Make SD Optional and BPF - Revert to Seller Fees

[ruth3132]

Ebay - please listen:

Make SD Optional

AND

BPF - Revert to Seller Fees

[*devils.advocate*]

I must admit, most of the posters on the other thread didn’t specify what they thought “reasonable” fees would be.

If eBay were to revert to seller fees and if the seller fees they published were to be any higher than an equivalent of 4% + 75p, then you will end up with very many more brassed off buyers than you have at the moment?

So, what level of fees do private sellers think eBay should charge?

After all, as a buyer, I’m ultimately paying that fee (which you’ll include in your price).

[jonatjonatjonat]

Just make private and business the same fees. If there's any benefit to a lesser fee - you'll still get the same issue of sellers who should be businesses listing on a private account.

If you did anything - just offer lower fees for used items. Granted you'd get the private business sellers then listing items as Used even though they are new - but then that doesn't look great.

Also - wasn't there 'A Petition' thread for this?

[*devils.advocate*]

The other thread is still there.

I was only asking because nobody offered any suggestion about what they want their buyers to pay.

Just a glib "revert to seller fees".

I'm all for everyone to be paying the same.

[susapric-68]

Won't be long until the suggestions of free to list and run the none stop 90% (whatever is was)of FVF would be acceptable. Would kill off business sellers like last time. Should be a level playing field, no free listings and all pay FVF. I agree with make SD optional, don't see why they did that unless the have had lots of scam accounts listing items they don't have for sale

[thepillenwerfer]

Buyers pay the fees whatever, as they do for 'free' postage.  In the past I'd list something for what I wanted plus the e-Bay fees; now I list it at just the amount I want.  As the BPF is only based on the item value, rather than the item value plus postage, the Buyer will, in most cases, pay less overall — the exceptions being very low values items which are cheap to post.

As a Seller I prefer the new system.  As a Buyer it makes no difference as I know what I'm happy to pay for something and how the total is derived is irrelevant.

If Seller Fees were re-introduced they should only charge them on the item value and keep Simple Delivery so Sellers can't charge a low price, and therefore get charged a low fee, and make it up on an excessive postage charge.

As for Simple Delivery I've had no problems with it thus far.  However I don't like the ambiguity over the terms and conditions.  For instance e-Bay say they'll cover things to the value of £750 but the limit for Tracked 24/48 is £150.  Of course e-Bay could be funding the extra cover but also say that the carriers terms apply.  The same applies to items on Evri's voluminous list of excluded items.

It should certainly be expanded to add normal letters for people selling things like stamps and postcards and a service suitable for high value items.  How do we stand if an item is started at £700, so would be covered, but it sells for £800, so wouldn't?  There's also no service for items which are too big/heavy for either RM or Evri.  Evri's size limit is a bit higher but there's no way to arrange collection of such an item — if it's too big for RM it's too big for me to get it to an Evri parcel shop.

[vjbuystuff]

DUMB DELIVERY causes me problems about 50% of the time.   today, it charged £5.54 for a padded envelope, as it thought a sale of 3 items required 3 amounts of postage.

this didnt help me

this didnt help the buyer

there was NOTHING wrong with the previous system.

in addition, it is not possible to know the exact size and weight of item WHEN PACKAGED during listing time.
I do not box every item when listing.  who does?  

I used to be able to decide which couriers and package size when buying postage, this control over MY SALES has been removed by eBay to enable them to increase their profits  because they are getting a huge discount from the couriers based upon weight and volume, yet, the are charging the users (buyers and sellers) full retail price.

ITS A SCAM

[britanniabug_stamp_store]

If an item is listed at £0.99p then add on £0.75 for BPF what would your preference be? Pay the £0.99p with seller paying the fee or £1.74p with the buyer paying the "extortionate BPF. I know what I would prefer!

[britanniabug_stamp_store]

As a Buyer, if an item is listed at £0.99p then add on £0.75 for BPF, what would your preference be? Pay the £0.99p with seller paying the selling fee, or £1.74p with the buyer paying the "extortionate BPF. I know what I would prefer! That is the dilema.

Remember if you purchase 5 items at £0.99p and they are all posted in the same package, as a buyer you are not charged once for the BPF for the total order (5x £0.99p + £0.75p) you are charged for each £0.99p item. In other words 5x £0.75p, a whopping BPF of £3.75p for 5 items which would have only cost you £4.95p without the BPF.

[sml192]

---

@thepillenwerfer wrote:

As for Simple Delivery I've had no problems with it thus far.  However I don't like the ambiguity over the terms and conditions.  For instance e-Bay say they'll cover things to the value of £750 but the limit for Tracked 24/48 is £150.  Of course e-Bay could be funding the extra cover but also say that the carriers terms apply.  The same applies to items on Evri's voluminous list of excluded items.

---

This has now been clarified.  The compensation provided by eBay overrides what the carrier's will compensate:

Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 25.06.25 @2pm

 kat@ebay

Community Team

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In response to kat@ebay

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‎26-06-2025 9:30 AM

Hi @ruby*ryan ,

I'm following up on yesterday's query on Simple Delivery and non compensated items with other carriers.

This is to confirm that eBay provides full protection/compensation for any item that is listed as Simple Delivery, once the label is used and the item is in the carrier network. eBay protection/compensation overrides what the carriers will compensate.

