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.

[the_bald_orc]

Just putting it out there, but if you send items standard large letter (1st or 2nd class), it "should" receive a scan on delivery, I would say from experience the scan happens about 80% of the time.

Unfortunately there's no publicly available delivery scan for standard letters.

[big_and_beautiful_fashion]

I get my items collected free of charge by RM. You do get a reference number for this, whether or not this is a traceable number or not I don't know. I sent all my items tracked anyway so I don't know. 

[mitchiemasha]

I was just about to mention this. I've noticed that some of my standard delivery items Large Letters (£1.55) show as delivered in ebay. Also, these are scanned at the post office, if not just using a stamp. There's a good chance this will be a postage option within Simple Delivery for low value items.

[papso22]

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@big_and_beautiful_fashion wrote:

It is not going to be worth selling small items. The cheapest postage for a large 2nd class letter tracked will be £2.70. Then you have to add on the buyer's protection which could be over £1.

You could of course send it untracked, then wait up to 2 weeks for your money. 
Of course, by sending things untracked, your sales fall at the feet of scammers. No tracking, no proof. I am sure we have all at some point fallen victim to a buyer saying they didn’t receive their sale. I think there will be an increase in these types of claims. EBay has well and truly thrown private sellers under the bus. 😢

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No it's not going to be worth selling low value items, in the same way that it wasn't when ebay charged selling fees to private account holders.

I am not sure why you think there will be more INR claims.  Do you think people will stop sending tracked to keep prices down?

[mitchiemasha]

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@myriad*seller wrote:

Do you have a link to that part please, as there are conflicting statements being made.

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"Simple Delivery"

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sellercentre/postage/simple-delivery

Myriad... have a look there, if you're using it, ebay will refund any INR claims themselves. ebay are selling the postage to the buyer not you, therefore that makes ebay responsible. It also means ebay can get better deals than us on the pricing so they've mentioned offering deals from time to time, we'll be seeing changes to how combined postage works too, hard to say at this point.

We can opt out but apparently it will be mandatory eventually for all private sellers.

[myriad*seller]

Thank you, people seem to be stating that sellers still refund, so that is very useful to bookmark 

[myriad*seller]

How will that work for untracked items? 

Will eBay still refund untracked items where there is no proof of delivery and the buyer says they didn't receive it?

If so, they are opening themselves up for a massive scam!! Scammy sellers and their mates could have a field day! 

I would presume only tracked postage will be covered by eBay

If the item is sent untracked then the seller would have to refund, surely? 

[nat11911]

I don't think I've listed more that 15-20 items at one time - I can't imagine the work involved listing and packing and posting and dealing with emails for 8,500 mainly low-value items! You must have a lot of time on your hands.

If I were you - assuming you'd like the items gone ASAP - I'd bundle into small (or even large) collections. You might get a little less per item on average, but I think they'd be a more attractive proposition that way for a lot of people, specifically those who are starting to collect and want to build-up a collection quickly at a relatively low cost.

Good luck!

[carrotdrusus2]

I am retired , and spend hours every day on ebay every day. As I said , it is my hobby, money isnt an issue for me. But I seriously object to being forced into a business account that I neither want or need.

Believe it or not they sell pretty well listed separately and I get the chance to identify , catalogue and go through each of the millions of stamps that I have, albeit very slowly!

[troopster2525-per]

well thats a load of tosh, if you bought a toy car years ago and decided to sell it and make £5 that is not buy to sell AT ALL

buy to sell is literally buying items cheaper to sell them or list them right away to make money. buying something a few years ago then deciding to sell is is nowhere near being buy to sell

[headfodder]

I read it as the Buyer Protection Fee is included in the visible price, not added to it? (We will see fro sure when it starts I guess?). I also read it that postage is not subject to the Buyer Protection Fee?

[troopster2525-per]

yes thats right, the 4% extra and the 75p fee is added to the listing before the buyer clicks to post the item on ebay. so the buyer will only see the 1 price on the items page which will already have the fees onto it and that price is what they will see at checkout.

postage is not subject to extra percentage or fees, but the issue with the postage is for cheap items where 2nd class delivery was ok and cheap enough that a buyer will  be willing to pay the total price....you wont get the money as the seller till 2 full weeks. if you made it tracked delivery which cheapest is £2.50 to £2.70 this will release money to the seller in 2 days (still have to wait) BUT buyers will not be willing to pay £2.70 for a item that costs the same or a bit more or less.

for instance i was going to list my coaster and badge collection and sell each item for £3 as really they are not work more but i will not take less either.....that means the buyer will really see the cost as £3.87...and then ontop £2.70 for postage.....i will not sell anything as that makes the total cost £6.57

[mitchiemasha]

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@myriad*seller wrote:

How will that work for untracked items? 

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There's a few point to consider here.

