Buyer fee - how to calculate total? + Shipping: charge separately now or not?

[jimthing]

Q1: What is the spreadsheet calculation to work out the FINAL buyer price, that's accurate? 

The new abysmal listing page does not allow you to enter a FINAL price the buyer will pay, but instead gives you a single box for your price then works out the fee that'll be added on afterwards?!

Q2: Also, is it better to break the postage back out again from a total sale price now? As previously (before free private sellers for the last 6-mths, since Oct.2024 until now) Ebay would charge fee on everything regardless of shipping cost being in price or separately extra. But AFAICT, now seemingly the buyer fee is only charged on the main price with postage not having the fee on it.

See here: 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/selling/pricing-items/buyer-protection-information-sellers?id=55... 

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Separate issue: I should also add that Ebay's system doesn't charge the right fee either, on the list an item page! Example: 

27.95 - item price

= 1.868 - buyer fee [ 1.118 (4%) + 0.75 (fixed)] – which should round up to 1.87 fee

Yet on the list an item page, Ebay fee shows fee as 1.84!

[wellingnorth]

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@insidethe93 wrote:

As a buyer, I'd like to see in search results if each and every item is offered by a private seller or a business seller, as a way to tell if the new buyer fees apply. 

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Perhaps also more of an explanation of what the difference is as a buyer buying from a private seller vs business seller, ie what you get from a private seller with buyer protection fee vs what you get from a business seller.

Something else I realised is that I've often taken odd prices to mean a currency conversion on an international item - like particularly when saved searches come through I assume an odd price means an ebay.com item which I might then want to ignore, I guess again if it was badged 'private seller' you could tell the difference or alternatively a better way of highlighting international items.

[doumind_7]

This Private or Business distinction simply does not work.

What about those who buy and sell to pursue.a hobby? What about those who buy and sell for charity ?, those who do it to now days because they can't pay their bills? , to name but 3. Indeed one platform has a category called Hobbyists with special rates. As the economy shows you ruin the small businesses by taxing and regulating them out of business, and what's happening nationally! Open your eyes people please.

[myriad*seller]

People who buy to sell as a "hobby" are legally businesses

So should be registered as such, then buyers will not pay the Buyer Protection Fee

Selling as a hobby does not mean it is not a business enterprise

Private sellers do not buy to sell 

Anyone who buys to sell items with a gross turnover of less than £1000 a year does not have to register with HMRC, but as soon as turnover is £1001 then they must legally register with HMRC and complete a self assessment.

Doing it as a "hobby" does not change the law on being a business or paying taxes that are due

Nobody gets taxed out of being a business, if it is a viable business. Everyone has the same personal tax allowance. 

[sportex-uk]

This topic is about calculating fees vs prices, you have overtaken it again with your nonsense divagations about who is private and who is business. Please stop that, as you spread this like a cancer to every possible conversation.

[doumind_7]

Oh give over. Lots of people agree with me as it happens. Keep out of my conversations please.

[jimthing]

Stay on topic re. Buyer fee calculation problems and shipping, per the topic I started, please. 

[cbcretro]

Called ebay support and we need as many people as possible to call up and raise a complaint about this - the guys are trying to raise it in their team meetings.   There is no solution at the moment.   We need the community help.   Lets say I have 100 existing listings that are priced at Buy it now £9.99 , £12,99 or £29.99 for example.    Lets say I just want to "take the hit" and absorb the buyer protection fees , there is no way to bulk edit and reduce all your listing amounts to minus 4% + 0.75 so the numbers revert back to £9.99 and £12.99 etc.     Right now all my listings show seller side as £9.99, £12,99 etc  and all look "normal" ,  but actually on the buyer side and MOST IMPORTANTLY in saved search alert emails.   They show as like £11.48  and £14.53  for example - CUSTOMERS DO NO BUY ITEMS THAT COST THESE WEIRD AMOUNTS!   .   Even if i wanted to reduce my listings to equate for this additional cost - i couldnt!   Its affected my sales dramatically this error/bug.     I would even forfeit 7% of my listings to just fix this problem!    All my listings now look like a clown has priced them. 

[wellingnorth]

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@cbcretro wrote:

Lets say I just want to "take the hit" and absorb the buyer protection fees , there is no way to bulk edit and reduce all your listing amounts to minus 4% + 0.75 so the numbers revert back to £9.99 and £12.99 etc.  

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Are you familiar with spreadsheets? If so I think it may be possible to do this using the 'reports' feature in my ebay. You would download a csv of your current listings, import it into excel or similar, add a column with a formula to adjust the price, overwrite the original prices column with those amounts and re-upload it. I'm pretty sure that will work but maybe wait for someone else to confirm.

It may also be worth waiting  for confirmation if the way it's working now with 72p instead of 75p is correct or will be adjusted before changing all your prices.  I'm not sure how ebay are handling rounding as well, like it may not be possible to hit exactly .99 or whatever after the buyer protection fee has been added. Someone also mentioned above about there being a ceiling where the fee amount changes so bear that in mind too.

