro stores who just sell food (well some other junk too) but they sell it at fair prices and the others have lost trade and had to adjust, on the flipside the prices in Aldi and Lidl rose as they now had a reasobale customer base to allow some small increases based on loyalty as customer that had switched are unlikely to constantly check pricing. 

It will only take an Elon to build an Ebay equivalent and just do it better and for fixed pricing or something then Eaby will be forced to adapt but until use sellers make the move and vote with our feet, it will continue! 

[doumind_7]

Thanks. However having read this I would be wary about using it. And really what are you saving? 30p on each item. If you sell a lot ok, but for the average seller it's hardly worth it. I'm not entirely convinced this isn't a scam of some sort.

Regards
Doug

[doumind_7]

Thanks, very interesting. And you're right, vote with your feet. The problem is eBay is world-wide so gives you an huge access to sellers. I think Facebook Market Place is pretty big, but the thing is eBay has a good setup from selling, buying, bidding, paying, posting, listing etc. Not sure any other platforms are that sophisticated. may be cheaper But you've got to weigh that up with potential reaching fewer buyers. But I'm going to have a look at Facebook.

Regards
Doug M.

[5m1th3r]

As a ( now very seldom ) private seller, I agree with everyone else on here. Taking nigh-on £7 for my last sale totalling £50 isn't enough already? It was collected by a local guy,  so on hindsight I could've easily have sold it on FB Marketplace...for free. Are Facebook faced with these claimed regulatory costs?

As a ( now far less frequent ) buyer, you have turned eBay into a shoddy mess. Trying to navigate past all the relentless piles of Chinese tat is a time consuming task I rarely attempt now.  This additional fee will only serve to decrease listings from sellers listing better quality items and turn eBay into another Temu. 

[bittyboy101]

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@doumind_7 wrote:
Thanks, very interesting. And you're right, vote with your feet. The problem is eBay is world-wide so gives you an huge access to sellers. I think Facebook Market Place is pretty big, but the thing is eBay has a good setup from selling, buying, bidding, paying, posting, listing etc. Not sure any other platforms are that sophisticated. may be cheaper But you've got to weigh that up with potential reaching fewer buyers. But I'm going to have a look at Facebook.

Regards
Doug M.

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eBay used to be pretty good years ago, but lately it's now gone down hill with them constantly throttling/supressing potential sales by them manipulating the search results and forcing sellers to have to pay them more for better visibility when before visibility was good and the  items were getting seen and sold promptly after listing them for sale on eBay. 

Also they have messed up the payment, before 2022 the payment provider for eBay was PayPal which was their main payment processor and provider since 1998/99, for many years this worked very well, especially with instant payment where you could have instant access to your buyer's money and feel reassured that you "have your money" for the item you've just sold and buyers had 180 days protection if something went wrong compared to eBay's now short 30 days.

Also there is no instant payments anymore and eBay will not do anything or make an effort to address this, now it takes 1 - 4 working days for a buyer's funds to reach your bank, (mine takes around 24 hours so show up at my bank) and this is if you sell an item the day before, if you sell and item at 12:10 am then eBay make you wait a whole day until the following morning before they then send the payout money over to your bank.

Whilst to be fair it is still better than some online market places, it was once the best, but not anymore, especially now  with them constantly jacking up the fees which were already getting a bit ridiculous lately and even more now ! - Hence this thread !  

[doumind_7]

Yes I agree.
I've checked out Facebook Market Place and while there is no commission charges there are a number of things I don't really like:
1. You can't auction an item
2. It's restricted to your area, in my case London and, well certainly is not Worldwide like eBay.
3. Unless you register as a business, it seems like you can't set a payment method like PayPal or bank transfer. You can deliver, have home collection of meet elsewhere (a bit dodgy!)
4. EBay security is not 100%, but I'd be wary of selling high prices items on Facebook.
I don't use social media, but I'll give it a go with a couple of low prices items, and report back!
Regards
Doug

[signs_and_vintage]

Tldr; FB mktpl is no suitable replacement for eBay, for a huge number of reasons...

[litp*records]

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@doumind_7 wrote:
Thanks. However having read this I would be wary about using it. And really what are you saving? 30p on each item. If you sell a lot ok, but for the average seller it's hardly worth it. I'm not entirely convinced this isn't a scam of some sort.

Regards
Doug

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You're wrong, it's not just the listing fee you save (30p) but the entire Final Value Fee (usually 12-15% of sale price)

And everyone wonders why business sellers get fed up, especially of those who masquerade as private sellers but are actual businesses.

As a business account holder i've not received a Final Value Fee offer in years!   They think we have a bottomless pit of money.  I am just one person with a small online shop, I'm not McDonalds, I can't afford to subsidise fake "private" sellers who have 1,000s of items for sale, yet they pay nothing for the privilege.

Makes us feel like mugs.

