DROP IN SALES SINCE NEW BUYER PROTECTION 4TH FEB 2025

[lo.maggi]

Has anyone else noticed lack of sales since the buyer protection update 4th february 2025. I used to sell quite a lot and virtually sold nothing since 4th Feb. Can anyone else relate to this and what can we do?

[rabwendy]

Hi, I’ve sold on Ebay for years paying seller fees and sold loads and made a little profit. Since the change, as you said, its a ghost town.


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[alexis*27]

I'm assuming these fees aren't being enacted over in Europe?

I get EU listings turning up when I search for certain plant categories, even though it's almost impossible to import them now thanks to Brexit.

But here is an example of what turns up when I search:

UK:

25 items, no bids.

1 item, 1 bid.

EU:

4 items, 46 bids.

[startagaintoday]

I think the lack of orders is nothing to do with what ebay have done. Having looked back at last years figures they show that January and February were very quiet just the same as this year.  I think it is more to do with the affect of people spending before Christmas and during Christmas and they have maxed out their credit cards and have nothing to spend.  Hopefully things will improve in March.

[wellingnorth]

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@alexis*27 wrote:

Vinted can get away with it because they've had it from day 1, and it's a different customer base. EBay's is a massive change and is spooking customers who were not prepared.

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Also with the way Vinted operates you have clarity and consistency - the buyer sees the price set by the seller and the total including fee separately for every item, and this is consistent across all sellers.

With ebay you now have two systems operating in tandem without any clarity as to which listings have buyer fees added and which don't, and also I also not sure if it's clear from the buyer's perspective what the buyer fee is actually for?

To me as a buyer now looking at search results it looks like a mess with all the odd prices, just looks like something has gone wrong. Prices ending in odd pennies always previously indicated an international listings. A simple improvement would be to at least show in search results the total price for all items and for private sellers the breakdown alongside it - ie £10 + buyer fee £1.15 = £11.15

[rabwendy]

I have sold on eBay for years and have sold about the same every month never had a month that I would call a bad month for sales 


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[rabwendy]

I’m a seller and I strongly believe buyers should not have to pay a fee for purchasing on eBay. I would hope that all the buyers contact eBay and complain about the fee .I understand EBay has to make money so change the seller as hopefully the seller is making a profit. The buyer is the person that makes sales happen without buyers there is no eBay. So please all the buyers get onto eBay and make your thoughts about the buyer fee clear to eBay 


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[susapric-68]

Just because your orders have decreased does not mean sellers are going to other platforms, just means the business seller is getting more orders and those are the ones that make ebay money. Feel free to get together and moan at eBay but since they brought this in eBay share price has gone up nearly everyday. So to eBay all this has done is kept their shareholders happy, brought in more business sellers now they're not being undercut by so much and lost a few business sellers on private accounts, Add in extra buyers because they're more likely to buy from a business seller who gives them their consumer rights

[rabwendy]

EBay needs buyers for both business sellers and private sellers when you hit them with buyer  fees they are going to go elsewhere. But as long as the share price is rising and the share holders are happy all is good. Maybe it’s the share holders that’s doing all the buying now 😂😂😂


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[wellingnorth]

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@rabwendy wrote:
EBay needs buyers for both business sellers and private sellers when you hit them with buyer  fees they are going to go elsewhere.

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100%, a buyer fee that is poorly implemented is to the detriment of the platform in general and will hurt business sellers as well as private sellers.

[rabwendy]

Hi I’ve had a few replies to my posts and I think we are all in agreement that eBay needs to make money but not from the buyer it’s got to be from the seller 


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[uktech2]

Are your prices still the same as when you were paying sellers fees? Now that there's no sellers fees you'll be saving about 15% but some of that cost has now been shifted to the buyer. It might also be the time of year as lots of peolple are getting their post christmas credit card statements.

[timica2003]

Same here, after 4th Feb my sales drop from 2,3 books a day to nothing for 2 weeks. This is unacceptable. E-bay do something. Seem that you want to get rid of private sellers. I do have an issue that you are keeping my money for 2 weeks for no reason even I am a proven correct seller. My issue is with what have you done that I am not generating sales anymore and you inflates my prices unreasonable with BPF.

[twbc123]

I agree that the latest stupid move by eBay is a total scam. They call it ‘Buyers Protection’.  If you pay by PayPal as I’m sure more people do, then you already have buyer protection. and to give you an idea about the charge. I won an item on eBay a couple of days for £322. The postage was £25 and when I went to pay, the total bill came to £402. So the Fee for the privilege of buying it was over £50. I felt sorry for the seller when I had to apologize and cancel the order.  Luckily I was still able to buy the item privately and raise two fingers up to the so called eBay rip off fee.

