A Clean Sweep (almost).

[theelench]

Today at 09.00  every thread on P.1 of the SC board was a complaint about Straightjacket Delivery.  (OK there were a couple about selling restrictions, both from the same author)

I think this continuing anger and the increasing number of private sellers coming here to vent it shows that the "loud but tiny minority" theory is becoming less tenable with every day that passes and by now ebay should be thinking about reversing its roll out.

Hopefully most, if not all, of those coming here to complain will have reduced, if not deleted all their listings and stopped buying to make it clear to ebay that taking control of seller's delivery options is not acceptable (even if it worked properly) and private sellers want 'Simple' Delivery  REMOVED from ebay.uk

[edwardian-dreams]

My maths and economics (blind spot) isn’t great but on low cost items their 75p bleeding blanket fee plus 4% makes a bigger fee up to almost 100%  compared to selling fees of before 

depends how many of ebays sales were like this and how many they got more than £1 fees for  or so

dunno lol 

[edwardian-dreams]

Oh that’s wild

in 2023 Vinteds revenue was 596 million

800: odd million in 2024 *

I wonder what happened to somewhere saying they only  earned 5m worldwide, like what dates?

*https://company.vinted.com/newsroom/Vinted-delivers-strong-profitable-growth-while-investing

[xenavsbuffy1]

So to sum up, Vinted are being compared to Ebay despite them being less than 1% of ebays UK and due to the car crash of a number of changes they have roughly the same figures as Amazon who look fairly stable in comparison wonder what the next 3 months will show now that its mandatory 

[gjalp]

---

@thesmokingrunner wrote:

I am genuinely confused, gjalp. You have a rented storage unit and an attic full of stamps?

All you have listed (2,262 items) or sold in the last 3 months (785 ditto) is stamps. That's an awful lot of personal items. Or an awful lot of items inherited from stamp-collecting relatives...

Only Private sellers are required to use Simple Delivery. Oh, sorry - that should read "Only Private sellers and Businesses incorrectly registered as Private sellers are required to use Simple Delivery"...

---

What you are looking at is my business account. I have more than one account of which one is a private account and no I do not have an attic and storage unit full of stamps 🙄

[dch2112011]

Remember these are Revenue figures  before expenses  - the turnover figure you quote is for the total Vinted Group (“Vinted”), which includes the European C2C second-hand marketplace Vinted, logistics business Vinted Go, and payments business Vinted Pay

The Vinted figures that you mock are for  one month May 2025  for the category fashion and apparel only, excludes returns, subscriptions and app sales and is for revenue via the vinted .com website  

The same criteria applies to ebay.uk except for all categories  for their figures which still makes vinted a bit player in e commerce - they do not even get in the top 10 !

OVERVIEW
In May 2025, vinted.com, a FASHION AND APPAREL industry player, recorded $5,114,083 in revenue, with a conversion rate of 1.50-2.00% and an AOV of $100-125. The highest online store in the category, shein.com, achieved $731,622,726 in revenue, a 3.09% conversion rate, and an AOV of $415. vinted.com saw 2,594,736 sessions, while the highest was 224,142,058 from shein.com, and the median in the industry was 33,223 sessions. The lowest conversion rate observed was 0.67%, and the lowest AOV was $82, highlighting vinted.com's performance metrics in the competitive landscape.

[dch2112011]

Not really a good comparison but as so many repeat posters mock ebay and puff up the virtues of vinted as a better option - a comparison puts some perspective on these claims.

The real point is that all marketplaces are suffering with a downturn this quarter and ebays downturn is slightly less than other market places and their sales conversion rate is one of the highest for platforms which defies the blame lies entirely with the changes for private sellers 

As you quite rightly state the next quarter will be telling when comparing against the other major retail sites

[edwardian-dreams]

Why are you including shein and bit next or m and s which is not on a par with eBay and vinted Etsy and the like ..ps shein is the pits and should,not be so successful but anyway 

I guess you know more than I do here so I’ll but out here

Nothing worse than typing about things you have no idea about  really 

Had just added my two cents 

[gjalp]

I’d never mock ebay myself since it enabled me to work for myself and from home so I was available for my children while they grew up (all are in their 20s now 🙂 ). It gave me a good income too. There has always been peaks and troughs in sales patterns but the cost of living has muddied the waters in recent times and I think that is still an influencing factor. Im lucky in that I have regular repeat buyers and some have been buying from me for years now. 