[doumind_7]

I stand corrected. But it still looks dodgy to me and I wouldn't use it.
As a business seller why can't you
get the 70% off final value fees offers every two weeks. Are they not available to both private and business?
Be interested to hear your views on Facebook Market Place.
Regards
R

[ups-trader]

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@doumind_7 wrote:
I stand corrected. But it still looks dodgy to me and I wouldn't use it.
As a business seller why can't you
get the 70% off final value fees offers every two weeks. Are they not available to both private and business?
Be interested to hear your views on Facebook Market Place.
Regards
R

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because while we keep paying it, they will keep charging it.

[ups-trader]

To be clear I dont mind payin fees.

given our GMV's

5% platform fee

I think about 1.5% for simple payments

3% for cross borders / credit cards

is about right.

We're at ~13% for vanilla sales, sometimes inflated by fees on international shipping / international VAT which is not a profit centre.

[bittyboy101]

Point taken !

Best Regards, Dean.

[pontoon01]

shocking really.. no point really selling on eBay lol

[litp*records]

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@doumind_7 wrote:
I stand corrected. But it still looks dodgy to me and I wouldn't use it.
As a business seller why can't you
get the 70% off final value fees offers every two weeks. Are they not available to both private and business?
Be interested to hear your views on Facebook Market Place.
Regards
R

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As a business seller you get no such offers.  During the c19 era, Ebay threw us a few 70% off fees offers, as I remember. But there has been nothing now for a good couple of years.

[tommystrezures]

I don't understand why if it's a regulatory operating fee why it doesn't affect both sellers and buyers? After all as a seller we take time to list, picture, pack, drive to post office etc. yet for the buyers it's free, nada, gratis to use the site. As a buyer you have the expense if shopping in a high street of the cost of driving there your parking any bags you may need to purchase etc. so passing a few pence cost to buyers instead of fully loading it on to the seller would seem a much fairer approach.

[bittyboy101]

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@poppydiddle wrote:

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...

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I have this offer and I've been using it since last weekened.

Sold a couple of items on it and only got charged around £2 pounds on £100 item when it would have been £15+ !

When I got this offer I was thinking, this is too good to be true ?... there must be a catch somewhere !

Well here it is !, they are saying "make the most of it" because after 15th April 2024 we are going to batter you with even HIGHER SELLING FEES THEN BEFORE !

For the last 4 years, I've always received the 80% promo offer every 2 weeks (it used to be max selling fees £1), but whenever I would list stuff under that offer, all my items would get GHOSTED and remain on 0 views and there would be NO SALES after that.

With eBay, they always have to do something sneaky behined the sceen Why ? I don't know... 

[doumind_7]

Hi. Why is this invitation only? What is the criteria?
Doug

[bittyboy101]

I think you have to be a regular seller and be private.

You must not list anything using auction format or using the multi item listing - ie 1 listing that offers more than one item like "1 sold 3 available"

They only give this promo offer to selected users and I think they target private sellers that are selling high priced items via Buy-It-Now style listings in a bid to get them to lower their high prices so that they have a better chance of making a sale.

Only problem I find is after accepting this offer and using it, most of my items seem to just sit there with 0 views for up to 2-3 weeks before I get fed up and take them down and relist under the normal non promo offer where I would then get a sale on something, but if I didn't factor the MASSIVE EBAY SELLING FEES into the buy it now price then I would be selling at a HUGE LOSS !

[antroa-95]

Hi all,

This is my first post in the community although I've been selling for a few years.

Yes, this half a percent (including VAT) adds another burden onto the camel's back (which may break at some point) but it's a burden for everyone - not just me.  Eventually, everyone will raise prices so that the buyer pays, or they will take it on the chin and absorb the reduction in profit.

My plan is to increase prices on new listings and re-listings (which may make me less competitive in the short-term) and play the long game.

When the UK Government raises taxes we can't do anything but cheat or moan.

When the ebay government raises fees all we can do is moan.

Love you all.

Tony

[ups-trader]

I think the game here is eBay are exploring fee sensitivity.

There are any number of things you can call fees, I dont think any of us care about that. We want to know the overall percentage.

eBay want to know where the sales volume starts to decline because of fees - and then they have the data they need for maximum extraction. This is fairly standard corporate play, and you see it on the petrol forcourts. Strangely shipping seems not to do it (ocean containers anyway) they just price you what it costs at the minute.

The thing eBay probably realise but I want to highlight here for others, is that they only facilitate the sales, without their sellers they are nothing. If they loose sellers, getting them back would I suggest never happen. Once someone explores another avenue, they would not go back to a higher fee platform. 

The reason we are sticking now is there is momentum and everyone has their things flowing along. 

There is a lot of momentum back from the low fee days when sellers got on the platform and have stuck it out. That grass roots energy of selling on the new internet will never happen again. 

Its a riskier game than just petrol prices where the market is captive. I think they seriously need to look not only at what the top and bottom line says, but also sentiment for example this thread. eBay historically have not had good contactability for higher level things. Day to day there is the concierge team, but when you have a complaint - there is no process for example. 

The fees are getting too high.

People will leave

the marketplace will become less vibrant

Risky.