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.

[sammylou40]

not a bad idea.   I stopped sending items without tracking long ago with a rapid rise in scam claims. 
but if eBay are insisting that items can only be sent via tracked mail, doesn’t that make the 75p “buyer protection “ moot and therefore just money in their pocket?

if the carriers damage or lose the items then they will be compensating eBay anyway. 

as a side note, I don’t object to paying a fee of some kind. It’s a business after all. But I do object to paying a buyer protection fee when the law, my bank and eBay themselves already give me enough protection 

[dansoliver]

Totally agree I have now removed my few listings.  Business sellers have got their way private sellers have been totally shafted by eBay in yet another bid to get rid of them.  Sad bit is I was quite content to pay the normal selling fees before all this debacle  started.

 Do grabbing greedy resellers realise every time they raid, a charity shop for their own profit, they are stopping those who can’t afford new clothes for their family getting cheap nice clothing.

[peters3865]

Clearly you are a business seller anyway!  686 items for sale?  Private?????

[peters3865]

Looks like a business seller to me.  I just looked in my attic and there were nowhere near so many different value resistors up there as you have

[podlingsmum2007]

I think ebay are making a big mistake. Rather than treat private sellers like they are lesser than business sellers they could have based the changes on seller performance ratings instead. Many of us have been selling on here a long time, myself since 2007. We have earned good reputations as sellers. That should count for something. There are business sellers with slipping seller standards, who despatch later than 3 days are there not? 100% feedback should mean something I think. Many private sellers with long standing could teach the new business sellers on here quite a bit about customer service. If only ebay would consider the proposed changes based on performance, and only apply the control over the lesser performing ones.

[thevintagemart]

Just a thought.

Its seems business sellers and private sellers are at each other throats.

eBay favours one group with their latest changes. And then favours another group the next time.

Where i used to work they did this all the time when it came to pay risers. Half were happy, half were not happy. The company got what it wanted.

It is called divide and rule.

eBay don't care about which group they upset, because another group will not  be too bothered.

eBay only think of themselves. But that will come back to bite them one day. Hopefully soon.

[*devils.advocate*]

….. business sellers and private sellers are at each other throats …..

I think you’ll find that nobody is at any genuine private seller’s throat.

Quite the opposite - everyone knows we need the proper mix of the two - genuine private and business sellers.

It’s the pseudo-private parasites that are completely objectionable - and any negative or derogatory comment is directed solely against them - the greater vehemence is only because of eBay’s complete inability either to care or to actually be able to do something about it (they probably don't know what to do).

….. eBay only think of themselves …..

That is true for any change made over the last 25 years - any change is only for their benefit.

….. will come back to bite them one day …..

Most likely.

[hamsteruk23]

Same for me I'm guessing it's going to be £1.50 for the card plus 75p plus 4% plus £2.80 tracked postage. No one is going to pay that for a £1.50 card.

[papso22]

The 4% is applied before the 75p, and you don't have to send tracked.  You will still get the funds from ebay 14 days after the sale.

[kempseykate]

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@papso22 wrote:

The 4% is applied before the 75p, and you don't have to send tracked.  You will still get the funds from ebay 14 days after the sale.

---

I imagine once Simple Delivery is mandatory, there will be no option for anything other than tracked. There certainly won't be an option to use postage stamps.

If only ebay would have the decency to make a proper announcement - but then I suppose it is only 2½ months since the CEO announced it was going to happen.

[siestapets]

Having gone through the process of programming a spreadsheet to calculate the difference between Private and Business Pricing

 I fail to understand what Private sellers are moaning about.

Up until ebay went fee free last Autumn they paid fee's, No fee's was never going to bve permanent.

I appreciate that different catergories are slightly different but on mine.

Here are some examples.

Business  Sell inc postage  9.99  Gross return after Fees and Private Postage 2.69 = 5.39

Private Sell 6.50 = (9.95 with new protection and est. postage ebay would charge 3.25) Gross Return 6.50

Business  Sell inc postage  5.99  Gross return after Fees and Private Postage 2.69 = 2.01

Private Sell 2.00 = (5.98 with new protection and est. postage ebay would charge 3.25) Gross Return 2.65

So  it clearly more profitable to be  a Private Seller still.  If ebay use Packlink ( god forbid) they only charge 2.87 for 1kg  or if they allow own postage then its ebven more profitable.

