MESSAGE TO EBAY: YOU GIVE WITH ONE HAND AND TAKE MORE AWAY WITH THE OTHER!

[whitehouselearning]

MESSAGE TO EBAY

YOU GIVE WITH ONE HAND AND TAKE MORE AWAY WITH THE OTHER!

Your new rules are both unfair and highly prejudicial to private sellers for the following reasons:

1. Buyer Protection Fee means that if a seller lists an item for £18.51you will change that to £20.00. How is this protecting or helping sellers to sell their items at a reasonable price?
2. You have decreed that you will immediately add the Buyer Protection fee to all existing Buy-It-Now listings. Not only is this extremely unfair it is also utterly deplorable and its lawfulness is questionable. Such retrospectivity is rarely applied to our laws the expectation of individuals being, that if their actions today are considered by a future court, the applicable law at that time will be performed; but it also flies in the face of all acceptable business practice because it invalidates what was previously valid by enacting that, as at a past date the rules shall be taken to have been that which they were not.
3. Calling this a "Buyer Protection Fee" is an invidious euphemism which is not fooling anyone since it is, in fact, yet another means for you to earn more money off the backs of struggling sellers.
4. You are giving buyers 24/7 customer support so that they can connect with a real person by phone at any time of day - but you have failed to afford sellers - who really need this - the same facility.
5. "Paid After Delivery" means sellers cannot post very light and low cost items by ordinary mail but must swallow the extra cost to send them tracked and which, in many cases is more than the sale price of the item.
6. Your new rule for "untracked deliveries, or tracked deliveries with no delivery confirmation signal, that funds will be available 14 days from the order date", is simply shocking because (which is not exhaustive):

          (a) You know perfectly well that couriers habitually leave items on the doorstep

          of buyers so that it could be stolen or unscrupulous buyers can falsely claim that

         they never received it; and  

         (b) You get to hold on to our money for even longer than when you used to charge 

         sellers a commission and paid out promptly; thereby earning vast amounts of

        interest for yourselves.

1.  Your 'Simple Delivery' means that sellers are forced take their items to a Post Office or drop it into a post box if it will fit. But, what about disabled sellers who cannot do this and rely upon collection (which Royal Mail provides for free)?
2. 'Simple Delivery' is provided by Packlink whom I would not use again if you paid me to do so since, in my experience, they are a thoroughly disreputable firm who use every possible device to avoid paying sellers the compensation they have paid for and have proven to be due.
3. Needless to say, you are undoubtedly earning a fat commission from Packlink as well.
4. The only 'new' assistance your rules offer sellers is that neutral or negative feedback for delivery-related issues can be requested to be removed from an account. This is nothing new as it was supposedly already in existence and I am forced to observe, from personal experience, that this quite the most disingenuous fairytale as you have failed to remove any such feedback in circumstances where the buyers have been proven to be lying.
5. The Global Shipping program. You are already charging private sellers an international fee of 3% if the delivery address for the item (entered by the buyer during checkout) is outside the UK which you unfairly calculate on the total amount of the sale which includes the item price, any handling charges, postage, and any applicable taxes.  
6. On top of all that, you have decreed that, on 20th January 2025, all active listings using the Multi-buy discount tool will automatically become multi-quantity listings, and the discounts will be removed.

In conclusion, I have shown that you have now made eBay a more horrible place for private sellers than before you brought in the 'free to sell' by clawing back even more than the commission you previously charged thereby (allegedly) giving with one hand and taking more away with the other.

I rest my case.

[whitehouselearning]

Thanks papso. I will look into that.

[bojangled]

@whitehouselearning they didn’t set a trap. The day they announced the free fees for private sellers they also announced there would be a buyers fee introduced in Q1, along with Simple Delivery.

As I’ve said before it got lost in all the excitement with Vinted and eBay vying for the users, and there were maybe three or four threads on here.

