Buyer Protection Fee on Best Offers

[caltimms]

Just want to put out into the community an interesting response I got back after e-mailing eBay Customer Support regarding the broken "Best Offer" option on listings between private sellers & their buyers.

I ran a bit of testing myself between my private and our business account and since BPF was introduced, bartering prices is almost impossible

at the moment with private sellers.

Hopefully this will get fixed over the next coming weeks!

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Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to eBay Customer Service. My name is *****, and I will be supporting you today. I can see you have been with us from 8 years thank you for your loyalty.

Firstly, I'm so sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Due to a backlog of emails, it is taking us some time to get through them as each one is answered individually and personally by ourselves.
 

I can totally understand your frustration here as when buyer makes offer or bids on the items listed by private seller, the offer amount is inclusive of buyer protection fees which then misleads as buyer makes offer correctly but private seller receives notification and amount less than the actual amount they had made offer for.

Allow me to share that we have received multiple contacts from buyers as well as sellers about the same issue wherein sellers receive less amount than the offer or bid amount buyer had placed. I have taken this as a suggestion along with other seller's sentiments as well and have forwarded the details to the site development team.

I am positive that this will surely be looked after and changes will be made on site. It is requested that you please wait until then.

As per the fees calculator after introduction of buyer protection fees, the auction or offer price buyer see on the site will always include the Buyer Protection fee. Thus when buyer enter a starting bid or make offer, system add the Buyer Protection fee so buyer can see what the buyer’s minimum bid amount will be.

As the Buyer Protection fee is variable, the amount that you actually pay is calculated as part of the final auction selling price, so there won’t be any surprises when you go to pay at checkout.

However as this is causing issues at seller's end as they see less bid amount or offer amount, so the team is working on it to make things right. It is requested that you do not worry as this will surely be looked into.

For more information I would request you to please once check below mentioned help page link-

https://pages.ebay.co.uk/buyerprotection/#sell

I appreciate you taking the time to contact us today, thank you for your continued business. Have a wonderful day.

Kind Regards,
****
eBay Customer Service

[goodibags]

What Ebay SHOULD do is display to BOTH parties the price to the buyer and the price to the seller.

The maker of the offer will most likely see a rounded price whereas the recipient will see an unusual number with pennies at the end, with the fees either added (for the buyer) or deducted (for the seller).

BUT in doing this Ebay would have to acknowledge/highlight that Buyer Protection Fees are being siphoned off from the sale. So, while it will undoubtedly add clarity and eliminate confusion, I suspect it's unlikely to be 'fixed' any time soon.

[finalcapri280]

Hi...good post! Can I ask you a question (that I should direct to EBay really) since you say you did a bit of "testing". I'm a private seller first of all with about 116 active listings at the moment. As I usually do, every so often, I was going to send some "offers" to buyers on those items that have got multiple watchers. So, I have a Star Wars Pit Droid Clock on for £19.00 and the listing now shows it as £20.48 with the BPFee. All well and good. If I send my potential buyers an offer of say £15.00 (plus shipping), how much will I actually get? Will it be the £15 plus shipping, or £15 LESS the BPFee plus shipping? I can't really see a definitive answer to this anywhere.

Also, on the other "offer" side, someone made me an offer on something, and the BPFee appears to have been added on to his amount to pay, that is his offer amount PLUS the fee, which presumably is the correct way as the buyer pays it, and I got exactly what his offer was (plus shipping). 

Thanks in advance for any replies!! 

[moldosgifts]

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@finalcapri280 wrote:

Hi...good post! Can I ask you a question (that I should direct to EBay really) since you say you did a bit of "testing". I'm a private seller first of all with about 116 active listings at the moment. As I usually do, every so often, I was going to send some "offers" to buyers on those items that have got multiple watchers. So, I have a Star Wars Pit Droid Clock on for £19.00 and the listing now shows it as £20.48 with the BPFee. All well and good. If I send my potential buyers an offer of say £15.00 (plus shipping), how much will I actually get? Will it be the £15 plus shipping, or £15 LESS the BPFee plus shipping? I can't really see a definitive answer to this anywhere.

Also, on the other "offer" side, someone made me an offer on something, and the BPFee appears to have been added on to his amount to pay, that is his offer amount PLUS the fee, which presumably is the correct way as the buyer pays it, and I got exactly what his offer was (plus shipping). 

Thanks in advance for any replies!! 

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At the moment your offer of £15 will include the BPF so you will receive less than that £15. The price you will need to offer to get £15 for yourself will be £16.35 based on the 4% + 75p although they are actually charging 4% + 72p at the moment

[sml192]

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@moldosgifts wrote:

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@finalcapri280 wrote:

Hi...good post! Can I ask you a question (that I should direct to EBay really) since you say you did a bit of "testing". I'm a private seller first of all with about 116 active listings at the moment. As I usually do, every so often, I was going to send some "offers" to buyers on those items that have got multiple watchers. So, I have a Star Wars Pit Droid Clock on for £19.00 and the listing now shows it as £20.48 with the BPFee. All well and good. If I send my potential buyers an offer of say £15.00 (plus shipping), how much will I actually get? Will it be the £15 plus shipping, or £15 LESS the BPFee plus shipping? I can't really see a definitive answer to this anywhere.

Also, on the other "offer" side, someone made me an offer on something, and the BPFee appears to have been added on to his amount to pay, that is his offer amount PLUS the fee, which presumably is the correct way as the buyer pays it, and I got exactly what his offer was (plus shipping). 

Thanks in advance for any replies!! 

---

At the moment your offer of £15 will include the BPF so you will receive less than that £15. The price you will need to offer to get £15 for yourself will be £16.35 based on the 4% + 75p although they are actually charging 4% + 72p at the moment

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No, that is not correct. 

If the seller makes an offer of £15 it doesn't include the BPF.  The BPF will be added to the £15, so the buyer sees the offer as £16.35 but the seller still receives £15.

If the buyer makes an offer of £15 then that will include the BPF, so the seller will see the offer as £13.73. 

[finalcapri280]

Thanks for the reply. I think you must be right with that summary. As I had read somewhere that the buyer's offer INCLUDED the BPfee, I cunningly (!) made a counter offer of a slightly higher amount to cover the BPfee that I would end up paying. Seems that as I was making the offer back to him, the BPfee was added to his cost on his invoice. I actually apologised to him and posted the item First Class to make up the cost difference.

To sum up:

If I'd accepted his offer, I would have paid the BPFee.

As I made the offer to him, the buyer paid the fee.

I think EBay needs to fix this anomaly as soon as possible.

I hope I have now understood how it works (at the moment)!

[edwardian-dreams]

Obviously eBay is struggling with buyer numbers 

otherwise why have a two tier system that favours a buyer re bpf 

sellers surprised that an offer for x isn’t really an offer for x

a buyer gets told your offer for x includes the bpf

The seller doesn’t get told 

sad