Thank you,

Kat

[britanniabug_stamp_store]

Just to make the point again about BPF:

As a Buyer, if an item is listed at £0.99p then add on £0.75 for BPF, what would your preference be? Pay the £0.99p with seller paying the selling fee, or £1.74p with the buyer paying the "extortionate BPF. I know what I would prefer! That is the dilema.

Remember if you purchase 5 items at £0.99p and they are all posted in the same package, as a buyer you are not charged once for the BPF for the total order (5x £0.99p + £0.75p) you are charged for each £0.99p item. In other words 5x £0.75p, a whopping BPF of £3.75p for 5 items which would have only cost you £4.95p without the BPF.

[thepillenwerfer]

In your case of a Buyer being charged three lots of postage when one would be sufficient I believe that if you'd put everything in one package and only used one label the Buyer would have been refunded, after a delay admittedly, the cost of the other two.

If you don't know, or have a good idea of, the size and weight of a packed item will be how could you set a postage charge when listing on the old system?  Firstly I made sure I'd even got a suitable box (which I still have to of course) which I'd then measure and weigh the item before listing it.  If the weight was close to one of the charging steps I would pack it first to get an accurate total weight as I'd no wish to pay more in postage than it would cost or more and be accused of gouging. 

Now if something is over the weight or size guessed by e-Bay's it's their problem not mine — that part of the system works as at the week-end I sold something e-Bay thought would weigh less than 2kg packed that actually weighed 2.5kg un-packed.  It was still delivered yesterday.  I wasn't charged extra and I'm sure the Buyer would have been yelling if they had.

[*devils.advocate*]

I got your point the first time.

Previously, fees were 13.22% + 30p so on your 99p item, fees were 55p - so sellers were receiving 44p in their pocket for that item.

Come the advent of no fees for private sellers, how many items were listed at 44p?

None that I could find - still at 99p - so, on the 99p items, buyers are asked to pay not only the old fees but the new (unforgivable) BPF on top.

If sellers had reduced their prices to the equivalent of what they received previously, the new price shown to buyers would only be around the £1.20 mark.

Yes, more expensive than before but not as expensive as made out.

If I remember rightly, it’s around the £10-£12 mark where sellers could be making more than before and buyers could be paying less - if sellers could be bothered to work it out.

And I’ve always said that the previous 30p per order skewed things and disadvantaged the low value items and with the (now) 75p per item, I’ve wondered if eBay actually want these low value items to be listed in the first place.

I, and I assume others, now don’t buy more than one item from a private seller as I did previously (apart from one or two sellers who refund the extra postage - it’s a real hassle for them) - so, yes, that ‘per item’ change has altered my buying habits to the detriment of other private sellers and to eBay.

And, for the record, I don’t like what eBay has become for either buyers or for sellers.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

I joined this site ten years ago knowing the fees and payed them without complaint, just like i managed to be able to post my own parcels without e bays help and input (only reason they went to SD was because they saw a money making opportunity for themselves).  It was all a damn sight simpler which is why i am now putting all my items onto another site.  I have 6 left on here, 4 because they were a work around and 2 are under SD limit.   They will be coming off pretty soon.  My items were on regardless of whether there was an 80% offer or not, it was a bonus if someone actually bought when it was but most of the time it never happened! 

[kath3735_wxmjn]

glad you like it, i do not!   We paid fees including the postage before which made how much someone charged irrelevant.  As for SD, you can keep it because i will not be using it, just because it suits you does not mean it could not be made optional for the rest of us.

[thepillenwerfer]

Say I want £5 for something and it'll cost £5.15 to post.  In the old days I'd have listed it at £7 to cover the e-Bay fees and still get £5 — I wouldn't bother to work out just what the fees would be as on an auction listing the final bid amount is un-known.  If it went on the maiden bid the Buyer would pay a total of £12.15.

Now I'd simply list it at £5.  With the BPF the Buyer would pay £5.95 + £5.15 so save £1.05.

There's no denying that, like the fixed 30p of the old Seller Fees, it's disproportionately high on low-value items however.

The trouble is, as said by *devils.advocate*, Sellers are either being greedy and thinking "More money for me" or aren't thinking at all.

[edwardian-dreams]

They have to figure out how to gracefully remove egg from face 

tall order 

[jonatjonatjonat]

Very pragmatic.

i think people need to remember. EBay is a business. They have fixed costs and variable costs. 

Any one sale on ebay will have associated costs to eBay. There is a tipping point where the revenue from the sale is too low to warrant it being worth eBay’s time. The bigger a business gets, the higher this price point generally becomes

think of corner shops who won’t take card payments under a certain amount, or why  some companies only sell certain products in a specific quantity, to sell just one would not be economical.

eBay is no different. They know it’s not worth their while to host 99p sales. So either make more money off those sales (Special Delivery and BPF) or encourage sellers of those kinds of items off site.

i know this isn’t what people want to hear, but simply put if you want those 99p sales, eBay ain’t the place anymore.

[gjalp]

When I filled in surveys ebay sent to me asking if I was satisfied yada yada, I made the comment in the box that I thought it was a ruse to get rid of the 99p items and if that was the case, then they should set a minimum value to move sellers away from 99p rather than this sledgehammer method.

[edwardian-dreams]

They’ve been ok with them for donkeys years what’s different now