Ebay has also had a habit of tinkering and messing things up at times but Ive just rolled with it albeit with grumpy mumblings. What I don’t like is the feeling of losing control over some aspects of my selling and I feel the BPF on every single item rather than an order total a bit of an unfair overreach. Even if I didnt have a private account, I don’t like the changes as a business as private sales contribute to business sales by transfer of funds.

[fotherbale]

---

@dch2112011 wrote:

.......vinted.com, a FASHION AND APPAREL industry player,

---

There is rather more to Vinted than just clothing 😉

[dch2112011]

Indeed ebay has been good to many private sellers who transition to become businesses - of course  due to the enormous size of ebay - ebay adopts one glove fits all policies - unfortunately the glove is not made to measure for each individual  and there will always be part of the policy that is uncomfortable  or simply doesn't fit for everyone but generally it achieves it's aims.

ebay's mission is to increase private sellers selling unwanted items if for no other reason than to help meet it's net zero  and sustainability commitments by 2045 

'Recommerce is proof that sustainability and opportunity can go hand in hand. When we connect buyers and sellers through the resale of pre-loved and refurbished goods, we’re also reducing waste, conserving resources, and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.' ebay inc sustainable commerce

Recpmmerce is a key part of this commitment  as is the recent partnership in the UK with EVRI - yes the one  everyone vows never to use - well a minority of members anyway 

'This year, we partnered with EVRi, a parcel delivery and courier service, to bring more electric vans to the road in the U.K'   ebay inc - sustainable commerce 

[fotherbale]

---

@dch2112011 wrote:

ebay are actively promoting and attracting more genuine private sellers than they are losing

---

I don't know where you are getting figures from to support that, but if they come from ebay, I suspect they are entirely fabricated. 

My own experience of the regular searches that I run is that there has been a steep decline in the number of listings in most of those searches generally, and mainly due to a lot fewer listings from private sellers.  The number of business sellers appears to me to have decreased as well. 

My ebay purchases have consequently decreased significantly too, and I rarely buy from private sellers now because where their listings are using Simple Delivery, the shipping charges are often much higher than I would expect.  The upside is that there seems to have been a recent massive drop off in the number of bidders on auction listings in certain of the categories I regularly search, which has led to some thing selling for as much as half of what they would have done previously, which may tempt me into bidding and buying more again. 

[dch2112011]

The information comes from ebay, and reputable third party factual figures.

Whilst I have no doubt what you are experiancing is happening - it may be worth exploring alternative reasons- such as established permanent private sellers with 1000's of private listings are reducing their listings due to the changes ,creating less visible listings.

On the upside ebay have attracted  more casual sellers grateful of SD  selling  a few unwanted items 

- these sellers form part of the reported increase in new buyers 1% overall and with verified healthy sales conversion rates 4 to 4.5% - ebay is changing rapidly and if the growth in buyers and casual sellers continue to climb your search content will increase 

[fotherbale]

You can believe whatever you want, but the trend I have seen has beeen building for many months. I think it unlikely that the trend is going to reverse any time soon.

Regardless of what you ebay fanatics seem to think, almost every aspect of ebay has degenerated into a shambles over the last few months, from the increasing mess of the search system, problems with SD, almost total absence of any action to stop sellers of illegal or counterfeit items, the report system now being almost pointless, conflicting terms and conditions between ebay SD and the carriers they are using (and no actual binding confirmation of how this is resolved),  four years on, and they still haven't got the VAT charging system correctly working...... it just goes on-and-on ad infinitum.

[fotherbale]

---

@vinylscot wrote:

......However, eBay may look at these forums and, quite logically by their way of thinking, consider that things are quietening down. There are far fewer new problems arising. Most of the posts are regurgitations of former posts (many obviously fabricated), or simple misunderstandings from either the seller, the buyer, or the post office. And a huge proportion of these posts are from a small, rather contrary, group of poster.......

