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.

[g1dgl]

Ah, OK, this is getting more confusing by the day!  The vast majority of my multi-item sales are multi-quantity so the first example with one 75p charge applies and I hadn't noticed this particular guidance.

What about "Variations".  If a buyer purchases two different variations from the same listing is that two different items with 75p each.  I guess so, but the FAQs don't seem to mention this.

[seedbankers]

This is worrying. I list a snowdrop for £15 and charge £5 for postage. so I can be on the safe side of £20 postage. With this new ill thought out price structure, I will fall foul of the £20 insurance?

[the-navigator]

If you sell for £10.00, YOU pay the 4% + .75p, and it’s deducted from your £10.00 which you’ll get eventually from EBay

Sent from my iPad

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[gblcfc]

Where did you get that idea from??

[the-layer-laboratory]

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@the-navigator wrote:
If you sell for £10.00, YOU pay the 4% + .75p, and it’s deducted from your £10.00 which you’ll get eventually from EBay

Sent from my iPad

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This is incorrect.

A private seller will dictate their asking price in the listing flow as per usual. Ebay will then add on 4% +75p and show this updated price to the buyer. The seller will recieve their original asking price once the sale is complete and delivery has been confirmed.

[saffris]

I’ve been on eBay since 2005 as both buyer and seller. In that time I’ve seen many changes, some of which I didn’t much like, but I’m still here and eBay continues to do what it does. It’s eBay’s ball and they make the rules, that’s their attitude and it doesn’t change. If this latest initiative negatively impacts their business, they will tweak it because eBay likes to tweak things. All we can do is suck it up and adapt.

[kempseykate]

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@saffris wrote:

I’ve been on eBay since 2005 as both buyer and seller. In that time I’ve seen many changes, some of which I didn’t much like, but I’m still here and eBay continues to do what it does. It’s eBay’s ball and they make the rules, that’s their attitude and it doesn’t change. If this latest initiative negatively impacts their business, they will tweak it because eBay likes to tweak things. All we can do is suck it up and adapt.

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Or leave. I won't buy on here any longer. I may list a few items, but until they make an announcement about forced Special Delivery, I'm not too sure.

[seedbankers]

I think ebay should use this £10.00 item to tell us what we are going to get or what buyers will pay or what ebay will get, rather than us having wild guesses.

[the-layer-laboratory]

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@seedbankers wrote:

I think ebay should use this £10.00 item to tell us what we are going to get or what buyers will pay or what ebay will get, rather than us having wild guesses.

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Nobody has to guess. The fees have already been announced - FVF's for private sellers will be 4% +75p

£10.00 + £0.40 + £0.75 = Buyer will pay £11.15 + 'Simple Delivery' postage cost.

Seller will recieve £10 upon successful delivery.

As a business, neither you, nor your buyers should pay any extra fees, nor be mandated to use 'Simple Delivery'.

[the-layer-laboratory]

Sorry, there's a small error in my post above. The first line should have ended:

The buyer fee for purchasing from private sellers will be 4% +75p

[seedbankers]

To translate this: Private sellers  need to lower their prices as buyers seeing the prices will be frightened and turned away. That's in line with ebay: Sell cheap!  For example, if there are watchers of your items, SEND THEM OFFERS.  After someone has bought from you, PRINT VOUCHERS! I remember one man gushed that his wife bought a cassette video for £1.50 and the postage cost the sellers more than what he has in return. ebay needs more sellers like these!

[gblcfc]

But when cheap is unviable for the seller the item doesn't get listed, the buyer never gets the item because no seller can afford to list it for the negligible return and ebay gets nothing other than a site that is like Amazon but not as good ( and nobody visits anymore so even the business sellers bail out)

[seedbankers]

Exactly! But you see my gist. Ebay encourages us to sell cheaply, making it unprofitable for us to trade on this platform. I'm thinking of organising another one on another social media platform.  I have been scammed enough.

[gblcfc]

If ebay want a Business Seller only platform to compete with Amazon then they have already lost that battle

As I posted earlier, I have recently purchased 'new' items via Amazon that are also are listed on ebay. Amazon was cheaper - it didn't used to be that way. Royal Mail are killing it with excessive postal charges and ebay are too with fees and their contempt for sellers.

Most of the items on ebay are cheap Chinese tat that every Tom *bleep* & Harry is trying to turn a modest profit on- I'll buy that sort of stuff via Amazon

[wes870494]

So Ebay announce with great fanfare that selling on Ebay for private sellers is now free......so the dreaded(by sellers of low value items) 30p order charge is gone.

Then a few weeks later they announce that the order charge is being increased to 75p......ya gotta laff 🙂

Only Ebay could do this.

It's a simple price increase.......nothing wrong with that but please don't tell us it's for our benefit 🙂

[plasfit]

eBUYgumm is a free marketplace that would suit small item sellers that sell to UK only. As I understand it, it's free and accepts paypal directly paid to you at point of purchase.  Admittedly it needs to gain some traction and looked dead when eBay went fee free but now it's really in the game for some sellers. They've played around with it for some time but now have a decent website plus ios and android apps. Just a thought.

[seedbankers]

I noticed that as well. Amazon is cheaper, so I bought my envelopes there.

[seedbankers]

I hope it's as you said. I will sleep better, but wait, will buyers buy after such a drastic increase?

[gblcfc]

Sales will decline dramatically for some months - after that who knows?

[carrotdrusus2]

I wonder how this plays out with private sellers in the USA for example. Will UK buyers have to pay the 4% and 75p from there and the rest of the world or just the UK?