Be Aware! Offer prices INCLUDE the Buyer Protection Fee

[meditative-moods]

I made a sale on my personal account this morning for a set of headphones that I had listed at £59.95 with it set to auto accept offers over £50.00.

A buyer made an offer 10% below asking price, so £54.00 and as I have it set to auto-accept above £50.00 this was accepted, however, when the email for the order came through, I only receive £51.23 as the Buyer Protection Fee of £2.77 is INCLUDED in the offer price.

In my opinion, if the buyer has offer £54.00, I should receive the £54.00 and the BPF should be added to that.

Just be aware if you have offers, particularly on lower value items, as this change will make most low value offers pointless to sellers.

eBay seem to be on a path to self destruction, not giving a thought as to how their imbecilic changes affect real people 🤷‍♂️

[lucy_farmer]

'I think they should perfect new processes etc before rolling them out to users.'

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I've an idea this is why all this carp is happening over here , *not* in the US.

We are the guinea pigs......

🐹🇬🇧

[meditative-moods]

Yes, I agree, on offers it is definitely paid by the seller, which isn’t what it was supposed to be. On lower value items you see it more because of the fixed 75p element, so on an item that’s worth say £3.00, the fixed 75p component of the BPF is 25% of the item value, which is madness.

A sliding scale might have been more sensible, but I guess they couldn’t be bothered.

[meditative-moods]

I can’t swear to this, but actually I believe it was rolled out in Germany months ago, long before we got it🤷🏻‍

[lucy_farmer]

'I can’t swear to this, but actually I believe it was rolled out in Germany months ago, long before we got it'

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Blimey! I'm amazed that German efficiency would happily put up with something so ridiculously time-wasting as getting rid of combined invoices, or something as un-intuitive as the 'offers' process!

Germany didn't  'pass'  this as ready to be rolled out , surely?

[meditative-moods]

I seem to remember reading an article where the boss of eBay said that changing over from seller fees to free listings with BPF had lead to improved sales and revenues in Germany, but you are correct, our German cousins would probably be horrified at the idiocy of the whole thing 😂

[angur_3065]

I agree that the new way of ebay collecting it's fees is very
underhanded.It's not clear how much a seller will receive at all. Also,when
i list something at a certain price and when ebay have added their charges
it makes my items look ridiculously expensive for what it is.Therefore no
bids and a weeks selling time wasted.Ebay? This new system is'nt
working!!!!!!!!!!!

[meditative-moods]

I suspect that like me, you aren’t their target user going forwards, as I think eBay now derives most of its income from promoted listings and CPC promotions. If you aren’t an advertiser, I think eBay view you as a nuisance above anything else.

Think about it, Chinese sellers that are happy to pay to advertise are providing eBay with revenue no matter what, whereas non advertising sellers only provide an income when an item sells, so it seems they are deliberately pushing private sellers and small businesses off the platform by making it not worthwhile. 

[vintique*violet]

Word of the day... 🤔 Oblivion - refers to the state of being forgotten or unaware, often associated with a lack of memory or consciousness. It can also describe a condition where something is completely destroyed or erased from existence.

[meditative-moods]

Yes and if you place the words “self inflicted” before the word of the day, it gives quite a prescient feel to it…

[johnwash1]

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@thesmi42 wrote:

Annoyingly, I always miss it as I'm out on a Wednesday afternoon.

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Trust me, that's an hour of raised blood pressure you've saved yourself every week.  Just go and read one of those sessions and see the perceptive on-point questions and the anodyne non-answers together with "we'll carry this to a team somewhere and might get back to you", instead of actually inviting a different specialist along each week to take real note of issues.  Imagine it, in advance they could announce which team's responsibility would be focussed on.

No, that would never work, it would risk getting clarity and real change.

[meditative-moods]

I suppose I should either join an existing thread or start a new one about the “Funds held until delivery confirmed” as I have a Royal Mail large letter item that the postie has obviously not scanned, so my £16.00 is sat in limbo at the moment. Does anyone know what happens in such circumstances please? 

eBay has the potential to be an excellent platform but my word, are they trying to make it not so! Perhaps the decision makers should study Occam’s Razor and the theorem that its best not to overthink and over complicate things and just look for the simplest and most obvious solution….

