No Listing Fees and Global Shipping Programme

[ero.vrko1]

Hi,

I'm sorry if this question has already been asked in the extensive conversations about the new free listings.

I'm wondering if there is any charge to list items that have the Global Shipping Programme box ticked if you are a private seller and using one of your free listings per month?

I've been reading this page:

Fees for private sellers | eBay

and under the heading "International site visibility" it states that there is a charge of £0.30p for fixed price listings, is this different from offering postage using the global shipping programme?

Many thanks.

[*vyolla*]

There is a fee for an international sale:

If your registered address is in the UK, we charge an international fee of 3% if the delivery address for the item (entered by the buyer during checkout) is outside the UK.

This fee is calculated on the total amount of the sale and is automatically deducted from your sales proceeds. The total amount of the sale includes the item price, any handling charges, postage, and any applicable taxes.

[thesmokingrunner]

Along with all the changes introduced yesterday there is now a charge to list items to international (that is non-UK) buyers so Yes, there is a charge. And for the sake of clarity non-UK includes the Channel Islands.

eBay does, as you mention, now charge 30p for fixed Price listings if you opt for "International site visibility". Alternatively if you list as an Auction the charges, as mentioned in the link you included, are 5p for a start price of less than £5, 10p for a start price between £5 and £29.99 and 15p for a start price of £30 or more. To answer your question: they are separate to offering postage using the GSP. They apply to an international listing regardless of the method of shipping.

You may also have picked up on the information a little lower down the same 'Fees for private sellers' page regarding fees on International sales. It's worth remembering that international buyers will pay both increased shipping charges and VAT on the total amount of their purchase but it is the seller who will pay commission on that amount.

In addition to a 3% International Fee there is also a 2.5% Currency Conversion Fee (mentioned a couple of pages down from the International site visibility information), so if an item is being listed for international visibility a seller will now not only have to pay to list but will still be charged 5.5% commission on the total paid by a buyer.

eBay didn't exactly broadcast that when they made their big "It's free to sell" announcement, did they? I wonder why...

[ero.vrko1]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. However I'm still confused!!! (Maybe I need more coffee!)

So given two scenarios:

1. I list an item for £5.00 and am using one of my *free listings per month and don't specify "International Delivery" of any sort including GSP - I can safely say this, I don't pay any fees for this listing

2. I list an item for £5.00 and am using one of my *free listings per month and do specify "International Delivery" and use the GSP - I now pay £0.30p for the listing alone regardless of whether it sells to a buyer outside of the UK - Is this correct?

Thanks again.

[medealady]

So to be clear is 'internationl site visibility' different from just accepting GSP on listings? If so where is the option to appear on internationl sites to make sure disabled. However if disabled then would it follow that buyers outside the UK cant see your listings anyway?  Are you saying here that previously free to list will incur a listing fee if GSP is ticked?  I do understand that a fee applies to sales made via GSP.  

[thesmokingrunner]

@ero.vrko1  

1. Correct - you do not pay any fees either to list or when the item sells.

2. That is my understanding, yes - if you list an item which International buyers can purchase then you will be charged 30p for the listing regardless of whether the buyer is outside the UK or not. The charge is levied on listing, not on the sale, and at the time of listing no-one knows whether the buyer will be non-UK- or UK-based. Additionally if the item sells to an International buyer you will be charged the International Fee and the Currency Conversion Fee, as mentioned in my previous reply, though these charges would (obviously) not apply if the buyer is UK-based.

@medealady 

It's not actually made clear on the 'fees for private sellers' help page (link provided in the original post) whether International site visibility is different to accepting GSP on listings. Logically, because they're mentioned separately, one could assume they are individual options, especially given that a seller doesn't have to use GSP when selling internationally (they could ship via Royal Mail International, for example).

The option to disable International site visibility is, presumably, part of the listing process. As for listings still being visible to buyers outside the UK I have no idea (sorry) but if they could see them the buyer wouldn't be able to purchase as no postage option would be shown on the listing, so the buyer would need to contact the seller to see if they would post overseas. And finally: Yes, a listing which was previously free to list to International buyers (with shipping via GSP or not) will, from yesterday, incur a listing fee.

[ero.vrko1]

Thank you so much, that's really helpful.

As a default I have had the GSP ticked and offered on all of my listings on the off-chance that someone would want the item and I didn't mind sending the parcel onto the Ebay hub, with no hassle working out overseas postage, customs etc. for me.  I will untick the GSP postage option now as it's not worth paying more for the very slim chance that someone overseas will purchase one of my listings. 

Thanks for all your help - the information they give out is hard to wade through at the best of times. 

[thesmokingrunner]

@ero.vrko1 

I wouldn't rush to disable the GSP option on your existing listings - my understanding is that the new listing fee only applies to new listings made from yesterday onwards.

What I do not know - any cannot find any information on - is whether the new listing fee applies to items which are either Auto or Manually renewed. So whilst your current GSP-inclusive listings will not incur the new listing fee any renewed GSP-inclusive listing might. I'm afraid you'll have to look into that one yourself, but at the very least I'd wait and see what happens when one (or more) of your items relists as then you'll know for sure.

[ero.vrko1]

Yep agree with you. I have left the listings done previously (before the new *free listing started) with the GSP postage options on, but I listed/relisted a few things yesterday under the *free listings rule with the GSP postage option ticked, it didn't occur to me until today that there might be a fee when I started looking into it. 

Thanks again.

[thesmokingrunner]

Phew... When I read your post I took it that you were going to remove GSP from all your listings so it's good to know you haven't.

As for the listings you did yesterday you would certainly have been charged 30p for each new listing with GSP enabled but the great unknown is whether you were charged 30p for each relist.

