Changes to Buyer Protection fee. How does this help?

[panned2307]

How on earth can this be good news and help me sell things? Yes a reduced flat fee - but look at the total cost in fees when all are added up? Without the ability to add multiple items into the basket, this is getting ridiculous now.

[susapric-68]

Also report to the CMA, they have been given more funding and powers to go after unfair fees. They class passing a fee to a buyer in that so the businesses on private accounts can be fined. Trading standards may go after the big fish but if enough reports to them show ebay are ignoring the problem then trading standards can go after eBay for ignoring illegal trading.

Should always make a note of the time and date and account any reports go to eBay to show eBay ignores it

[jonatjonatjonat]

But I can add multiples of your items to my basket and checkout if I wanted to.

If you are selling something for £12,000 the fee is less than before. Anything over £4,000 there's no fee at all for the portion of the sale over £4,000 so at £12,000 you'd be saving hundreds.

[thepillenwerfer]

Yes, there are genuine Private Sellers selling off collections.  The trouble is differentiating those from the unregistered businesses.  If you tighten things up to stop the spivs you'll catch some innocent people as well.  Leave things free and easy and the unscrupulous, or people who genuinely believe they are doing no wrong as "It's just a hobby," will exploit it.

[megan1512]

doesnt apply to buisiness sellers

[realspark]

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@jonatjonatjonat wrote:

Anything over £4,000 there's no fee at all for the portion of the sale over £4,000 so at £12,000 you'd be saving hundreds.

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That's the same as it was before.

5p saving for anything £20 or over, so effectively unchanged.

[*devils.advocate*]

On a £4000 item, I will be wrong, I think, (please correct me if I have it wrong) but

Under the old seller fees (13.22% + 30p)

Under the BPF (4% + 75p)

Under this new graduated fee (as it was once in the past)

the fees buyers would or would have paid are roughly £500+, £150+ or just £80+ respectively.

As a buyer who has to pay the fees, I know which I would prefer.

On a more realistic £20 item, the fee is still far less than the original "Seller Fees".

If only sellers had reduced their prices by the amount of the old fees when it became free to sell ………………

I didn’t see many who did.

[realspark]

The same £4000 cap applies to the old and new BPF, so the new fee on a £4000 item is effectively unchanged.

Both a big drop from the original private seller fees, certainly.

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@*devils.advocate* wrote:

If only sellers had reduced their prices by the amount of the old fees when it became free to sell ………………

I didn’t see many who did.

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Arguably, the buyers dictate the prices, not the sellers?

[*devils.advocate*]

But it's still much less than the old Seller Fees - and I'll keep repeating that there weren't many private sellers who reduced their prices when it became free to sell.

What were the fees on the £4000 item before - and was the price reduced by the amount of the old fees or was it kept at £4000?

Can't think of many things that would appreciate in that kind of value over that short period - yes, some do but not many given current economic situation.

[realspark]

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@*devils.advocate* wrote:

But it's still much less than the old Seller Fees - and I'll keep repeating that there weren't many private sellers who reduced their prices when it became free to sell.

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How does a seller reduce the end price of an auction? The prices are dictated by the buyer.

Even fixed price listings are dictated by sold prices - the price that buyers are willing to pay. I understand what you are saying, but an item doesn't suddenly devalue when there are no seller fees.

[*devils.advocate*]

But it became “free to sell” - no fees.

Surely if sellers were savvy enough they they could reduce (most, not all) basic start prices for auctions and if it was a BIN, well, fees were known - a set price so the fee didn’t change.

Or did many just see extra ££££?

[britanniabug_stamp_store]

Had this with a recent buyer who emailed me to say they were unable to add more than one item to their basket at a time. Because of that it looks like I missed out on a multiple purchase sale.

These changes will not help. Ebay look like they are just digging a deeper and deeper hole to bury themselves in. Ebay just admit you screwed up ... oh well pigs will fly. Sheer arogance from ebay me thinks!

[britanniabug_stamp_store]

"so maybe finally I will see an improvement in sales" ... if only. But if your items are not visible due to lower placement in search results then sales may not improve. Ebay still want you to promote your items visibility by paying "add Fee Rates" That should be factored in to any so-called improvement in "FEE's"

[realspark]

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@*devils.advocate* wrote:

But it became “free to sell” - no fees.

Surely if sellers were savvy enough they they could reduce (most, not all) basic start prices for auctions and if it was a BIN, well, fees were known - a set price so the fee didn’t change.

Or did many just see extra ££££?

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Of course they did, and why not? The whole point of the "free to sell" push was to incentivise sellers.

I fail to see what's savvy about charging less for something than its true value, and you're not going to dictate an auction's end price anyway. If your start price is too high, it won't get a bid. Too low, and the price will find its level.

