I made a complaint to the CMA. It was answered in 10 days
Specifically my complaint was aimed at small lightweight items that can be sent letter or large letter post. This is basically covered by Royal Mails Universal Service Obligation which means that it is one price anywhere in the UK, including NI, Isle of Man , Channel Islands, Highlands and Islands etc and this method of postage is VAT exempt as is signed for and Special Delivery Guaranteed.
EBAY have made a small adjustment.
In simple delivery the following exception has appeared
Opting out
From 15 April, Simple Delivery will be the only delivery method available for private sellers who list eligible items on eBay.co.uk. The option to opt out will only be available for items under £10 and weighing 100g or under.
For buyers that have to use some type of parcel post EBAY may be cheaper. It would seem from various forum posts that in some cases Simple delivery will just NOT work.
However they are still trying to impose a Vatable service on small letter post items over £10, This is detrimental to the seller and buyer where it costs only 87p to post 2nd Class. That is the main basis of my complaint and that it imposes unfair terms on sellers and forces prices up for buyers. It is always a balance as to when a tracked service is used by the seller. I now tend to limit this to letter post items totalling over £30.
The other issue is that I use stamps and the Post box is 125 metres away. Why should I have to go to the Post Office to post anything.
Unfortunately this is typical of the unenlightened senior management that run EBAY especially the CEO in the US who has very little or no retail expertise and who, at the moment , is running scared of the shareholders because profit declined over 38% in the y/e 31/12/2024. I do not know if there were any exceptional items that contributed to that decline.
As I have previously stated per Capita (population) the UK is EBAY's largest market. Therefore it is quite possible to make life uncomfortable for the top brass.
They need someone who is experienced in all aspects of retail and who can understand the differences in each and every category of items sold and by whom. Until they do, in my opinion, their profit will continue to decline. After all EBAY really is only a sophisticated software program that connects buyers and sellers. They are now facing competition from the likes of Vinted, Depop, Etsy etc in the UK .
Their complacency in keeping high selling fees drove many people away. and is continuing to do so.
One of the problems faced is listing fees, which is a problem mainly for businesses turning over £12,000 to approx. £40,000. A buy it now listing for a business flips over monthly. Every time it does so a relisting fee is charged unless you are paying inclusive of VAT £524 per month for an anchor shop. If your listing is unique for 1 item only that is a hideous monthly expense. I have 1500 virtually unique listings with 1 item only. Another seller might have 150 items but have 10 items of each one. I think in this case the monthly flip over would only attract fees on 150 listings.
EBAY you business is built on retail foundations , so please learn to understand retail and stop putting up barriers to smaller sellers whose turnover may well be between £3000- £8000 per annum.
