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 

[johnwash1]

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@jond1492 wrote:

Umm, you're talking total bollards!  Private sellers only have one item of something.  We don't have multiples of stuff, and if something gets damaged or broken during transit, we lose the item and the money.  So, it's a lose-lose for us.

Secondly, if I have a book that cost me £5, but is now worth £50-£75, and I choose to sell it at £35, then that's my prerogative, NOT yours!  You don't get to lecture me about how I'm not allowed to make profit on something.  You do!  You're a business!  Why should you be allowed to make a profit, but private sellers should not?!

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Bravo!  I'd be happy for you if you got £45 for it even.  Though envious as well.  The books I bought 20/30 years ago I'm finding in many cases would only sell for prices that don't cover postage, let alone make a profit.  And my nearest charity bin for books has been withdrawn, because someone dumped dog shiiit in it.

[mark.g31]

Hang on one second here mate , i aint a seller im a buyer and i aint happy about the buying fees , i just seen it posted on the internet somewhere that ebay will be adding buyers fees , and explained how they would be doing it , by including the fee when you come to buy something , i think you got your wires crossed or mistook me for someone else , again i aint a business , i do more buying than what i sell on ebay , tbh dont sell a great deal , so sorry my friend i not me and i agree totally with you on this .

[mark.g31]

jond1492 , please see my post as i aint a business or a seller am purely a buyer on ebay 👍

[tribalgiftsuk]

I think you misunderstood what i was saying. I was saying that business sellers buy stock to sell on at a profit. Private sellers sell their own items at a price that they see fit. I would not expect a private seller to sell for next to nothing, otherwise they could do it a a car boot sale. But you are not purchasing stock to sell at a profit. That was the point i was making.

I agree with you if  you have something that is a collectable item and has increased in value then a private seller should benefit from that. 

[dch2112011]

I really don't know why ebay don't just call the fee  'ebay fee' rather than attach the fee to the 'seller' or the 'buyer'

Why I say this is when seller fees are included in the price - sellers complain - Now when buyer fees are going to be included in the price - buyers complain.

These buyer and seller tags just cause unnecessary unrest.

When sellers fees are added to the price - no buyer ever has a problem with it - they look at the displayed price and buy or not as the case maybe.

When ebay removed seller fees and the seller reduced the price by the fees - perhaps some didn't  because of the word 'seller fee' but they should have done because - you got it - the buyer was paying the seller fee in the purchase price !  no buyer complained -

Yet as soon as the fee name changes to buyer fee but is going to be added into the displayed sales price both buyers and sellers protest !

There is no logic - the fee is an ebay fee which has always been funded by the buyer !

I blame ebay for simply not describing the fees as an ebay fee - lose the seller or buyer tag !

[papso22]

They can't just call it a fee.  It's the consideration for a supply by them and they have to identify the recipient of the supply for all sorts of legal and accounting reasons.

[theelench]

Yes, I agree, mostly for accounting reasons.

On one of the threads about Simple Delivery ebay seems to be going to report the postage added to the selling price to HMRC as part of the seller's earnings.

It is not anything to do with the seller.   Ebay will deduct it from the amount paid to the seller, the seller never sees it.  Doing it that way will cause problems for sellers and ebay.  It is ebay's earnings and profit that they should be paying tax on.

It looks to me that the "Reporting to HMRC" team has had Simple Delivery sprung on it after they designed their system for reporting seller's earnings.  And the "Inventing Simple Delivery" team has thrown a spanner in the works by not showing the delivery cost to the buyer but including it in the sale price.

I thought there were rules/laws about financial transparency that required fees / charges to be clearly identified along with who is being charged and who the fee is being paid to?

[corn4659]

An extremely naive view of Ebay if I may say so. The move is to make more money at the expense of the security of sellers in particular but at a cost to buyers. I think the fact that you believe that private sellers want to give away their items without making a profit (i.e getting value for money) reinforces that view.

[dch2112011]

Honesty and Transparency - now come on you know better than use such words in association with ebay !

ebay have worked it so that the buyer buys the postage on behalf of the seller -  the postage is added on to the money showed as the sellers total remuneration then the postage is charged and deducted from the seller account. Hence why the seller is responsible - the only difference being that ebay have added this guarantee on non delivered or damaged items - which I suspect is in league with the carriers ?

I don't see why ebay can't describe a fee as an administration fee or platform charge or any other charge , I do get why it has to be shown as paid by buyer or seller for accounting purposes

[corn4659]

A  good point and it seems some on here think that private sellers want to give their stuff away! Most are a bit strapped for cash, others just don't need something anymore and others believe in recycling rather than dumping still useful goods. This doesn't mean they don't want to get the best price possible. Ebay used to find the real value. Now it finds the real value less about 10% to the seller or 10% more to the buyer if added on at a much greater financial risk to the seller in terms of security. Meanwhile they make millions extra  per year in interest on holding on to buyers money for an extra week or two. It is unbelievable to think ebay are not doing it in the interest of more profit to their shareolders. But then some people believe what Trump and Musk say !

[theelench]

Believe it or not I've been told (not by the person you're replying to) that a private seller who expects to sell an item at "the going rate, smacks of being a business", so yes, there are businesses on here that are not at all naive and say they think that private sellers should give their items away.

Re-sellers who rely on getting their stock at knock-down prices so they can make more profit themselves often take that view and I think genuinely believe that if a private seller even mentions "profit", it shows them to be a business trading on a private account.