The only difference between Auto and Manual relisting now is that  Auto-relists do not count towards the 300-per-month limit - Manual relists do - so the question is: were you charged 30p for each GSP relist you did yesterday?

[ero.vrko1]

When I was listing / manually relisting items yesterday using my *free listings with the GSP option still on there was no mention of any fee to pay and at the bottom of the listing it said "No transaction fees will be applied" with "transaction fees" being a link to the fees page, and no money was taken from my balance yesterday - so who knows!!

Just wish it was clearer, the information they give out was sort of just sending me into a loop, go and look at this link, and that link was where I had just come from! 🙄

[thesmokingrunner]

Well (on the face of it at least) your experience yesterday does suggest that the 30p fee for relisting with the GSP option enabled has not been applied, although I'm a little puzzled as to why, from my understanding of what you wrote, it has also not been applied to the new listings you made.

However, having written the above, I'm also slightly puzzled by the use of the term "transaction fee". To me a transaction fee applies when a sale takes place (in which case "No transaction fees will be applied" would be correct, as as from yesterday no commission is charged on a sale) whereas the 30p charge is a listing fee, not a transaction fee. Semantics perhaps, but there is a difference.

The only thing I can suggest is that you keep an eye on your balance and/or bank account in case eBay make a deduction at some point in the future - I'm sorry to say it's not been made clear whether any of the new listing fees are taken immediately the listing goes live or whether there's a delay in collecting the fees, so you may find you are charged at an unspecified time after listing and, under the terms of Managed Payments, if your account balance holds insufficent funds eBay will deduct the amount due or remaining direct from your linked bank account.

If that does happen can you pop back and let me know?

[ero.vrko1]

I will be keeping a close eye on my balance and check out the fees etc. I get charged from now on (when I get a sale!) and if I see I've been charged for listing with the GSP postage option ticked, I'll pop back and let you know. 

Thanks for all your help. 

[sweetnothings009]

wow this is all as clear as mud isnt it .......  and there I was so excited to hear of no fees!!  Well we shall all have to take it week by week and see how things go. A shame about international fees and I hope the buyer's costs in the shipping do not have to be increased too much or else it just will not be viable for either seller or buyer.

[thesmokingrunner]

As clear as mud indeed, but (in my opinion) in reality it is no different to any other announcement made by eBay: it's all smoke and mirrors.

A lot - probably the majority - of sellers are concentrating on the free listings/no commission because that was the news that made the headlines, but along with that eBay rather sneakily introduced charges for international listings with barely a mention - you have to read the Help pages to find that particular snippet of information.

Added to that, as from 16 October any funds from sales will be held in an 'eBay balance' and scheduled payments (transfers) to the user's registered bank account will end; from that date transfers will have to be requested by the account holder and will, according to the information eBay have published, take up to four days (presumably working days rather than calendar days), in addition to the funds not being available in the eBay balance for up to two days after the sale has been made. In other words, from 16 October you will have to transfer any sale proceeds to your bank yourself and it could take up to 6 days before you receive any proceeds from a sale.

And in case you missed it, eBay are introducing a buyer's fee next year. No information as yet but it's rumoured that it will be along the same lines as Vinted's 8% fee. That's going to go down well... Me? I'll all-but stop buying if a buyer's fee is introduced and use eBay as a price comparison site/purchase site of last resort, just as I stopped selling when MP was introduced.

eBay just don't seem to realise that other sites are not only available but also a lot more user-friendly for both buyers and sellers.

[ero.vrko1]

Agree, I'm very suspicious of this Ebay holding onto funds balance, currently my funds move overnight (if I have any) to an interest account and I will be requesting a withdrawl each day I have funds in my balance, and I've seen very little information as to times on transfers. 

[thesmokingrunner]

There's a new page on Help&Support relating to eBay balance:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/spendable-funds/ebay-balance?id=5305&st=3&pos=1&query=eBay%20bal...

which includes a few FAQs, the first of which is what account holders will need to do if their sales proceeds are currently sent to direct to a bank account. The second FAQ covers time periods for transfers.

Hope this helps.

[cabletie555]

I sold an item for £6.49 and £3.50 postage, earlier on Tues 2nd Oct 2024, this was an existing 10 day auction listing I had listed before the introduction of the new fee free system. It was purchased by a buyer in Europe through the GSP and I was charged a 30p fee which surprised me, so I searched for more info and arrived here. Another 10 day auction listing that ended today and sold to a UK buyer had no fees at all applied to it and was genuinely fee free. I'd reduced the postage cost on all my listings to remove the fee element last night but missed this one when using my browser's webpage search to find items in a size and weight class because it was the wrong amount due to category postage limits so was still 31p over the actual cost of the postage.

[medealady]

I think I will ask CS tomorrow for clarity on international listings. What I hope is that all listings that have GSP ticked dont incur a 30p fee simply to list otherwise as said it isnt economic for an elusive foreign sale.

[thesmokingrunner]

Very interesting information, cabletie555 - thank you for posting it. From your experience it certainly does appear that the International site visibility fee is only actually charged if the item is sold to an overseas buyer.

The thing is, though, that whilst it makes sense to only charge such a fee if the sale is to an International buyer, it appears on the 'Fees for private sellers' Help Page under Listing Fees. Generally Listing Fees are payable regardless of whether an item sells (Reserved Price, Subtitle, Listing in a 2nd Category etc) so I read that to mean the International site visibility fee is similarly a non-refundable optional upgrade. It appears not.

@medealady  Good luck with that. You'll need it. CS aren't exactly known for their clarity. I can tell you now they will tell you want you want to hear. Whether their answer is correct or not is another matter entirely...