As a private seller I would much rather pay the fee myself and have customers, but when I contacted eBay to ask about the fee, I was told told the only way to switch this back so that I pay the fee instead of buyer was to become a business seller instead of a private seller, which I’m not.

Ebay even try to disguise this ‘buyer protection ‘ fee from the seller by not showing that the fee is included where you see the current price or buy it it now price. The easy way to spot it is for example if you see an odd amount (instead of even). £63.72 instead of what the seller put £58. start price or buy it now price. 

I personally don’t expect to sell anything over £50 anymore as most buyers won’t want to pay the charge, and why should they.  It equates to approximately £160 per £1000 on top of the sale price.

If you see this hidden charge or want to actually selling something, then just say to the buyer you’ll refund the difference or better still for both parties involved, just do a private deal away from eBay.

Worst move eBay has ever made. Shame on them.

[twbc123]

I agree that the latest stupid move by eBay is a total scam. They call it ‘Buyers Protection’.  If you pay by PayPal as I’m sure more people do, then you already have buyer protection. and to give you an idea about the charge. I won an item on eBay a couple of days for £322. The postage was £25 and when I went to pay, the total bill came to £402. So the Fee for the privilege of buying it was over £50. I felt sorry for the seller when I had to apologize and cancel the order.  Luckily I was still able to buy the item privately and raise two fingers up to the so called eBay rip off fee.

[twbc123]

As a private seller I would much rather pay the fee myself and have customers, but when I contacted eBay to ask about the fee, I was told told the only way to switch this back so that I pay the fee instead of buyer was to become a business seller instead of a private seller, which I’m not.

Ebay even try to disguise this ‘buyer protection ‘ fee from the seller by not showing that the fee is included where you see the current price or buy it it now price. The easy way to spot it is for example if you see an odd amount (instead of even). £63.72 instead of what the seller put £58. start price or buy it now price. 

I personally don’t expect to sell anything over £50 anymore as most buyers won’t want to pay the charge, and why should they.  It equates to approximately £160 per £1000 on top of the sale price.

If you see this hidden charge or want to actually selling something, then just say to the buyer you’ll refund the difference or better still for both parties involved, just do a private deal away from eBay.

Worst move eBay has ever made. Shame on them.

[bit_of_a_mug]

What are the rules around being a business seller compared to a private seller?  I've been looking into this, and I can see that "private" sellers can list up to 300 items per month.  That's a lot!  But if a private seller pays their tax, why do they need to register as a business seller on ebay.  If ebay doesn't set a clear definition on what constitutes a private seller as opposed to a business seller, why can't people remain as private sellers? 

[beengoneages]

That's what they want no more Private sellers (no money in it for ebay) Business sellers still pay the old fees thats why the insurance lol 😂  hasn't been added to Business sellers but has been added onto your sale price, I have heard Ebay sales are down big time since 7/2/25 so looks like buyers are buying elsewhere where there's no delivery insurance lol 😂 to pay.

[rabwendy]

Hi since it’s started I have put on my listing description.  my listing price and also that I will refund the buyer eBay’s buyers protection fee in the hope that buyers see it and purchase from me hope this helps 


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[ticklingstick]

Sent an offer  on Monday evening and the prospective buyer  has  now asked why when he went to buy the price had gone up. Seller protection  has now been  added to collectables  and lost me a customer, the first of many no doubt.

[sdjwales]

I always get a slow patch at the start of the year on my business account.

This January was good for me, but this month is going pretty slowly compared to "average" and impressions and views are down a little bit (not that I see much of a correlation between sales and impressions tbh, some of my busiest days have had lousy traffic)

Last year, January was shocking but March and April were personal bests.

The year before, January and February were slow.

I get other slow months, too, October is generally a slow one, but there's always seems to be a slump somewhere at the start of the year.

In terms of buying from private sellers (which I do fairly often as I deal in refurbished vintage goods) the new fee doesn't really make a blind bit of difference to me, I'm only interested in the end price, and not really concerned with how it's broken down behind the scenes.

I'm not the sure most buyers of second hand goods would be that bothered, either. They probably don't come to ebay an exact figure in mind, and then dismiss something because it has a buyer protection fee incorporated into the price.

Perhaps it's more of an issue for "private" sellers with lots of new, low priced items who are worried about remaining "competitive?"

Also of note, 99.9% of the customers on my business account have nothing for sale, so although it's very true that private sellers are also buyers, I doubt a small percentage leaving in protest is going to make much difference to the average business seller.

I genuinely think it's just a slow patch in general. Either that, or all the recent changes have sent the algorithm on the blink and it needs to re-adjust.

Hang in there, guys.

In 2024 I had my best month at the time 2 months after my worst.