The contrarians can be ignored.......

---

Firstly, I really don't think anyone at ebay beyond the board moderators do actually look at these boards, and if they did, I fully expect they would ignore anything posted that wasn't complimentary.

Secondly, when I look at the Selling, Buying and postage boards, I don't really see any sign that complaints and dis-satisfaction with SD is 'quietening down' much if at all.  There continue to be a similar number of new posters with new problems as far as I can see.  Just because some people choose the opportunity to repeat their dislike of SD in those new threads doesn't necessarily make them all simply "contrarians" as you put it.  They have valid complaints about it which ebay is continually refusing to address.

Thirdly, neither I am seeing the same few people starting the new threads, although most of the replies come from the same people admittedly.  I think the number of 'contrarians' as you put it is a very small proportion of the total of those who are unhappy with SD, so I think ignoring them doesn't really alter the overall level of dissatisfaction. 

So far, ebay does not appear to have made any changes that make any significant difference, and have done little more than paying lip-service to the very clear problems that have arisen and are ongoing.

I really do not see any real evidence that they "are getting there" at all.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

@dch2112011 wrote:

Recpmmerce is a key part of this commitment  as is the recent partnership in the UK with EVRI - yes the one  everyone vows never to use - well a minority of members anyway 

'This year, we partnered with EVRi, a parcel delivery and courier service, to bring more electric vans to the road in the U.K'   ebay inc - sustainable commerce 

---

🤣🤣🤣The notion that ebay has partnered with Evri for philanthropic reasons rather than because Evri has no doubt given them a big fat massive discount made me nearly fall off my chair laughing 🤣 

[moonlight-rhapsody]

---

@dch2112011 wrote:

ebay's mission is to increase private sellers selling unwanted items if for no other reason than to help meet it's net zero  and sustainability commitments by 2045 

'Recommerce is proof that sustainability and opportunity can go hand in hand. When we connect buyers and sellers through the resale of pre-loved and refurbished goods, we’re also reducing waste, conserving resources, and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.' ebay inc sustainable commerce

Are you serious?  Ebay's mission is to *make money*.   They don't seem to be very concerned about the low-value items potentially going to landfill now, due to the 75p + 4%  BPF disproportionately affecting low-value sales and making them unviable to sell.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

I don't know why you're so reluctant to give links to your sources.  It would give your figures much more credibility.  Personally I'd rather see verifiable sources rather than curated figures posted by a unknown individual on an internet forum.

[vinylscot]

To be fair, having read your recent input into this thread, I wouldn't expect anything else from you.

Your views are thoroughly entrenched, and you have little or no intention of allowing them to be changed. You may be experiencing the "declines" you claim, but I think that you, like so many others, are exaggerating these for effect.

You're becoming, even in the progress of this thread, far closer to the "contrarians" than you are to those concerned individuals who actually want to see this improve.

I'll reiterate, there is still a way to go, but you would need to be wilfully obtuse not to acknowledge that the frequency of "new" problems is far lower than before. There will always be spikes, as a new tranche of sellers find their items switched over to a system they know nothing about, but they tend to be the same old thing, over and over again; people are not bringing up new issues. Much improvement is still needed, but I maintain that it is slowly getting better.

[lucy_farmer]

'Much improvement is still needed, but I maintain that it is slowly getting better.'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, some bits do seem to be getting a little bit of attention and getting a little bit clearer.

And others are still a disaster zone, including my particular pet peeve; the Exclusion List problem.

That is still as opaque as ever, and until it's cleared up (in the T's and C's not just by kat!) I'm not selling.

@dch2112011  'Recommerce is proof that sustainability and opportunity can go.......' !!

 Ebay don't give a flying fig for anything other than making money. This statement of theirs is just a world class example of total  bullsh** spin and greenwashing cobblers

[papso22]

 "There will always be spikes, as a new tranche of sellers find their items switched over to a system they know nothing about, but they tend to be the same old thing, over and over again; people are not bringing up new issues."

Exactly this, few if any new problems and a lot of resurrected threads rather than new ones, that are muddying the waters, caused by people just experiencing SD for the first time.