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]

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@myriad*seller wrote:

72p is 75p minus 4% 

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@myriad*seller correct! That's where most of us are assuming things have gone wrong here and it's certainly the most logical and likely explanation.

But ultimately it doesn't really matter how it's gone wrong, the important part is that it has and eBay needs to acknowledge and fix whatever the issue is.

[jimthing]

They're taking the 75p OFF the Item Price set by the seller, hence only charging 4% on what's left, not the original amount. Let's not repeat ourselves, this has been established now; it's the fix that's needed. 

This was explained in the first post of this thread, see green bit: 

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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. 

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[valueaddedresource]

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@jimthing wrote:

@valueaddedresource - Thanks for explaining this to them. 

Have you bothered to contact Ebay yourself about this by any chance? More reports might actually equal them clarifying or fixing this. My report# is listed on this thread post: 24

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You're welcome @jimthing! I have not contacted eBay directly as I'm actually in the US and simply an interested observer to this whole mess. 😂

But yes, you're right that generally speaking eBay prioritizes technical issues based on the number of reports so it would be good for everyone impacted by this to take the time to report it.

From the web experience on the listing form users can click the three little dots in the upper right and then click Your Feedback to submit a comment reporting the issue.

And in the app you can either tap the three dots to get the Report A Technical Problem option under Help & Report or, if you have it enabled, you can just shake your device and it will give you that option to report a problem.

And since you already have a reference number SR# 1-490456846512, it wouldn't be a bad idea for others to include that in their own reports.

[valueaddedresource]

Also, they may not see it until tomorrow but tagging marco@ebay   kat@ebay  dave@ebay  as they should be able to escalate the issue to the proper teams internally.

[papso22]

We mentors brought it to the community managers' attention when it was first identified last week.

[valueaddedresource]

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@papso22 wrote:

We mentors brought it to the community managers' attention when it was first identified last week.

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@papso22  great! Hopefully they'll get it sorted out soon. 🤞

[goodibags]

Understandably, I won't be raising this 'issue' as I think clobbering the buyers for 72p per item is already bad enough. 🤔

[valueaddedresource]

Also just to show this isn't just a "display issue" in the listing form - we can see just by searching that the incorrect calculation is propagating all the way through and is what is actually being shown/charged to the buyer.

Narrowing down search results between £20-£22 shows no results at £21.55 and a lot of results at £21.52, proving that the calculation being shown on the listing form is what is going live, not the calculation that is shown in eBay's policy page example.

Side note - it appears this has completely broken the sort by price functionality for buyers too. This screenshot was taken of results using the "lowest price plus P&P" sort option and it's obvious that eBay is sorting based on the item price the seller set, not on the fee inclusive price shown to the buyer, which makes lower total price options from business sellers appear randomly mixed in with higher total price fee inclusive results from private sellers.

I understand why sellers may not be in a rush to report this because the error is in favor of the buyer at eBay's expense, but the bigger picture is that confusing and inconsistent experiences erode trust in the platform which can drive buyers away.

This a bad buying experience no matter which way you look at it. While we can all wish that eBay would just do away with the whole idea of buyer fees all together, that's not likely going to happen, so at a bare minimum eBay needs to at least ensure that the way it actually works in practice conforms to the way they describe it will work in their help and policy pages so that both buyers and sellers can at least understand how it should work.

[jimthing]

One has to wonder if I'll actually get  a response to the above complaint ref# on Mon/Tue 10/11 Feb, as they said 72 working hours to get one – but like all BIG COMPANIES, they're about as trustful as a chocolate teapot when it comes to responding when previously promised to customers. 

So we'll have to see, but I doubt it. 

[goodibags]

Perhaps your buyers would be happier paying 72p?

Banging on windows demanding they increase prices for your customers feels like an odd thing to be lobbying Ebay about. 😉

[marco@ebay · Accepted solution]

Good morning all, thanks for your posts and flagging this with us.

We are aware of the issue where VAT on orders with the Buyer Protection Fee and Simple Delivery are not being calculated correctly, and we are currently working to get it fixed. I wanted to let you know as well that we will be honoring the all in price they are paying at check out – meaning we will not come back to them to collect the additional VAT for the Simple Delivery postage.

Thank you,

Marco

[andha-21]

"I wanted to let you know as well that we will be honoring the all in price they are paying at check out – meaning we will not come back to them to collect the additional VAT for the Simple Delivery postage."

My inner cynic is going hmmm to that.

Great that eBay won't be going back to them to collect, but what about us? 

[jimthing]

Thanks for advising everyone here. 

(surely the VAT is not just on Simple Delivery, it's on the 75p fixed amount of the Buyer Protection Fee.) 

Any timeframe for the fix, so we can know when we can fix our spreadsheets/software? 

[thetimetower]

The standard ebay scam where they only add vat after taking their share 

[goodibags]

"Any timeframe for the fix, so we can know when we can fix our spreadsheets/software?"

I'd take that as a 'no' then.

And I can't help wondering if the folks at Ebay Towers think it is just a VAT issue (?) this may take longer to fix than you imagine.

[lucy_farmer]

'so we can know when we can fix our spreadsheets/software? '

Entirely possible ebay don't see this as a priority : they may believe spreadsheets/software and odd penny adrift somewhere, etc should only really be worrying business sellers.

Who, of course, don't have to put up with this current mess.

[papso22]

I think you have hit the nail on the head.

Ebay will not be expecting sellers to go to the lengths they are going to on here.

They will expect people to simply list for the price they want to get without concerning themselves about what the buyer sees.

[goodibags]

Exactly. And if the buyer sees weird prices they can ask the seller why they are weird, so the seller can explain everything. Sorted.

Hmm, still wondering why Ebay doesn't want their FULL 75p charge, as per the BPF notices? Maybe sales are too slow for it to make much difference?

[andrewspode]

Hey @jimthing - I noticed exactly the same thing. I wrote a tool to help me calculate the price so that once fees are added on, it brings it back to the price I had it originally and it was consistently off by 3p because of this bodged calculation. 

So now I'm in a position of wondering if they are going to fix it, or if I should go and change them all again.

All of this could be solved by having a simple toggle for "I'll pay the fees" or something. This is a real mess.

They also said it would be transparent - but it's not. They just show the total price, but not the breakdown. It should make it clear and transparent - not only once you get to checkout.

[jimthing]

@andrewspode - Sure, thanks.

I suppose Ebay doesn't bother to give a break down until checkout, as the buyer is looking at the final price they'll be paying in total, so doesn't really care what any of the fees going on behind the scenes are...

– the buyer see the final price and says, 'yes, that's fine, I'll buy that' , does checkout, and pays. They get to see the fees at the checkout anyway for transparency, should they happen to want to know.

That makes sense from a marketing perspective. TBH, it's the same when you shop normally off-Ebay...you see a price in an online (or physical) store of £14.99 without seeing the VAT breakdown on the item page, then when you checkout & pay, it is sometimes shown on there or on the receipt. 

The real issue we're having is that the FIXED 75p part of the buyer fee is wrong right now –for the reasons summated about above– and this remains a bug that needs fixing. How long that takes, who knows,? All we know is Ebay are aware and are fixing it. 

The only other suggestion would be if Ebay could have an option to allow the seller to set the FINAL price on the List An Item/Revise Item page, then have Ebay work out the buyer fee from that, and fill the Item Price box with the remainder. Doing that would mean less of these silly non-rounded prices of 13.87 instead of 13.99 or whatever. Whether we see that idea remains to be seen, so using a spreadsheet or similar is the way to go for the moment if it bothers you as a seller, tweaking corrections of a 1 to 3 pence until the final price shows what you want.