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 

[wara_rat]

Its literally in an email that ebay sent me.

 

[71camshaft]

You will need to raise your prices accordingly . Ultimately the buyer loses

[lucy_farmer]

'THE BUYER WILL  NEED TO ABSORB THE PRICE HIKE DUMMY'

If the buyer thinks it's too expensive they won't buy it.

So the seller puts their asking price down until the buyer will go for the item + the 'buyers fee'.

which will probably amount to what was simply the item price before this malarky came in........

p.s. dummy isn't very polite and neither is 'SHOUTING' in caps...

[reasonable-robert]

not just buyers but sellers as well 

i think 3rd of feb 23.59  may be my last day and time to wind this up

[the_bald_orc]

I've been in competition with incorrectly registered sellers for as long as I can remember, I do my best to stay competitive and I won't be raising my prices.

[reasonable-robert]

true there are some ignorants on here but fighting among ourselves doesnt help

its come to the point of sink or compete and swim

[dch2112011]

As far as I can see - the buyer fees are added onto the purchase price on the sellers listing - therefore hidden in the total price -  so ebay will pay the seller  the displayed price less the fees.

In doing this the buyer will not be impacted - they pay the price displayed - the only thing that has changed is the seller  fee is now worded buyer fee -  the fees are deducted from the sale price. This is quite a clever move as the buyer purchases at the advertised price and the seller believes they are listing for free.

This may well be a good way of increasing both sellers and buyers - the only members who are disgruntled are the ones who are established and used to seller fees and discounts rather than buyer fees and no discounts - as new members increase they will see it as the way ebay works in the same way that established members did when they first became members.

There will be no mass exodus from ebay - some fall out but the membership gain will far outweigh any loss of established members - in reality most will turn round and swim with the flow - ebay still attracts more buyers than the rest (except Amazon who are not looking for private sellers)  

[71camshaft]

Buyers will suck it up as usual unfortunately most buyers just go along
with price rises like energy ,groceries until it becomes the norm . It's
eBay profit scam disguised as more security for everyone bs

[71camshaft]

Buyers will just take it in the chin like always unfortunately as eBay
hurts everyone disgusting

[themartian82]

@71camshaft You don't need to worry about this mate, you don't have any private sales, and have only sold 5 items since you joined in 2011. As a buyer you may see private listing prices go up from 4/2....then wait for things to stabilise as private sellers react to pricing (or leaving ebay). But there will always be a marketplace where you will find what you want for the best price, might not be ebay....as already Amazon offers better value with next day guaranteed Prime delivery if you have Prime.

[will_kwan999]

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@dch2112011 wrote:

As far as I can see - the buyer fees are added onto the purchase price on the sellers listing - therefore hidden in the total price -  so ebay will pay the seller  the displayed price less the fees.

In doing this the buyer will not be impacted - they pay the price displayed - the only thing that has changed is the seller  fee is now worded buyer fee -  the fees are deducted from the sale price. This is quite a clever move as the buyer purchases at the advertised price and the seller believes they are listing for free.

This may well be a good way of increasing both sellers and buyers - the only members who are disgruntled are the ones who are established and used to seller fees and discounts rather than buyer fees and no discounts - as new members increase they will see it as the way ebay works in the same way that established members did when they first became members.

There will be no mass exodus from ebay - some fall out but the membership gain will far outweigh any loss of established members - in reality most will turn round and swim with the flow - ebay still attracts more buyers than the rest (except Amazon who are not looking for private sellers)  

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No, I think you're incorrect in what you said here. My understanding is that if I list the item for £10 and postage of £3, I will get paid £13 exactly. The Buyer however will pay £13 + 75p + 40p, so a total of £14.15.

"the only members who are disgruntled are the ones who are established and used to seller fees"
No, I think the business sellers will benefit more, as they now have an advantage against private sellers.

[wara_rat]

I didn't phrase that well. If something will sell for £3 and now you have to charge £2.10 postage & .75p basic fee +12p % fee thats £2.97 already. Comic buyers are total condition junkies so you probably need to add another quid for bags boards, twist mailer etcetera.  Its not viable on a low value item

[lucy_farmer]

'There will be no mass exodus from ebay....'

