Buyer Fee amount error - are you seeing it too?

[jimthing]

(following on from this thread post: #10 in thread: "Buyer fee - how to calculate total? + Shipping: charge separately now or not?")

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@jimthing wrote:

(Another user who wanted to remain anonymous emailed me about the pricing error, with thanks.) 

Ebay have set this up wrongly, as they're working out the fee wrongly! 

While Ebay's help says in their example: 

£20 - Item price set by the seller

£1.55 - Buyer Protection fee (4% of £20 [i.e. £0.80], + £0.75)

£21.55 + postage - Price that buyer sees for the listing

£20 - seller earnings

The list-an-item page works it out incorrectly as: 

£20 - Item price set by the seller

-£0.75 - minus fixed fee

= £19.25

£0.77 - Buyer Protection fee (4% of £19.25)

= £1.52 - TOTAL FEE (£0.75+£0.77)

£21.52 + postage - Price that buyer sees for the listing

£20 - seller earnings

This is ENTIRELY THE WRONG WAY according to Ebay's own help page! 

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Is everyone else seeing this same buyer fee amount error, or are you seeing it fixed and showing the correct fee amount? 

Note: It should be 4% plus 75p to get the correct amount for your item. 

[valueaddedresource]

@jimthing  by the way, I noticed they added verbiage about VAT in both the check out screen and Buyer Fee policy page.

[goodibags]

Either Ebay is doing the sums in the wrong order OR they may be using a fixed fee of 72p?

This works for an item at £1 (fee 76p) and £2 (fee 80p) as well as £20

In other words, possibly doing the calculation in the right order but using a wrong value.

[wintersdawn1]

I put my prices back to what they were before the fees were added and used 4% + 72p and was the correct amount.  The only variance was say for an item of £8.99 the corrected price would be £7.95 but that came to £8.98 on ebay and by putting £7.96 that came to £9.00 so couldn't arrive at £8.99.

[papso22]

I don't think the bit about VAT is right. It wouldn't be the first time!

[svincec]

Hmm, 'private' sales and vat?
Only vat should be on ebay service, seems like there needs to be clarity on ebay fees being vat inclusive or exclusive. Better would be like we need a plain seller-buyer NPO, not one supporting corporate bloat and exploitative CxO luxury overheads, that don't even provide decent QA on their accounting/charging systems?

[andha-21]

I've been trying to work these "upgrades" out and the bit that gets my nose twitching is BFP.

If a private seller to consumer transaction cannot proceed without the consumer paying eBay for the BFP service how is that legally a private sale anymore?

The entire process is conditional on a consumer to business transaction.

I say that because you mentioned "private sales".

I'm not so sure they are, at least in a legal sense.

[andrewspode]

I found 72p works most of the time and it's a lot simpler, however I think Jim's original post with formula was correct.

https://claude.site/artifacts/16aab181-f07e-41cd-a2be-608b241dffda

I have made (well, AI did under my guidance) the following tool which is helping me with my pricing - based on @jimthing 's formula. I mostly just use the lookup table and then for other prices, I use the text box. This is more useful for new listings than adjusting old ones.

This has worked quite well for me. There does also appear to be some odd rounding going on at eBay which I tried and failed to replicate. There are a few price points where changing by a single penny meant it overshot and undershot in the other direction - but they are few and far between. @wintersdawn1 talked about this too.

[jimthing]

Another thing to notice about how these fees work: 

The shipping fees are taken from your running total, not per-item total. 

Difficult to explain...

I sold three items since this new system began. Sale #1 happened on day one leaving me ~£10 after the shipping fees were bought on Ebay. Then sale #2 happened on day two, & sale #3 happed on day three over the next two days. The shipping fees I bought on Ebay for each one were taken from the £10 balance left after sale #1.  

So when sale #1 (only ~£10 after costs) cleared ready to withdraw (2 days after delivery), there was only a few pence available to withdraw, as the shipping fees for sale #2+#3 reduced from that amount. So it's a running total system Ebay are using, rather than a per-item total. 

While this is a minor issue, it effectively means you have to wait until the later sale clears through (2 days after delivery) to be able to take the money for the previous sale. Obviously this depends on the amount your item sells for, but something to be aware of. when doing your accounting.  

This compares to previously, where I'd sell item #1, pay for shipping, then immediately withdraw at midnight that day the WHOLE remaining amount for that sale. Then sell item #2 the next day and do the same thing, Then item #3 the day after that, and do the same thing. Under that system, you got the remainder of each sale more or less immediately, but now you to have wait until the next sale item clears to withdraw the full margin of the previous sale item. 

[goodibags]

Thank you for sharing the price calculator. I don't have many items listed and not all have buyer fees yet.

You're right, 72p is close but not always correct. And as you mentioned there are some very strange roundings going on in the buyer fees. For example, it's impossible to have a buyer fee of 99p.

If you enter an item price of £6.75 you end up with £7.73 (so 98p in fees)

If you enter an item price of £6.76 you end up with £7.76 (£1 in fees)

A 3p jump for a 1p price increase? That's just weird. My guess would be that the Buyer Fee and the VAT charge on it are being rounded separately. In the first case they're both rounded down and in the second both rounded upwards.

Isn't it lovely how Ebay presents us puzzle fans with so much new material to work with, as we while away the hours/days between sales?

A shame they don't also publish solutions to them.

[wellingnorth]

I asked about the 72 / 75p discrepancy on the community chat today and the response was as follows:

"The flat fee is typically 72p, but we state 'up to 75p' to account for scenarios where variations may occur."

So it does seem like whoever pointed out the 'up to' in the wording (apologies I can't find the post now) was on the right track and this may not actually be an error at all!