Jo

[whitehouselearning]

Hi Jo

Of "The day they announced the free fees for private sellers they also announced there would be a buyers fee introduced in Q1, along with Simple Delivery."

This is most interesting because I never noticed such an announcment. Is it possible for you to point us to it?

[tressygirl]

Morning   @whitehouselearning 

Here's one announcement I found....

eBay CEO Jamie Iannone announced the company's plans to make Simple Delivery mandatory for private sellers in the UK during the Q3 2024 earnings call: 

 

• Explanation: Iannone explained that the company is overhauling the shipping experience for C2C sellers in the UK in two phases. The first phase was completed in early October, and extended the simplified shipping experience to all categories.
• Timeline: eBay plans to make Simple Delivery mandatory for private sellers on all eligible items in Q1 2025, though an exact date has not yet been set.
• Benefits: eBay plans to boost the company's revenue with managed shipping.
  Other recent announcements from eBay include: 

   

  • Buyer fees

    eBay U.K. will introduce buyer protection fees, which will be included in the item price when users make purchases from private sellers.
  • Payment for private sellers

    U.K.-based private sellers will be paid two days after delivery confirmation.

     

    @whitehouselearning

[whitehouselearning]

Thank you tressygirl (and bojangled) but where did you find it?

[tressygirl]

Think I has it hidden somewhere on a sticky note?   I think someone posted the whole spiel some time ago on here?  🤗

It is in black and white,  so it is a comin' !

@whitehouselearning 

[whitehouselearning]

AHA! So that's why I never saw it - and no wonder!

Just another maddening aspect of this whole debacle which is entirely typical of ebay! 😡 Hide things so they are extremely difficult - or impossible - to find.

🤗JJ

[papso22]

There was an actual ebay announcement back when private account fees were removed, that mentioned buyer's being charged fees in the future.  I can't find it now, but it did exist. 

The issue is that the two things should have happened at the same time, that would have been so much more acceptable.

[theelench]

My guess is that ebay had to start somewhere before rolling all these changes out to all sellers and hopefully in a way that minimises disruption to business sellers.  So they need to test them out first and UK private sellers are the least worse option for ebay.

They've introduced Free to Sell (like vinted), Compulsory Payment Holds (Etsy tried that and it didn't go down well), Simple Delivery (copied from another site), but now has to try to get them to work with ebay's already ramshackle and glitch ridden systems.

Before they started they had already announced the New HMRC Reporting Rules and that all private sellers would have to hand over their NINOs, apparently by the end of this month.  Ebay knows that the same demand in the US caused many 'individual' US sellers to leave and are probably anticipating the same in the UK.

Any one of the above is going to be a huge project by itself, doing all of them by March(?) is going to be a mammoth task and will, going by some of ebay's previous roll-outs of untried and untested new systems, cause chaos when they initially don't work properly or as intended.

So who better to choose as lab-rats and guinea-pigs than UK private sellers, some of whom will leaving anyway, many more will be minimising selling until the dust settles as they 'wait and see' how it all pans out.

UK private sellers are a small enough test group to experiment on without loosing ebay too much revenue.

When they've got it right, then they can roll it out all other ebay sellers with at least a decent hope of success and minimal revenue loss.

[bojangled]

@whitehouselearning 

This thread (which is still current) was started the same day as the free fee announcement and I do appreciate it links to a sky article. 
But as a business seller I do try to keep my ear to the ground with all platforms and during that week there were business sellers on radio interviews, and many a YouTube rant !

There is also @valueaddedresource link to a clear announcement here

https://www.valueaddedresource.net/ebay-uk-introduce-buyer-fees-2025/

But I’m not defending them to the extent I thought it was clearly announced, for an average eBay user selling bits and bobs it wouldn’t have been on the radar. 
Jo

[whitehouselearning]

Jo, I have to say it is admirable that you keep your ear so closely to the ground but, I also have to say that, as a private seller who is just trying to clear my home of unwanted's, if I tried to do this I simply wouldn't have time for my private sellers - nor indeed, for my life!