[mawels_87]

I've tried talking with a few agents about this. Most don't no what I'm know about. One that did made a feedback report. Yes the prices are all over the place, but buyers might not be buying at the moment just because of the new fees. I myself haven't purchased here since shortly before Feb 4th. For the time being I'm purchasing where the buyer experience is sensible.

[tpogodin]

Regardless of the messy pricing, I'm going to have to realllyyyyy want an item to willingly pay a fee for a service that up until now has been included free. Psychologically it's really off-putting imo. Throw in the messy pricing and it's just a big consumer turn off. 

[jimthing]

See this spreadsheet formula guide on how to work out the final price. Not ideal, but better than nothing being offered on Ebay itself: 

• post 35

Note the List An Item/Revise Item pages currently have a wrong calculation (So you may want to wait until it's fixed before bothering!): 

• post 10

[papso22]

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@cbcretro wrote:

Called ebay support and we need as many people as possible to call up and raise a complaint about this - the guys are trying to raise it in their team meetings.   There is no solution at the moment.   We need the community help.   Lets say I have 100 existing listings that are priced at Buy it now £9.99 , £12,99 or £29.99 for example.    Lets say I just want to "take the hit" and absorb the buyer protection fees , there is no way to bulk edit and reduce all your listing amounts to minus 4% + 0.75 so the numbers revert back to £9.99 and £12.99 etc.     Right now all my listings show seller side as £9.99, £12,99 etc  and all look "normal" ,  but actually on the buyer side and MOST IMPORTANTLY in saved search alert emails.   They show as like £11.48  and £14.53  for example - CUSTOMERS DO NO BUY ITEMS THAT COST THESE WEIRD AMOUNTS!   .   Even if i wanted to reduce my listings to equate for this additional cost - i couldnt!   Its affected my sales dramatically this error/bug.     I would even forfeit 7% of my listings to just fix this problem!    All my listings now look like a clown has priced them. 

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Ebay would not see this is a problem, so they won't come up with a solution.

This is because most private sellers don't have over 500 listings, and most private sellers probably are not bothered about showing particular prices to buyers. 

[jimthing]

Maybe, but a good percentage certainly are bothered, hence this thread existing. And me linking to the spreadsheet formulas, above. While advising of the buyer fee bug on the List An Item/Revise Item pages. 

Let's stick to the issues, not navel gazing into whether people are/aren't perhaps/maybe bothered/interested in something. 🙄

[cbcretro]

I would think even my "saved search" bug has legs- if you feel my main argument doesnt wow!  Its a total mess.

Try this :
- A collector has a saved search (email) alert setup.  To find their long lost magazine from a childhood. 
- They get an email saying 1 New alert ,  Batman 1991.     Is for sale for £14.23 -....beep £"$"  thats weird.   

What weird person sells an item for £14.23.     I dont see a supermarket advertising their cheese for £3.22 or get an offer voucher saying that.    It would say £2.99 wouldnt it. 

Good night!

[jimthing]

Yeah, we discussed 'round pricing' already, so let's not repeat the same things over again, everybody. 🙄

Stick to the topic in hand on this thread, which now means the current buyer fee error on List An Item/Revise Item pages. This problem is the MAJOR bug that needs fixing by Ebay staff, as all private seller listings are not going to be what sellers want them to be until these two pages actually give the correct buyer fee accordingly. 

(We have the spreadsheet calculations on this thread already, and know about moving shipping out of your main price to get lower final prices for buyers. So they're resolved as known about, and no need to go over.) 

[jimthing]

The new question now we know what is what (kind of, lol!), is...

How long are Ebay going to take to fix this buyer fee bug?

Surely it means ALL buyer final prices on private sales are going to be wrong until they actually fix this, given the buyer fee will be wrongly worked-out and applied?! 

(If anyone has had a recent sale with the new buyer fee to check the error in pricing is on their sale, please let us all know here.) 

[goodibags]

Eek! Ebay are depriving themselves of 3p of their own buyer transaction charge, charging a mere 72p instead of 75p? 

This is serious. If there were thousands of sales this could completely mess up their sale proceeds and profits.

Thank goodness they're not missing out on sale transactions, not least because thousands of buyers are still unable to make the app work. Phew!

[goodibags]

P.S. Not forgetting other reasons for no sales:

Buyers not persuaded by so-called 'offers' costing more than the item price?

Items looking like they were 'priced by a clown'?

Shipping costs to the USA of around $200?

and more

Where to start?

[jimthing]

Be nice if they just corrected the issue ASAP before endless issues with private sellers not understanding why their fees don't add-up after thousands of transactions have happened across the site. 🙄

[goodibags]

I did go to bed last night with a big smile on my face. Visiting these forums is like living inside a sitcom. Ebay has primetime comedy value.

Thank goodness I'm not running a business or reliant on sales! 😊