Is eBay actually dying? Or is it just private sellers that are suffering?

[simplybygone]

Ok I know I only sell a handful of things but I'm getting no views and few watchers. Things were much better a year or so ago. Are auctions falling out of favour?

[johnwash1]

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@crg_music wrote:

The fact I have to sell something for £12 to get the same as I do £5 elsewhere is a problem and now with every item costing over 20% in fees(inc promoted) its only going to get worse. Less sellers means less buyers for everyone. 

Its been my opinion for years but if you are to continue to charge then go back to the 2005 model. No distinction between sellers, everyone pays to list + sell. No promotion just listing upgrades. Its just not worth listing items under £10 for business sellers now and private sellers seem angry at the postage system.

I just wish Ebay would be more progressive. It felt like some positive steps last year but now I dunno.

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£12 ...  £5 ?  Can you show your arithmetic please?

@crg_music 

[johnwash1]

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@boykw123 wrote:

I have purchased a lot less from eBay recently as well as shifting my selling to Facebook marketplace.

The changes to simple delivery being mandatory & buyer protection fees on private sellers being added have pretty much finished the platform off for me. If I can find the item elsewhere at a relatively similar price I will go there instead purely out of principle.

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I'm still struggling with the idea of signing up to social media, but ignoring that issue, please tell me more.  I've seen so many posts saying it's a haven of scammers.  How true is that?  On ebay it's very very rare that I've been scammed, even in 20+ years.  But if I sold £500 mobile phones here I imagine I'd expect to be scammed 8 days a week.

[boykw123]

You encounter the odd one every so often but its not that bad to be honest and clear to spot.

Usually they follow a similar script which pans out as they want to pay you a deposit for the item so want an email address to send information through to, they then send you some sort of fake form that looks as if they have made payment and pretend they will release the remainder once you prove you have posted the item.

They are usually all the same, none seem to consider the item being sold either as I listed a washing machine yet they still tried the usual scam while asking me to send it in the post.

Remembered another minor annoyance of using eBay at the moment is sellers seem to rely on the AI description feature, meaning the description of the item itself is no where near accurate. Im wondering if eBay would honor returns against this as "Item not as described" considering its their own platform thats generating this nonsense.

[johnwash1]

@boykw123 

"They are usually all the same, none seem to consider the item being sold either as I listed a washing machine yet they still tried the usual scam while asking me to send it in the post."

Could stick an SD label on the side and wheel it down to the PO!

Presumably on FB the buyer is expected to pay first (by paypal?) and only then does the seller post the item?  So the risk to the seller is a paypal chargeback, true?  Or is the site mostly used for local collection for cash?

[happyshopper1982]

I don't think it's dying, I just think people are wallet guarding. I'm relatively comfortable yet I probably haven't filled my car up to the brim in the past 6-9, months because it's a non-essential. eBay isn't much different, I only sell collectables yet I only buy essentials. It goes without saying that SD and BP have only exacerbated the issue

[edwardian-dreams]

That’s partly true but imo from my end it’s the algorithm that delivers “zero views”

I nose around rightmove all the time , not going to buy any house I look at but I look at everything available 

🙄🤷🏼‍♀️🤣

[colcoo-616]

I think it’s becoming a difficult site to use. I clicked to buy some vitamins last night and after payment went through I got a link to the same vitamins at a lower price from a different vendor. I immediately cancelled the the original order and still waiting for confirmation of cancellation from the original vendor and a refund before I purchase the lower priced ones pushed by eBay. As a seller I’d be pretty miffed eBay are doing this and as a buyer I’m miffed the the refund hasn’t been actioned quickly. 

[roberpalme_236]

For alot of people it's dead compared to say twelve months ago (and even then it was not that clever).

For people buying from private sellers they are now charged a 'protection fee' that is already covered by the money back guarantee and are then forced to pay for for eBay's highly inflated postage scam.

For many private sellers there's little incentive going to the time and effort to list things that are probably not going to get views, not going to sell and even in the event of a sale eBay then hold onto that money for upto 14 days. 

If private sellers don't make sales in more likely that they won't make purchases.

Items for sale by a lot of business sellers look to be overpriced compared to other online retailers, not surprising as they have to inflate prices if they want to make a little bit of profit after ebay have taken their ever increasing chunk of sales proceeds.

[happyshopper1982]

As soon as BP fee was introduced I dropped my prices to absorb this cost. So if I'm selling something at say £15, and it's the cheapest available if that particular item, more fool the buyer for not buying. I appreciate BP fee doesn't look great from a purchasing perspective but ultimately the price is the price.

But yes, I definitely agree with you on the payment schedule. I feel like a teenager receiving an allowance each time I get paid. It's a joke.

