New Buyer Fee = Good News For Private Sellers!

[the-bee-keeper]

Now that ebay are adding this extra fee maybe they will actually allow private sellers to sell!

Now that the buyer has to pay a buyers premium, ebay will be making money off the private seller from the sales!

The more ebay push private sellers to reach the public the more money ebay will make! 

It couldn't be a better time to be a private seller!!

So come on ebay now is your chance to make more money!!

The private seller pays the way forward! 

[magpiecorner1]

I'm not quite getting the idea that selling at a higher price will increase sales, and the buyer will see and pay a higher price than the seller's selling price.  Especially when we are back to pretty much the same fees (and the fee will be a levy on the SELLER'S selling price, so pretty much a selling fee).

I reckon to sell private sellers will have to promote listings - or, as ever, sell items that are very specifically searched for, in order to get sales.   EBay sales have been down for a while, profit is being held up by promoted listings, so the investers and management will just want eBay to continue down this rabbit hole!

I checked the .de site to see private listings there will also be subject to this 'buyer's fee'.  Couldn't find anything.

Did though find that private sellers on .de - in addition to the 320 free listings they enjoy every month they also get 2500 additional free auction listings a month, for items starting price at one Euro.  Now THAT is thinking outside of the box!

[sweetcharity.2013]

EH? You think a buyer wants to pay to buy over & above the sellers asking price?

Hmmm, let me think.... nope!

I will be reducing the time searching for items here and in very rare cases will I, as a buyer, be spending more than I have to on ebay. I'll be looking elsewhere much, much more.

[reasonable-robert]

where do you sell e bay @fantasy island you watch the change on the 4th 

i recently left negative feedback for a seller who sold me something that didnt work nor was i refunded for it beause he doesnt accept returns plus e bay removed the negative without asking me 

well thats the final straw for me as soon as this stock has gone im afraid so am i  e bay are now just taking the p***...😠

[61stephenuk]

I doubt the Germans would tolerate a buyer fee and it would result in a U-turn as seen in the States when it was tried over there.

I think the big boss believes the UK will be a soft touch and this is why it has been started here

[niallrmcg]

The new buyers' premium can be seen as a sellers' premium by another name, as the buyer still pays the hammer price. In reality eBay charge a fee; they can call it what they like, the seller still receives the hammer price minus a fee. There's no real change. It's just marketing bull.

[plpmr]

sellers cannot refuse to accept returns for a faulty item if a buyer uses a not as described case.

[plpmr]

adding to what's been said -

I use the bottom line when buying, so I reduce what I'm willing to pay by the buyer fees.

[bonkersbassboy]

Is the premium just on auction items?

[buffster1963]

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@bonkersbassboy wrote:

Is the premium just on auction items?

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If you mean the buyer fee then no, its on all items from private sellers. 

[verbalh78]

It looks like an accountant is trying to run the business at Ebay. Maybe leave it to the entrepreneurs to build businesses and leave the accounts to accountants.

The reason ebay is failing is because of competition from Amazon, Facebook market place and apps like Etsy and Vinted. Whereas in the past they didn't have competition.

Imagine being charged by a shop on the high street a fee for entering telling you it is buyer protection insurance... lol what a racket.... the thing with ebay is they dont realise there is another high street being constructed just around the corner and it won't charge customers and it won't hammer the seller on fees. When you reinvent a business because profits have been falling the worse thing to do is hit the people that make your business viable. I wonder if they charge their staff a fee for entering the ebay building or charge them a fee for logging on to work from home.

[exhaustman999]

I only sell the odd think on my private account, But now ebay have added a fee on to my selling price that buyers have to pay I am having to drop my prices on my item to account for this. This really is not a good move at all. As a private seller I expect to pay a small fee for selling my item on ebay as that is only fair. BUT as a buyer of stuff if you think I am happy to pay a fee over the price a seller wants, that is a bitter pill to swallow. and to be honest I will not do it if i can avoid it, I will buy off other sites before I pay a fee for buying something. Who ever thought of making buyers pay an extra fee must have been off there head and sales will drop as buyers will not like it. and as a private seller having to drop my price to account for this fee I am still losing the fee amount. So bottom line is I lose the added fee amount and buyers still think they are having to pay a fee to shop on ebay ? madness, the only good thing is this will not last long or it will kill private sales. I love buying on ebay but now i will think twice about buying from a private seller with fees added, I should not have to pay a fee so a seller can sell an item. Make the seller pay the fee, thats the right thing to do, I sell things  and i am ok with paying ebay a fee for using there site. Sadly ebay really got this wrong

[exhaustman999]

