EBay plan to add fees for buyers - hurts businesses even further

[vintagefunk01]

From the sky news article here which is obviously a press release https://news.sky.com/story/ebay-selling-fees-are-scrapped-to-boost-to-reselling-13225638

It seems clear ebay is following in the footsteps of other selling marketplaces by adding fees for buyers in the early new year,  but since fees remain in place for business sellers adding another fee on top of this is another hit to our bottom line.

We will now be expected to absorb the buyers fee and our own business selling fee (and shop fees etc).

This seems crazy to me - although eBay say it'll be 'small' , if it's 8% like elsewhere that's a massive hit for us to take.  Yes it's for the buyers but we all know prices will drop because of it - for example a 350 item will now cost 379 to the buyer with an 8% fee that is currently used by another platform, so ofc sellers will drop the initial price so that the item actually sells and to offset this.

Fine for private sellers who have no fees to compensate, but insane for business sellers with hefty fvf and shop fees already 

[myriad*seller]

What buyer fees? eBay is not bringing in buyer fees

What on earth are you talking about? 

[vintagefunk01]

Read the link? It's literally the first line of my post 

'However, buyers are set to face a charge. How it will be applied is yet to be determined though it will take effect early next year, the company said. Its UK boss told Sky News the fee would be "small".'

[myriad*seller]

There are no fees to buy on eBay 

Don't believe all you read in the papers 

[vintagefunk01]

Its in the same press release from the UK boss announcing the removal of seller fees.  You forgot to add the word 'yet' at the end of your sentence.

Ill believe the press release instead of you, cheers 

[signs_and_vintage]

If it makes anyone here feel any better, I'm at the tail end of a mid-life mega clear out and have literally paid THOUSANDS of pounds in fees since the start of the year. From hereonin I expect I will only ever list the odd DVD but all the expensive stuff has long sold over the last few months 😞

I do think you business sellers have been ROYALLY sharfted by this, and the idea of buyers fees (granted these are usual and ridiculous (20%+) at 'proper' auctions these days) will not appeal to Sid and Doris Buyer who will likely go elsewhere...

The most surprising bit is a quote from the press release (on some other site) that insists there is no need to cancel and re-list existing items, that the fees disappear on all existing private sales from today...

[valueaddedresource]

This was also announced in eBay's 8-K filed with the SEC today.

https://investors.ebayinc.com/financial-information/sec-filings/sec-filings-details/default.aspx?Fil...

We have a robust monetization roadmap to ensure these changes are good for both customers and our business overall. This includes value-added services like first-party advertising, financial services, and a new value proposition in shipping that we plan to scale in Q4.

We are also planning to introduce a buyer-facing fee in the UK in early 2025 alongside a set of buyer enhancements that provide additional value. There will be more we can share on our future plans at Q3 2024 earnings and our next Global All Hands event

No details yet on how much the fee will be, if they are splitting it so some amount of fees may still stay with business sellers, or what any of the additional "value-added services" will be to try keep buyers around but I expect we may here more after Q2 2024 earnings.

[vintagefunk01]

Very helpful thank you for that 

[dwtrading2015]

More proof, the intent is to eradicate micro and small business off the site.

What did we do to them that was so wrong that they wish to elimante us?

There isn't some magic 50% of mark up to raid.  Many are barely breaking even trying to deplete stock and gave up trying to make a living off this a long time ago. When the stock is finally gone, it isn't being replaced and that's another business closed - oh and they can't revert to private buyer either as that option isn't available either.  So the seller and buyer is lost.

Whay are we being treated like this?  What did we do?

[unclestein]

Ebay are SO behind when it comes to innovation.

[stormatic2015]

that document also says "alongside a set of other enhancements that provide additional value."

Could this be a buyer subscription model? pay eBay £4.99 a month for no ads or search tools "for what you actually want and not what we think you want" etc..

[pg_kicks]

I really like the part that says it was many months in the making - yet they forgot to even mention this slightly at the open event, you know eBay where all your sellers were there to hear about how you were going to help us and improve the site, also the part where they say it was made possible through the hard work and collaboration of teams across the company yet I was told by team mebers that private accounts would only get 300 a month and theyd not role over.

So yes eBay HQ when you are reading this please next time dont lie to your customers or in a press release as you have done one of them. The site is ran by managers who have never had a business on the site, 95% of the team members dont have a clue about the issues the site are facing and what is wrong with the site, if they asked for honest opinions theyd get a big shock. 

[valueaddedresource]

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@stormatic2015 wrote:

that document also says "alongside a set of other enhancements that provide additional value."

Could this be a buyer subscription model? pay eBay £4.99 a month for no ads or search tools "for what you actually want and not what we think you want" etc..

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@stormatic2015 that was my thought as well. They already have eBay Plus in Australia, which gives exclusive discounts, free shipping and free returns for $4.99 a month, though I suspect it would have to be a much steeper fee to avoid all ads. 😂

Over in the US eBay community we've also seen some interesting conversation around the possibilty a "Trusted Buyer" program might either be in the works or already quietly being rolled out with perks potentially including overriding seller immediate payment requirements and receiving advance refunds on returns.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Well-this-is-news-to-me-Trusted-Buyer-Program/m-p/34624209#M24...