On the plus side I will give eBay credit for a sale that I made recently. A cassette I sold arrived with a damaged case, seller refunded and I still got the sale. No faffing about chasing Packink for compensation. I was pleasantly surprised.

[happyshopper1982]

This can work both ways. I only ever promote my high competition items yet it frustrates the hell out of me when a none promoted item sells for double my price. I'm trying to offload a bunch of railway interest books and even though I'm selling every book at £10.99 (Dynamic promoted), SEO optimised, 4k images, of which I received about £5 after costs, buyers are still paying as much as £16-18 for the exact same books (none-promoted) taken with a potato camera and no doubt with longer despatch times and less favourable returns policy. That's one of my biggest irks with eBay, sellers who put next to zero effort in but getting sales because of the algorithm.

[sianchris]

I think its definitely ebay, I make doll clothes & like to browse the sold listings for what people are buying / making & the last time i did that instead of the usual 40 pages of sales there was barely 2.
I also state at the begining of the description that i will  refund BPF once feedback is received & funds are released & even that hasnt worked for me, ive had more sales & views on etsy in 4 days than ive had in 5 weeks of ebay even though prices are higher because their fees are through the roof 😕

[happyshopper1982]

Sounds like a good idea but difficult to track in reality? As it's difficult to calculate refunds precisely with BPF and last time I checked it isn't obvious when processing a refund

[crg_music]

Well I guess im using my mental calculations but if other site takes 20 seconds to list an item vs 3 mins on here that has to be considered.

I just listed 80 sub £5 items in a couple of hours at zero cost. That stuff here would be a job lot or barely worth bothering, atleast promoting anyway.

I mean £12 is including postage at £3.45 so thats £8.55, fees charged on the £12, promoted at around 10% + final value fee, shop fee while elsewhere the £5 is all mine, buyer pays postage.

For the record ebay is still the best place to sell but its becoming less worth listing really cheap stuff anymore so ive pretty much gone 9.99+ here now unfortunately. 

[happyshopper1982]

What site are you using? I'm yet to jump ship but I have items eBay has decided I can't sell like New (other) vintage perfume. Think they're afraid of acid attacks or something 🤷

[thepillenwerfer]

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@roberpalme_236 wrote:

For people buying from private sellers they are now charged a 'protection fee' that is already covered by the money back guarantee and are then forced to pay for for eBay's highly inflated postage scam.

How do you think the Money Back Guarantee is funded on items from Private Sellers given that they no longer pay Fees?

Simple Delivery is more expensive for small low-value items that Sellers would be happy to risk sending un-tracked if they could which aren't listed in exempted categories.  Most of the time it's the same — my recent Buyers have paid no more than I'd have added under the old system.  If fact several have paid less as e-Bay under-estimated the cost.

[crg_music]

I’m not going to say for fear of getting in trouble, its better known for fashion but adding more and more categories. Pretty obvious one. Sales are not much different to here especially for non clothing its just a lot more cheap item friendly.

[thepillenwerfer]

I bet e-Bay would be indifferent to or even happy to see less low value items on sale as they won't make much on them via either old the Seller Fees or the new Buyer Protection Fee.  A lot of the costs of getting the money from Buyers and passing it to Sellers will be the same whatever the amount.

Besides that a lot of people have remarked on here over the years that they get more problems with low-value items than with more expensive ones due to the type of Buyer they attract.  If that translates to more work for e-Bay in adjudicating disputes and occasionally making no-fault refunds on the transactions they make least on they are hardly going to encourage them.

[foresterdon]

"I bet e-Bay would be indifferent to or even happy to see less low value items on sale ....."

There was once a famous brand called Woolworths which made a fortune out of selling low-value items

One day a bright new young Chief Exec came along and decided he couldn't be bothered with low value items.

He removed most of them and replaced them with big expensive boxed items...

[roberpalme_236]

How do you think the Money Back Guarantee is funded on items from Private Sellers given that they no longer pay Fees?

When private sellers did pay fees my understanding is that it  was the sellers responsibility to deal with and compensate if needed,  if say items did not arrive or arrived damaged. It was not paid for out of the fees that eBay collected.

I agree with you that simple delivery is more expensive for small low value items, especially when coupled with the BPF. Selling anything under a tenner is not worthwhile, eBay have to all intents and purposes initiated a minimum spend policy.

I accept that there are some winners with simple delivery but there are a hell of a lot of losers - cost wise, freedom of choice, convenience wise and service reliability being a few of the disadvantages.

[crafty_cat_lover]

But if you're making dolls clothes to sell then surely you should be a business and not affected by BFP.