Ebay's new Buyers' protection fee from the 4th Feb

[rsbrickshop]

I'm a private seller. Items I sell are between £2.90 - £10. Is It just me or will ebay's new Buyers' protection fee from the 4th Feb make it near impossible to sell competitively. A few months ago Ebay got rid of Sellers' fees for private sellers, which was a welcome move. But this new change and getting rid of multi-buy discount for private sellers will make it worse than it was with the original fees.

[bojangled]

@carrotdrusus2 I completely understand how this can affect genuine private sellers, but as @fatbobfan suggests maybe change the way you sell.

I don’t profess to know anything about stamps but would it be worth you lotting up and/or auctioning? 
Jo

[dantwocats]

One question , is this 4%  added to the postage ?  £20 free post or  if you  do £20 + postage ?

[buffster1963]

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@dantwocats wrote:

One question , is this 4%  added to the postage ?  £20 free post or  if you  do £20 + postage ?

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Once managed delivery starts there will be no free post. Buyers will choose what delivery they want and pay for the postage label. 

[vaudinet]

First time on the boards because of this latest Ebay mess. Got to say I'm not impressed with those who seem to be regulars stamping on the newbies. I think the term is bullying.

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[vaudinet]

Thank you.

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[seedbankers]

WAY TO FORCE US TO USE THEIR DEDICATED POSTAGE PAYMENT

This is basically a way to force private sellers to use their dedicated postage system. I have come across some very entitled and crafty buyers. One told me I only sent half of the 80 seeds. Another complained very late 16th whilst he bought the item on 2nd and then kicked up a big stink when he didn't receive the item on 22nd. That week the computer screen turned blue and then weekend. He lived in North Wales, very remote rural area. He even told me he would not return the item even if he received it. Ebay wants you to sell them at low prices, keep on encouraging you to print voucheres. But if buyers didn't receive an items, I will be working for these buyers. We have to rely on Royal Mail and as you know, apart from dishonest staff, there are van robberies. Sorry for the rant.

[pontoon01]

I hardly ever use RM.. they simply don't do any tracking on letter size items and have difficulty managing to do it for small parcels.. most items remain out for delivery forever.. this makes you wonder how they will pay sellers if an item is stuck as never officially marked delivered lol

The end of ebay could be coming soon..

[seedbankers]

Basically, you have to use their dedicated postage system just to get the ease of mind that even if the buyer lie about not receiving the item. Ebay's postage fee is always higher. One way to lock you in to use their postage system.  If the buyers say they haven't received the items, we are kaput - lose the item and postage. It's a scammers' paradise!

[neosmaster009]

I think it's eBay's way of discouraging private sellers as they don't make any money from us. I can't see buyers wanting to pay the additional fees and I don't blame them... They've dressed it up as "buyers protection" but they already have this anyway. It's so obvious what they are trying to do! 

[wearegratefulbut]

Don't forget the cost of tracked postage is also going to add an unacceptable amount to the price of your postcards. Nobody is going to buy them at that amount.

My Husband currently sells items of a similar packet size to yours, he'll be faced with the same dilemma where postage costs more than the item. 

[besshilldad_123]

How adding 4% charge and 75p to a £1-50 item and then tripling postal costs, together with delaying payments for 14 days helps sales is beyond me. 

[vaudinet]

I was recently waiting for 3 parcels to be delivered by Yodel. 5 days running I received an email saying out for delivery and it was the 7th day without an email when they arrived. I wonder when the sellers would have got their money. Royal Mail aren't the only ones.

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[vaudinet]

It's definitely beyond me. Over 25yrs and 2k transactions buying and selling with 100% feedback. I won't be selling any more.

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[wearegratefulbut]

Meanwhile, back in the real world...

Because I know ebay don't live in it!

[g1dgl]

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@rsbrickshop wrote:

I'm a private seller. Items I sell are between £2.90 - £10. Is It just me or will ebay's new Buyers' protection fee from the 4th Feb make it near impossible to sell competitively.

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I'm in a similar boat and I'm particularly concerned about how it will affect multi-quantity listing which I notice are also going to be hit by the removal of multi-quantity discounts.

Firstly, business sellers are going to look at my listing and go "You're a business masquerading as a private seller so it serves you right!"  Well, I'm not!  Back when I was an Electronic Engineering student 40 years ago I bough packs of old electronic components cheap at electronic flea markets and kind friends gave me boxes of unwanted old components (I was a student, remember).  Well, I've used some of these components over the decades but I've still got several thousand left over.  40 years ago these items were old and out of date.  Today they are rare and a tiny number of people will pay good money for them to repair old equipment.

Some items I can sell for £10 or more so no problem there, but many others only make sense to sell for less than £5 and even then I hardly ever sell any.  It is not unusual for me to list a particular part with Quantity 20 and sell one or two per year, often to overseas buyers.

Do I correctly understand that if someone buys Quantity 5 of a particular item then eBay will add £3.75 (75p x 5) plus 4% to the price?  If the items are £2 each then that will badly hit any possible sales.

Would it make better sense for me to list different size packs.  So I could have three different listing for the same item: Pack of 1 - Qty 20, Pack of 2 - Qty 10, Pack of 5 - Qty 4 for example.  I could include a pack discount into each listing to get back my multi-buy discounts.  Do I deduce that if I sell one "Pack of 5" that the buyer will only pay one lot of 75p "Buyer Protection"?

Finally, if this all gets too much and I decide to leave eBay then can anyone suggest any other Marketplaces which might be able to handle exceptionally unusual and niche items of this nature?

[katkin]

Basically turning themselves into a version of Vinted

[papso22]

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@vaudinet wrote:
First time on the boards because of this latest Ebay mess. Got to say I'm not impressed with those who seem to be regulars stamping on the newbies. I think the term is bullying.

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

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It's not regulars jumping on newbies, it's those who know the law pointing out that some people are breaking it.

[infinibrix]

As I said in a similar thread....

As a private seller you no longer pay any fees therefore you can now use that saving to lower your pricing to help make it more competitive so that the buyer fees are less impactful to the customer!?

The only thing ebay has done wrong here is not introduce this at the same time they introduced the 'no fees' policy. Had they of introduced both policies at the same time people would not be complaining? It seems people are only complaining because for a brief moment they were given everything! No fees, free selling but now its just back to how it was before but with more emphasis on buyers being responsible for the fees

[g1dgl]

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@infinibrix wrote:

No fees, free selling but now its just back to how it was before but with more emphasis on buyers being responsible for the fees

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Err, NO.  It isn't back how it was before at all.  75p + 4% is MUCH more per item than 30p + 10.6% for LOW VALUE ITEMS.  I agree that for higher value items the situation is better.  I sold an old computer disk drive for £100 last year and in that case the new "Buyer Protection Fee" is indeed much less than my old Seller Fees.  But, for items I sell for only a few pounds (most of my sales) it is very much the opposite!

Additionally, if it really is 75p per ITEM rather than 30p per TRANSACTION then again that is a huge increase for those who sell multi-quantities of low value items.

[infinibrix]

To be honest I don't think low value items have ever been all that worthwhile to sell on ebay anyway even when it was just the 30p fee + 10% I mean after you've paid the transaction fee and spent the time processing/packing the order your better off just bundling a few low value items together.
Either way it doesn't take away from the fact that most sellers are going to be making better profits where it really matters   
Plus its only the buyer that is paying this fee anyway and any small incremental increases on low value items aren't really that noticeable because whether a low value pair of scissors cost the buyer £3, £4 or £5 people will still buy what they need regardless!