[sammylou40]

You’ve obviously missed the point completely 

a buyer protection fee pushes many small private sellers off the platform completely 

their items, whilst of great interest to buyers in some cases as collectables etc or low value items become not worth buying with a 4% charge and 75p fee. Along with the enforced eBay postal system that is becoming mandatory. If you read the comments, you would have seen that this is the issue, not profit margins 

The majority of sellers are reasonable and do not have a problem with fees. EBay is a business 

a buyer protection fee however is totally irrelevant and purely money to eBay. It is not a protection for the buyer. 
buyers already have a myriad of protections when buying through eBay, along with those from their banks and credit cards and PayPal. 
mid an item goes astray or is damaged through the eBay postal system, the buyer will be refunded. But so will eBay by the carrier. 
so what is the 75p actually for?

access to customer service 

we have that already. 
what it is doing is removing small private sellers that are obviously not of interest 

[polarlight3]

I’ve started putting my items into bundles. That way I can send tracked and the buyer still gets a bargain. I think this is the way forward for sellers like me who sell low price individual items. 

[papso22]

 Buyers who buy from businesses trading on ebay business accounts don't pay these fees.

Businesses buy items to sell.

Private accounts are for getting rid of unwanted personal possessions. 

[dyingcult]

the people unconcerned because they will still make a profit but that all is dependent of buyers still buying their item/s- you have to be offering some pretty unique or highly collectable items  on here to attract interest, or otherwise lower your prices

[tsc269]

Depends on what the items are and how many of them the buyer wants. Before Christmas I bought 14 old postcards of an army camp for a good price but am stuck with the six that I already had and no-one wants to buy. And now and then vendors list as one lot of three or four cards with different subjects. There's one such listing at the moment where no one person is likely to be interested in more than one of the three cards. (And the vendor has used eBay's new AI tool for his description, which is inaccurate and a load of pretentious guff. But that's another moan!)

[sportex-uk]

For sellers selling small-value items, there's no other way than to move business and the sooner it's accepted, the better for them.

For higher value items, not much is going to change, since it's a return to FVF Promo times. Charges will obviously scare off buyers for a while, but as it works on Vinted, it may work here as well, as it's the final price that matters. Vinted is dominated by women and they accepted the fees, looks like Ebay is dominated by moaning men.

We'll now see more balance between business vs private. Higher fees with better visibility vs lower overall fees at a cost of buyer protection. It's now for sellers to decide which business model they prefer and hopefully we'll see less tears flown about how private sellers undermine businesses and that they should pay more towards ebay profits.

[mr_aitch]

i used ebay to clear my loft of low value junk and small collectables that people would be prepared to pay £1 plus postage. i didn't mind paying the old sellers fee. but now i would have to price my junk at approx 25 pence for someone to pay £1. even though i firmly believe that a pound-is-a-pound, i'm not prepared to walk to the post office for so little money so i will bin stuff instead of recycling it.

somewhat ironic given that recent ebay advertising has pushed its value as a method of recycling unwanted stuff.

[lucy_farmer]

'I fail to understand what Private sellers are moaning about.'

The private sellers of small, cheap collectable things are going to be the losers when it comes to the (pointless)  BPF.  (buyers are already protected by the mbg etc).

They're moaning because they may have to stop selling.

All private sellers are pretty miffed by the 'Payment hold', but some of us can live with it.

They're moaning because  they'd rather the payment hold didn't happen.

A fair amount of private sellers won't be able to carry on selling when the 'Simple Delivery' farce becomes compulsory.

They're moaning because they also may have to stop selling

And mostly ALL private sellers are moaning becasuse of the basic INSULT from ebay that private sellers (some of us have been here for 20 reliable years) can't be trusted and buyers need 'special protection' from them.....

Does that answer your question?

[buffster1963]

Very well said.