This really is not good news at all, and is not going to work. We are now finding buyers are asking us to take lower offers to cover the fees. The wife  had an Item listed at £39.99 and because of the ebay added buyers fee it was showing to the buyer £42.49. The buyer asked would we take £40 for the item, We said it is listed at £40 (we forgot about the fee added to buyer) So in the end we had to drop the price to make the item £40 which is what it should have been. Now we lose the fee added for the buyer as the buyer does not want to pay it. Its like me going into say B&Q and buying a drill for £100 and I get to the till and they say thats £104 please ? I say no its £100 they say no its a £4 fee for coming into my shop. So you are charaging me to come into your shop to buy stuff thats for sale, nope. People will just stop coming and thats a fact. For god sake just charge us private sellers for using the ebay shop thats only fair. Who ever thought it was a good idea to charge people to shop on your site has really lost it. I have 6 items for sale and they are not cheap items, one is £400 but the buyer sees £415. you know they are going to as to pay £400 which is the right price for the item. I will  now have 3 opitions, say no because I want the £400 or drop my price to cover the added ebay fee the buyer has to pay  (fee I should pay anyway) or sell my item on another site. Now lets get things straight here. I am more than happy to pay ebay a fee for selling my item and thats only right. But by adding the fee for buyers you make the items listed look over priced, which will make a lot of buyers not even bother looking at your item. Those that know how it works will ask for a discount and most of the time we will have to give it to get the sale ( me paying the fee), so we still pay the fee as a seller if you want the sale. This really does not make any sence at all. I know if i had to pay a shop a fee for buy stuff out of it i will buy else where if I can. Ebay you really need to sort this out. I love ebay and have been a user buyer for 18 years and buy most weeks. but I will think twice buying off private sellers as I am not happy paying any fee as a buyer, and every private seller I do buy from I will be making offers to lose the fee, same as they are doing to us. just does not make any sence at all. As a private seller please just charge me a fee for selling my item, its to be expected and only fair, I do not expect to be chared to buy something from a shop. I must say again I love ebay and am on it all the time, but this is just wrong.

[burbot6001]

A total joke this selling platform has become, run by sheer greed. As if they haven't made enough money by now. About time they gave the public something back...but don't hold your breath! These are the type of people who would charge their own family for Sunday dinner

[owlita]

Well said. The sneakybay should at least have the decency to inform of the fee that you discover only while revising your listings. 

[feck_54]

I just saw this on my invoice I googled it as I wasn't made aware of it by ebay so basically they are charging the buyer the listing fee that they cancelled for the seller im not happy with this and not being informed of these fees as I only saw them on my invoice..

[owlita]

Yes, crafty sneakiness is their modus operandi.

[being37]

Sorry, its a sellers fee as much as its a buyers fee - its made selling more complex as the final amount shown to the customer shows the added fee so you have to drop your price in order to make it sell for a reasonable amount to compete with other similar items - that's in the real world not in the Ebay marketing bull*bleep* world - its a complete complex con and borderline illegal advertising something as 'selling fee free' its not fee free if you adjust your price (which you will have to)

These are weasel words from eBay surprised anyone would fall for it....

Add this to the fact that now you don't get paid until the item arrives and I think the money you are paid defaults to staying in the Ebay account unless you specifically transfer it out before 3 days.....all adds up to a bit of a con....just going to delist most of my items I don't want to have the headache quite frankly

[jackpants]

It’s all wrong. So I list something at £9.99, and the potential buyers see it at £11 + Selling items at something .99 has been a successful marketing ploy for almost 100 years all over the world. Good of eBay to think they know better. My sales have plummeted since this was brought in. Even if they added the premium  at checkout it might help. I’m gradually moving my sales elsewhere whilst they continue to commit commercial suicide.

[theelench]

I agree, adding a buyer fee to the seller's price isn't going to increase sales.

Ebay's reliance on Sponsorship fees means that any seller who doesn't sponsor will still be at the back of the queue for visibility, even if you are selling rare, unusual items and often even when they are specifically searched for they are only shown after rows of sponsored listings as "Items with fewer words".   Although all those words are being searched for but in a different order.

"Now THAT is thinking outside the box"

But it's a very old box and one that was thrown aside years ago.

I remember years ago when there were far more auction listings on .uk, ebay would suddenly announce a "Free Listing Week-End" for any number of auctions with a start price of 99p.

It was only when they were dis-continued that private sellers were given 20 free listings a month as a sweetener.  At the time all sellers including private sellers paid listing fees.

That the idea has been revived looks to me like more panic measures from ebay to get listing numbers  from private sellers up again.