[tressygirl]

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@meditative-moods wrote:

I suppose I should either join an existing thread or start a new one about the “Funds held until delivery confirmed” as I have a Royal Mail large letter item that the postie has obviously not scanned, so my £16.00 is sat in limbo at the moment. Does anyone know what happens in such circumstances please? 

If there is no tracking then the payout will be held for 14 days.

@meditative-moods 

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[meditative-moods]

Ah, thank you for clarifying that for me. It was sent as a Royal Mail 48 which isn’t fully tracked, only scanned at point of delivery, which about 30% of aren’t scanned by the postie for some reason🤷🏻‍

Again, one has to ask, how does this help anyone? Do buyers see a difference….no. Does it inconvenience sellers….yes. Is the extra interest on our held funds really that important to eBay? Only they can answer that question….

[tressygirl]

@meditative-moods  wrote:  Again, one has to ask, how does this help anyone? Do buyers see a difference….no. Does it inconvenience sellers….yes. Is the extra interest on our held funds really that important to eBay? Only they can answer that question….

You,  and many others are asking the same question!

Join in the many long discussion threads on this subject on the forum,  there are many passionate debates!

@meditative-moods 

[incredible_how]

When sending a counter offer of £18, I was paid £18 the buyer fee on top.

But the poor buyer was very confused by the whole process of negotiation via messaging first....

I've sent ut offers and recieved the amount I asked, but I've not had someone make an offer and my automated accept figure coming into play - I shall wait and see

[insomniaga247]

i completely agree . they can show what my counter offer will be with the added fee to seller .  but cant be bothered to show the sellers  the price with or without the fees when recieving offer at first . ebay cant seem to work out 9.99 sounds better than 10.00 or 10.73 or the buying phycology behind it  .     so im expected to work out the math and sell it at 7.67 or something stupid for it to appear as 9.99 .  remove the fee . add the fee . give buyers 100 items fee free ,  remove the fee on clothes , then add the fee to everything ,  round and round we go , 

[johnwash1]

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@insomniaga247 wrote:

i completely agree . they can show what my counter offer will be with the added fee to seller .  but cant be bothered to show the sellers  the price with or without the fees when recieving offer at first . ebay cant seem to work out 9.99 sounds better than 10.00 or 10.73 or the buying phycology behind it  .     so im expected to work out the math and sell it at 7.67 or something stupid for it to appear as 9.99 .  remove the fee . add the fee . give buyers 100 items fee free ,  remove the fee on clothes , then add the fee to everything ,  round and round we go , 

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Round and round we go... look up graveyard spiral.  I guess the pilots in the Marketing department are inexperienced... it doesn't end well.

[49bag]

I have just been stung with this both ways! I bought something and asked the seller if they’d accept an offer. They agreed my price and then sent an offer that was actually a bit higher than what we’d agreed. I was a bit miffed but accepted the offer sent. It then turned out I’d paid the buyer protection in addition to the agreed price. Not clear.

I sold something today and an offer price came through. AFTER I accepted the offer it became apparent that I’d actually received less than the offer because I had ended up paying the protection fee which I assumed would be added to the price the seller offered. I felt tricked. I was of the assumption that the buyer now pays the fee but that’s not the case if you accept an offer. I haven’t just sold for free, I’ve paid a decent fee for selling something.

eBay must change this otherwise I won’t accept offers anymore. My buy it now price will be final and the buyer will pay the extra on my price. I don’t like feeling tricked by this sneaky confusion system but they’ll only catch me out once.

[incredible_how]

Tracked 48 isn't just a scan at point of delivery, it has end to end tracking and photo on delivery. If you buy via ebay the tracking number is automatically added to order, if you buy via RM you need to add it.
The scan at point of delivery number thing works about 75% of the time, but I've not had a tracked 48 or 24 fail to show up as delivered

[odsey98]

I spent ages on ebay live chat telling them their implementation of the BPF is insane. Told them that the fee is nothing to do with sellers, who don't even need to see it. It's between ebay and the buyers. The clue is in the name! Bloke ended up telling me to come back on to live chat every time I get an offer and they'll work out what I need to offer to get the price I want! Madness or what! And it depends whether you look on the app or the computer as to what info about an offer you're given. Told them if they want to imitate Vinted to save their business, they could at least implement it like Vinted which is totally clear.