Firstly, with the way society is going with digital automation untracked will cease to exist pretty soon. Currently it's just a fancy add on we're sold by providers, to show us details, they still scan things internally anyways. Tracked 48 with Royal Mail is only about 14p more than 2nd. The issue here with ebay seems to be with the Large Letter items which is £1.55 vs £2.70 tracked... for low value items this increase prices them out of the market (especially with the 75p fee added too). However, ebay may still include this £1.55 price for low value items and as long as the seller gets the item scanned, you'll be good. This may require post office visits but even post box drop offs may get scanned at the sorting office, you'd only be liable if lost before that point. ebay is likely in massive talks with providers to secure a good deal here and have that "untracked" service be technically "Tracked", with posties scanning these items on delivery (which I've suggested else where shouldn't matter to the seller, as you already have it scanned into the system at the post office to show you have done your part).

Secondly, we as the sellers in the "Simple Delivery" program don't get to choose the services available. We may get options to unselect different providers for difficult to reach drop offs, or if we need collection from that specific provider (if they're selected by the buyer) (Currently collection from the service isn't available but likely will be at some point). So we don't get to worry about untracked or tracked!

Here's to hoping the £1.55 postage option stays and that an 85p letter step up into the digital reality. lets face it we have seen a massive increase in a letter postage stamp, digitising that system might be the reason why (not just shareholders).

[troopster2525-per]

not just that...who can prove its a buy to sell item anyway? buy to sell is also someone purposely buying cheap items from a charity shop knowing they are doing so to sell for profit on ebay.....but how can anyone prove that a vase from the 80s was bought to sell and make profit as apposed to someone bought it to use and decided to get rid.....impossible  

[troopster2525-per]

issue though is yes £1.55 postal option may stay....and yes it is still scanned in some way but ebay states if it is not a properly tracked service like the cheapest tracked service...48hr one...then sellers will have to wait a full 14 days to get the money from the sale...this is unacceptable

even the shorter 2 day wait for tracked service is unacceptable 

[myriad*seller]

From March all parcels will be tracked as Simple Delivery will be compulsory 

There won't be an untracked option

Buyer will be able to choose from Royal Mail or Evri as a delivery option

The compulsory tracking requirement is because eBay refunds the buyer for lost or damaged items once Simple Delivery in compulsory for all Private sales

eBay want tracking so they can protect themselves from fake INR claims 

[reasonable-robert]

question is the effect it will have after the 4th of feb ...

1, will sellers walk away from e bay and it implodes from within.

2, how quiet will e bay be after the 4th will sales plummet to the point of it no longer being viable to sell on eb.

3, i assume this will ripple not only from retail sales but to vehicles as well say for example you win a car in auction for £600 will you still pay 4% and 75p  which makes it £624.75 i cannot see people wearing that.

4, will buyers turn to e bays biggest rivals amazon or ali express to buy there as someone pointed out if they wanted a £10 blue ray dvd thats what they want to pay not £11.75 and would shop elsewhere to get it at that price and if not the above rivals but tesco, sainsburys ,morrisons or asda when they do their weekly shop.

5, the BS are dancing with joy about this and snipe it will prevent so called BS on private accounts having unfair advantage which i think is absolute hollyhocks .. we all dont all have £1,000 plus to buy stock and afford to sit on it some of us are happy minows  and should get off their self rightous soap boxes if the buyers have gone where will your sales come from.

6, i think this will be the biggest disaster experiment e bay have ever tried and will come to regret it maybe even back pedal rebrand and return to the old system of 10% for buyers and sellers to attract people back to e bay.

i,ve decided to wind up my account on before the 3rd of feb

[mitchiemasha]

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@troopster2525-per wrote:

issue though is yes £1.55 postal option may stay....and yes it is still scanned in some way but ebay states if it is not a properly tracked service like the cheapest tracked service...

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This is true but it may become fully tracked in the future. Especial as... if "Simply Delivery" was to ditch that option for not being tracked, RM will have little use for that service. I'm guessing it's mostly used for ebay sales. There would be a massive drop in traffic of these low value transactions. I'm a bit more optimistic that there's a plan... but we wont know until it all unfolds. 

[troopster2525-per]

Actually they will not be able to choose between royal mail or evri as sellers will still be able to remove some delivery options due to not being near a evri drop off centre etc. i have none near me unless ebay are going to be paying for my fuel to drive to one

[big_and_beautiful_fashion]

For low value items yes, I do think that people will avoid sending items tracked. I can’t see buyers being happy about paying a buyers protection fee and also a higher postage so that an item can be tracked.

It really does make it look as though the seller is an absolute demon and we are money grabbing. Buyers will see quite a large increase in items that were quite a low price at one time. It is bound to make a difference.

One thing that I am not sure about is do eBay expect sellers to go through their system to buy the postage or can we go direct through Royal Mail and buy our choice of postage from them? We can also arrange a collection and put the tracking number down as we do now I personally do not go through Packlink as I have an account with Royal Mail and it’s easier for me to sell that way. Nowhere where can I find anywhere that says that postage does not have to be bought through eBay/Packlink.