[zachalot]

We need to keep "free to sell" forever in quotations.

I'm a genuine private seller with a collection (stamps and coins inherited from deceased relative) to liquidate. I never put any of the items on eBay because with the 75p flat fee, I couldn't price match business sellers. On an item selling for £1, say, the business seller would keep significantly more of the sale price than I would as a genuine private seller. For me it would be "free to sell", yet suspiciously eBay would have been taking more in fees from my sale than from a business seller who is officially paying selling fees.

It's a seller fee in all but name. Today's email update wasn't addressed to buyers telling them it's now cheaper to buy; it was to sellers, informing them of "updated rates on your listings... to better support your sales". eBay's "free to sell" claim is false and misleading, and I truly wish they'd stop repeating such a transparent and ridiculous lie.

[realspark]

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@britanniabug_stamp_store wrote:

"so maybe finally I will see an improvement in sales" ... if only. But if your items are not visible due to lower placement in search results then sales may not improve. Ebay still want you to promote your items visibility by paying "add Fee Rates" That should be factored in to any so-called improvement in "FEE's"

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Not only that, it's a lot easier to lose custom than it is to build custom.

A number of buyers have lost interest in eBay due to the confusion over fees and delivery. Some sellers have gotten fed up and left for other pastures, further reducing interest for buyers - it all becomes a vicious circle. I think we have all seen some drop off, and this is not going to recover overnight.

As I said earlier, eBay have shot themselves in the foot with all this.

[thepillenwerfer]

Say an item is worth £5 to me.  In the old days if I'd have listed it at £7 or £8 to cover the Fees,  which also took a share of the postage cost.  Now I'd list it at £5 making it potentially cheaper to the Buyer and more likely to sell giving me the £5 I wanted in the first place.

The kicker with a lot of items is the real cost of postage.  If something is "worth" £10 and costs £3.50 to send I wouldn't pay more than £6.50 for the item itself.  As a Seller I'd have to allow at least something for that so hopefully the Buyer pays a bit over the odds and I get a bit less than it's value and we are both satisfied, if not happy.  Ultimately "worth" is in the eye of the beholder; if buying is it worth £x to me?  If selling am I satisfied with £x?

[*devils.advocate*]

And that’s why I always write it as “free to sell”.

The increase from 30p to 75p was either wrong or was a way of encouraging private sellers not to list low value items - whether rightly or wrongly.

They have always sent emails to sellers - I can’t remember if I’ve ever received one as a buyer - so there’s no change there (apart from updates to the User Agreement).

But, I’ve said before, my buying habits have changed - I buy more than 1 item from business sellers (as I’ve always done) but I buy only one item at a time now from private sellers (except for a few I’ve always used).

So, yes, all these changes have affected buyers, like myself, and sellers, like yourself.

If they were only to go back to a small fee to list an item and a graduated fee structure thereafter - and that same pricing would apply to everyone (business and private) - things would be better.

[realspark]

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@zachalot wrote:

I'm a genuine private seller with a collection (stamps and coins inherited from deceased relative) to liquidate. I never put any of the items on eBay because with the 75p flat fee, I couldn't price match business sellers. On an item selling for £1, say, the business seller would keep significantly more of the sale price than I would as a genuine private seller. For me it would be "free to sell", yet suspiciously eBay would have been taking more in fees from my sale than from a business seller who is officially paying selling fees.

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That's not strictly true, business sellers also have a flat fee to pay.

On top of the final value fee, they have to pay a 30p+VAT transaction fee, plus a 30p+VAT listing fee. The listing fee can be mitigated by paying for included listings within a shop, but there is a significant cost to this too.

For single items listed outside of a shop, the flat fee portion is broadly similar to the 'up to 75p' of the old BPF, and the buyer fee percentage considerably lower than business seller fees.

[realspark]

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@*devils.advocate* wrote:

And that’s why I always write it as “free to sell”.

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To be fair, it never was 'free to sell', apart from the brief period between the original fee structure and the introduction of the BPF - and it was obvious that it would be unsustainable.

It was, and still is, a seller fee.

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@*devils.advocate* wrote:

If they were only to go back to a small fee to list an item and a graduated fee structure thereafter - and that same pricing would apply to everyone (business and private) - things would be better.

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With that I concur, and that's as both a private and business seller on here.

[suelel1968]

At last a bit of positivity and the forumites manage to be negative about it and the usual suspects turn it into a business sellers on private accounts thread.

Ebay have acted on the worst aspect of BPF, they will now be cheaper than Vted. 

They have put the fixed fee on one item only. 

They have acted to give sellers their funds more quickly. 

They have acted to make collections available from home. 

They have listened.  Thank goodness.