I have already spent an inordinate and unprecedented time on this forum, albeit that it has been most informative.

What I find even more distrurbing is *tressygirl showing, "Timeline: eBay plans to make Simple Delivery mandatory for private sellers on all eligible items in Q1 2025, though an exact date has not yet been set." If that happens, it will assuredly be the stroke that breaks this camel's back because, as I said in my original post, i would not use Packlink even if I was paid to do so!

JJ

[tressygirl]

The mandatory Simple Delivery will be the straw versus the camel for many a Private seller, me thinks,  that's to stay,   or to go ! 🤔

@whitehouselearning 

[whitehouselearning]

---

@whitehouselearning wrote:

Jo, I have to say it is admirable that you keep your ear so closely to the ground but, I also have to say that, as a private seller who is just trying to clear my home of unwanted's, if I tried to do this I simply wouldn't have time for my private sales - nor indeed, for my life!

I have already spent an inordinate and unprecedented time on this forum, albeit that it has been most informative.

What I find even more distrurbing is *tressygirl showing, "Timeline: eBay plans to make Simple Delivery mandatory for private sellers on all eligible items in Q1 2025, though an exact date has not yet been set." If that happens, it will assuredly be the stroke that breaks this camel's back because, as I said in my original post, i would not use Packlink even if I was paid to do so!

JJ

---

[bojangled]

@whitehouselearning precisely I really wouldn’t expect it to be of any importance, life is pretty chaotic for many people these days.

I do have a private account and Simple Delivery is of no use to me, I’ve stated on a couple of other threads that living in a rural area the facilities around here are limited for many as is public transport, not even delving into the capabilities of the individual. 

Jo

[tressygirl]

Issues with Simple Delivery are slowly appearing here,  perhaps not thought of at first.

Some areas in the UK  do not support Evri deliveries,  if eBay are making this a choice for buyers to be able to select Evri how can the seller complete that sale,  or will the seller be ' exempt from SD' if living in those areas?🤔

Some Post Offices do not accept Evri parcels,  mine only just started accepting that service a  few weeks ago, not that it would ever be my  choice to use.

Others have been told their PO's will not accept pre paid labelled items.  I'm presuming the PO receives little or no money for processing these? What then?  Some would have to make a far longer journey to a PO which does accept them ?

Me sees trouble ahead !!😐

@bojangled 

[pillarboxred]

Private sellers, by definition, are not "struggling sellers" as they are not earning their income from selling on eBay even if they have economic problems in their private lives. The cost eBay incurs when refunding buyers must be funded and most buyers will feel it is OK given the convenience and value of an eBay purchase to pay a little more. A business seller has to try and make more than they paid for their stock but it doesn't matter so much what a private seller makes from the jumble they want rid of .

[vinylscot]

@pillarboxred  

You state - "most buyers will feel it is OK"

Where on earth do you get this from? I have yet to see any poster, buyer or seller, say that they reckon it's OK, apart from the short-sighted, spiteful ones, who would like to see all private sellers disappear. 

Buyers have pretty good protection already, with the MBG, and sellers are OK with that too. Why on earth would they want to pay for it, when they already get it free of charge ?

eBay funding refunds for INRs (under SD, when that becomes mandatory) is also a bit of a distraction. If any seller is affected by making refunds for INRs to such an extent that it is a real problem for them, then they are using the wrong couriers, and should sort that out themselves. 

[cassidy_r_private]

Hopefully Evri won't be mandatory on business accounts. I will not use them and it would prevent me from selling on this platform altogether.

Fine during quiet periods but unusable for me in busier times. I trialled them for a month and had no end of problems, specifically local couriers sitting on post when they were flooded with volumes that they couldn't cope with.

[tressygirl]

My bad @cassidy_r_private   it's only mandatory for Private Sellers from some time in first Q1  not for Business sellers......  I suppose I should maybe add,   Yet ? 🤔

[cassidy_r_private]

That's fine - I understood 🙂