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Returns/Advanced-refund/m-p/34640339/highlight/true#M48259

eBay has said they have "no additional details to share at this time", which isn't exactly a denial of the existence of such a program or plans to develope it into something bigger in the future.

It will definitely be interesting to see what eBay thinks will "provide additional value" to buyers...and how that will eventually impact sellers too.

[rainbowtrax]

One would hope that the upcoming buyer fee would not apply to sales made on business accounts as ebay are already making their money from the fees that business sellers continue to pay. However, I don't for one moment expect ebay to play fair or do anything to benefit business sellers. 

I can't get worked up about fee free selling for private sellers as it'll likely be swings and roundabouts as to the effect it has on the sales of business sellers. But if business sellers find they need to reduce their prices to mitigate a buyer fee then I can see even more business sellers leaving or switching to private seller accounts as there's a limit to how much any business can absorb before it becomes unviable.

[valueaddedresource]

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@rainbowtrax wrote:

One would hope that the upcoming buyer fee would not apply to sales made on business accounts as ebay are already making their money from the fees that business sellers continue to pay. However, I don't for one moment expect ebay to play fair or do anything to benefit business sellers. 

I can't get worked up about fee free selling for private sellers as it'll likely be swings and roundabouts as to the effect it has on the sales of business sellers. But if business sellers find they need to reduce their prices to mitigate a buyer fee then I can see even more business sellers leaving or switching to private seller accounts as there's a limit to how much any business can absorb before it becomes unviable.

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@rainbowtrax I was thinking about this today too.

On one hand, I can't see them adding a buyer fee across the board while keeping business seller fees the same - that would pretty much kill sales with all those items being way overpriced for the market as you point out.

But I also don't see how they could apply it only to private sales - how confusing would it be to buyers if they see fees on some items and not others?

I'm in the US, so admittedly maybe it wouldn't be as confusing to UK buyers as I would think, since they would presumably already be used to a difference between private and business sellers and it's noted on the item page what kind of seller they are - but I would think it would still be a mess.

The only other option I can really think of is they would have to find some way to "split the baby" - maybe keep some business fees but at a lower amount/to cover payment processing and then have the buyer fee be consistent across all items on the site?

Depop did that when they made a similar change earlier this year - sellers still pay 2.9% + £0.30  for payment processing and buyers pay 5% + £1.

I don't know, but I definitely agree it can't just come down to business sellers having to absorb it, that would be a recipe for disaster.

[behind.the.cellar.door]

Having to pay a subscription at some point in the future sounds plausible.

[thetimetower]

Just reading that press release. Are they for real? Business sellers will be absolutely destroyed if they charge buyers in the new year. It's almost like they want to be this friendly fun marketplace for the general public and hope the business sellers will cover the costs.

[w.l.stubbs]

I fail to see what is a "Friendly fun marketplace" about paying a fee I can only envisage two options have a small fee added to every purchase or a subscription to buy it seems that big business would like all aspects of our lives to be a subscription service, the problem with that is whether I buy anything or not Ebay still makes money from me every month and on the flip side Ebay will still be rinsing business sellers with fees.

This seems like desperation to me on Ebays part they have reached saturation point on fees to buisness and driven many away they are now targeting buyers to prop up revenue and no doubt will drive many of them away.

[janrom2]

My first reaction was disbelief. That someone has made it up or misunderstood.

Then I read the article.

While I don't understand the reaction from some sellers - it is buyers that will be hit by the fees, which presumably go into ebay's coffers, so sellers would see no difference in terms of fees....

In terms of sales, even a small fee would put a lot of buyers off, especially in terms of low value items.  If they are thinking of an ad-free subscription model, well, everyone should use an ad-blocker anyway (and if I can't use ebay with my ad-blocker enabled, that is a total deal-breaker for me).

If it's a fee on top of the price, even a small one, I would become very selective on what I bought on here.

Until we know what is actually being proposed, it's a wait and see situation, but, I can't see a good outcome to this.
You wonder whether someone accidentally put Liz Truss in charge of Ebay...

[vintagefunk01]

You've kind of answered why we are reacting and worried as sellers regarding the buyers fees - it's precisely because a lot of sellers will be turned off suddenly having to pay a 5 to 8 percent fee (used on other platforms) so we as business sellers need to absorb some of that (if not all) to even make a sale.

Also , it's important to note that if we end up absorbing most of the fees by reducing prices, these aren't even deductible any more as they are levied on the buyers side - another hit to profits 

Some people think / hope they will do something to protect business sellers from this, but may I also point out that the only group of people on eBay who aren't getting zero seller fees currently are the legitimate businesses who have done everything correctly and above board on the platform, so I'm very cynical regarding the platforms future for business sellers