Some do seem to think that because a private seller bought an old vase for £1 forty years ago, that now turns out to be collectable and worth £100, they should still sell it on an auction and preferably with a 99p start price and if they don't, they're 'obviously' trading.

Some years ago there was one business seller of greetings cards that I remember who was very harsh in their judgement of private sellers.  They were on the boards almost 24 hours a day disparaging any who they thought resembled a trader.  Their business didn't actually sell very many cards but they often moaned about how  disreputable private sellers were when they didn't complete sales, usually for the expensive collectables they liked to buy "on their private buying account".

There are plenty more like them on these boards, they are an endless supply of leads to novice sellers or just sellers who don't know the value of what they're selling.  So the view that private sellers should sell for next to nothing has become deeply entwined with the view that private sellers are all too often businesses because it serves their purpose.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

well no way will i be getting a profit from the stuff i sell but i would like as much as i can get.  I sell my family and a couple of them are shopaholics who have an aversion to sending back things that do not fit so i end up with them to sell for them (has been my pastime, not for much longer though) and no way do they get anything like they bought them for.  Youth of today....  

[dch2112011]

Reality is that prices find their own level especially for private sellers, because often the items are used and they are not really competing  in a mass market ( many sellers selling exactly the same product) So it really comes down to what someone will pay and often this is guesswork by the seller.

I think the one thing I find hard to understand is private sellers listing continuosly over time until they have 1000's of items which aren't selling some listed for years - this makes little sense - something is wrong if an item is not selling for that length of time.

This practice is very common and actually achieves nothing - the prices may be too high, the items undesirable - no visibility whatever the reason it achieves nothing - in fact it is a hinderance - 

Members complain about the search being clogged up with irrelevant items - this contributes especially when the seller adds irrelevant search terms and item specifics which do not relate to the item advertised.

Private sellers then blame ebay because it doesn't sell in other words they expect ebay to sell it for them at a price that noone wants to pay - yet the same members complain when ebay start to take control of other aspects of their sales.

This is obviously human nature but listing for years !  isn't it saying something to the seller !

[millcottage]

End of day eBay are basically introducing a 4% plus 75p sellers fee.

If I list an item as an auction and it’s worth to a buyer say £100 and never sells for much more than that, then buyer will pay £100 and no more.

So I will get £95.25 and eBay £4.75 buyers fee.

Thus the 4% buyers fee and 75p has cost me the private seller not the buyer.

[dch2112011]

Just adding to your thoughts and a couple of comments regarding why ebay 'have' to call it a buyer fee for accounting purposes.

If the 'fee' is added onto the displayed price of the seller, the seller is selling at the gross price as one transaction  which if you are a business would certainly have to be declared as your turnover, with the fee being declared as a business cost.

However as a private seller where you are declaring NOT to be a business you cannot declare any business expenses  so allocating the fee to a buyer allows businesses buying from a private seller the ability to claim the fee as an expense.

As sellers of personal effects are in the whole expected to be exempt from income tax on the sales whether they cross the selling thresholds or not declaring the total income to HMRC by ebay  should have no effect but I would think that if ebay do report Buyers fees as part of the turnover for sellers it is not correct to keep it as a buyers fee.

This is the bit I am unsure of, the tax rules for sellers of personal items and the fees added by ebay if they are declared would they be able to deduct the fees from their tax returns ? I somehow think they won't be able to  if so surely they should not be part of any notification to HMRC even though it should have no impact financially

This system will be highly problematic for traders using an ebay private selling account but really should have no impact on genuine private sellers

[papso22]

It's nothing to do with tax, it's to do with what ebay has decided the fee is for and who they are charging it to.

No-one knows why they moved from private seller fees to  buyer fees, but they did.

A buyer fee should not be reported as sales to HMRC in the annual data dump.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

sorry but there is a touch of arrogance in your comment!  I have items listed that have been on for a good long time, i either reduce them to the least i will take, take them off and put them on the car boot or in many cases just keep relisting.  I had a suit on for a couple of years and a few months ago it sold.  Why should i not?  That buyer was obviously looking for what i had to sell.  Happens quite frequently as well.  Who decides what is an irrelevant item anyway, this site is here for people (whether business or private) to attempt to sell to those millions of customers allegedly out there not for you to dictate what should and should not be sold..  

[kath3735_wxmjn]

one thing you can be sure of is that the move will definitely be in e bays favour!

[papso22]

Indeed that is a given!

[dch2112011]

Customers dictate what is an irrelevant item by not buying it ! 

 Sellers should get the hint from the buyers - it is common sense not arrogance  if an item is listed year after year after year without selling there must be a reason.

Items put on sale for years without selling are in reality buyers telling you they do not want to buy the item (otherwise it would sell)  When will the penny drop !

Of course ebay allow it - at one time they were time limited to 5 years maybe it still is ? 

Are these new listing changes designed partly to discourage stale listings ?

You should not confuse these statements with a member who actively changes the item - photos, title, description, price etc to try and find what works - the listings i am thinking about are the ones which remain unchanged  year after year after year which are just not attracting buyers 

These listings are not generally unique or niche items they are common everyday, clothes, vases, household goods !

Sellers do it because they can, maybe they like having 1000's of listings which nobody looks at or wants to buy - maybe it makes them feel important - who knows ?

If it's the hope it will sell in 5 years time, it's clutching at straws - sellers can take listings down and try in a years time or revamp the listing but just digging their heels in and refusing to change what is obviously not wanted by buyers and then blaming ebay is not helping themselves or members searching for what they do want  !