When it comes to the re-jigging of where the fees are coming from (i.e. simply changing it from being called a 'sellers fee' to calling it a 'buyers fee',) you're very probably right.

But it's the messing about with 'Simple Delivery', which *will* be the end of the line for me and some other private sellers here.

Those of us who are a little older and have got into our own comfortable methods of posting really don't want to be messed about with.

Still have to come here to the problem pages though; it's too much of a habit to give up now 😁

[71camshaft]

Well think about it. I apologise for being rude . Sellers will need to
raise prices and the end user will take it on the chin as usual . Like
energy and food. Buyers cannot set prices. Sellers and eBay can.

[71camshaft]

Yes I know the whole sorry to hear this news for everyone it's yet again
corporate greed 🤬

[dch2112011]

Check out what ebay have to say - the fee is included in the advertised price on the listing !

How the Buyer Protection fee works
•

The fee will be included in the item price from private sellers, so there are no surprises at checkout.

•

You’ll pay up to 4% of the item price, plus £0.75. For example, when you see an item for £20, the fee of £1.49 will already be part of the price.

•

The fee is lower on higher-priced items over £300, and there's a cap on the total amount you'll pay.

•

For items from business sellers, you’ll get the Buyer Protection benefits at no extra cost.

Business sellers will claw back from traders using a personal account but not genuine private sellers - most business sellers do not compete product wise with private sellers selling unwanted one off personal items.

However as a reasonable sized business seller - I would very much welcome - the buyers fees instead of the business fees - happy dreaming !

[71camshaft]

I'm sad eBay has done this because sellers will be forced to raise prices
to stay viable,which buyers will see the raise in your page soon compared
to before . In fact alot of sellers have already hiked their prices in
advance . It's not sellers fault. It's eBay greed.

[reasonable-robert]

my apologies for calling you ignorant there are a lot of concerns on this page at present 

but it just goes to prove the **** you jack im alright from the business sellers and how e bay has become so cut throat

[dch2112011]

The likely outcome will be private sellers either leaving their prices unchanged with ebay adding the buyer fees to the price or private sellers reducing prices by 5% to adjust for the buyers fees being added to their sell price  -  I can't see private sellers increasing their price for a buyers fee to be added onto the increased price !

[themartian82]

I'm not sure you understand the matter fully. Ebay is a business which creates employment in the and many parts of the world, and they need an income to pay their staff and make a profit as an organisation. Its not 'corporate greed', its business.

You say sellers, but the latest fee news impacts Private Sales only. Business Sellers are increaing their prices for totally different reasons, such as increase in National Minimum Wage, Increase in NI rate as well as reduction in threshold, and inflation where the costs of everything from transportation to food has shot up since Covid.

This new Private Sales fee, Private sellers don't need to do anything. Ebay system will add their fee automatically to the listing and this is the price any buyers will see (yes higher than before 4/2/25). 

The issue here is ebay has also changed their payment rules, and seller protection also seems to be affected on 'for collection' items...The latter is my main concern. 

The new fee is not bad when compared to the previous Seller Final Clearance Fee which was close to 13% including on postage fees!!

There is a concern as somebody mentioned before that on very cheap private sale, say £5 incl free postage, which will now be £5.95 (4% +75pence), that this makes it more difficult to compete with business sales. Say a business seller is selling the same item at £5 incl free postage, it means a private seller will have to list at £4.09 (ebay advertise for £5), thus losing 91p on 1 item. This is a lot if a private seller doing a little bit of business on the side sell say 25 items a week, 100 a month, that's a loss of £91/month, compared to ebay's present zero fees to sellers and buyers. But we'll have to look at this scenario with the recent Seller Fees of 12.8%, the big problem then was that I for one sold nothing as I had to factor in the ebay fee in my sale price.

So we'll have to consider this sensible, the new fee is less than half of what the previous seller fees were  which is great, and ebay has to make their money. But they are trusting that buyers will buy at the inflated price, and I'm not sure they will, as already Amazon is on many occasions a few pennies cheaper than ebay. The risk is the marketplace grinds to a halt, again...as it did recently, and ebay removed the Seller fees in an attempt to get the blood flowing again...