Annoyingly it does make efforts to end up with normal looking prices a bit more haphazard if this amount may vary.

[sml192]

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@wellingnorth wrote:

I asked about the 72 / 75p discrepancy on the community chat today and the response was as follows:

"The flat fee is typically 72p, but we state 'up to 75p' to account for scenarios where variations may occur."

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Thanks for asking.  I don't see what variations there could possibly be though? 

[wellingnorth]

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@sml192 wrote:

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@wellingnorth wrote:

I asked about the 72 / 75p discrepancy on the community chat today and the response was as follows:

"The flat fee is typically 72p, but we state 'up to 75p' to account for scenarios where variations may occur."

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Thanks for asking.  I don't see what variations there could possibly be though? 

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I'm really not sure either! I suppose it gives them flexibility to add a lower flat fee for specific categories or cheaper items maybe.

[jimthing]

This whole inaccuracy in the fixed fee part of the buyer fee is completely the opposite of how the Help section describes how Ebay should be applying them, and is utterly ridiculous. 

ALL of the examples in the Help show the fixed amount being 75p EXACTLY – not 71p, not 72p, nor 73p!

Yet here we are over TWO WEEKS later since introduction, and the fixed fee remains an enigma that no one on even the Ebay staff understand nor have explained to anyone properly.  

[valueaddedresource]

That answer in the community chat today is still confusing but between that and the previous response here about VAT, I *think* what is happening/what eBay meant to say is that the maximum flat fee would be £0.75 with VAT included.

That would of course mean in situations where VAT would not apply, that fee would end up being something less than £0.75.

That's why most people are seeing totals that work out to be more like ~£0.72 for the flat fee - eBay has to set the standard rate at a point where there is room to go up to the £0.75 if VAT applies, if that makes sense.

The new note about VAT says "Depending on the tax legislation of the country where the buyer is located or where the order will be delivered, local Value Added Tax (VAT), Goods and Services Tax (GST) or similar consumption tax might apply on the Buyer Protection fee instead of UK VAT"  - so that could maybe be where the "variations" part of that answer comes in?

Keep in mind I'm still not saying that eBay is actually applying or not applying VAT correctly here...just trying to think of a plausible explanation to fit with what we've been told by community staff.

[jimthing]

@valueaddedresource 

Good thinking, but we need some examples of how this might actually work in practice, before we can believe this as the answer to the issue.  

Anyone got some examples of how would work? 

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IMO, I can't see this as being the answer to the issue, because you have to ask:

How does Ebay work-out the fixed fee part (71p to 75p) of the buyer fee it shows sellers on the List An Item page?

It doesn't do this directly of course (that would actually make things understandable for sellers, and Ebay would never want to do that would they!) , but sellers manually work-out the fixed fee by removing the 4% from the total buyer fee shown.) 

Maybe an actual Ebay representative should comment here to give us all some kind of clue, rather than all this speculation of how things may or may not really work!  😠

[sml192]

Thanks for this.  It may well be where the "variations" part of the answer comes in and does work in most cases but not quite all.

UK buyers are seeing a fixed fee of 72p which equates to 60p + VAT.   So if 60p is the net amount then 75p including VAT allows for VAT up to a maximum of 25% which would currently cover all of the EU countries (where eBay may be responsible for collecting VAT) except for Hungary (27%).  Finland is 25.5% but that would still round down to 75p.

If what you say is correct then it would have made much more sense to use 72p in their worked examples, as opposed to 75p, as the majority of buyers on eBay.co.uk will reside in the UK. 

[goodibags]

Ebay's 'explanation' actually makes LESS sense. On what basis can they apply VAT charges to the variable part of the fees while excluding the fixed fee? Either it's part of their Buyer Protection service or it isn't?

We've seen how an item price jumps from one page to the next, including appearing in the basket with only 5/6th of the buyer fees added. i.e. The 20% VAT is missing. I thought THAT was the 'issue' they may have been working to fix?

But, as jimthing says, we're all left speculating in the dark. The mystery must go on.

My hypothesis remains that they've decided on 72p. Any 'variations' to this will be if they think buyers should start paying more. Added to that, Ebay have ways of making it obvious to all users who the 'private' sellers are.

[pamel_3339]

EBay need to stop this charge to the customer. Just go back to charging the seller.

[maujohwai]

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@goodibags wrote:

Thank you for sharing the price calculator. I don't have many items listed and not all have buyer fees yet.

You're right, 72p is close but not always correct. And as you mentioned there are some very strange roundings going on in the buyer fees. For example, it's impossible to have a buyer fee of 99p.

If you enter an item price of £6.75 you end up with £7.73 (so 98p in fees)

If you enter an item price of £6.76 you end up with £7.76 (£1 in fees)

A 3p jump for a 1p price increase? That's just weird. My guess would be that the Buyer Fee and the VAT charge on it are being rounded separately. In the first case they're both rounded down and in the second both rounded upwards.

Isn't it lovely how Ebay presents us puzzle fans with so much new material to work with, as we while away the hours/days between sales?

A shame they don't also publish solutions to them.

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A couple of days ago, I found I couldn't engineer a final price of £69.99, because as I adjusted my price by 1p either way, the final price jumped 2p, so I settled for £69.98. Today, it works! How are we expected to cope with this and all the other undesirable consequences of this ill-thought-out change?

[goodibags]

Good spot. I thought I'd noticed this too, when an item I looked at was £2.91 one day and then £2.92 the next. At the time I put it down to brain fuzz.

But clearly Buyer Fees are a variable and can change from one day to the next even when a seller's price hasn't.

Have you noticed if you drop your price by 96p the overall price won't always drop by £1? Even the 4% isn't working properly.

It's tough being a buyer on Ebay right now.