Private Sellers - Don't Offer Free Postage - Reduce Buyer's 4%+ Fees

[downsizingxs]

I've stopped all my free postage listings in order to reduce the increase of the new fees any buyer has to pay. Anyone else?

[*vyolla*]

How does stopping free postage decrease the buyer protection fee, which is 4% + 75p charged on the item sale price?

[parsley2003]

No it won't help because soon they will take over the postage and there won't be any that's free. The buyer will pay Ebay and we will just get a label and have to pack and post

[thesmi42]

Well, yes it's 4% on the sale price but not on the postage. No brainer really!

[downsizingxs]

Because the fees are only on the selling price. List the P&P separately and they won't have to pay the 4%  on that part.

[barry.110]

I know that they don't charge the Buyers Protection Fee on postage and packing so the buyer would save a bit of money but it doesn't work out as much of a saving as you might think.

For example I just sold and item with free postage, so I just worked out how much extra the buyer paid compared to had I listed the item with separate postage, while the total that will come to me is the same. In total the buyer would have saved 14 pence. 

[thesmi42]

"it doesn't work out as much of a saving as you might think"

Unsurprisingly, I was thinking it would be 4% of the postage cost. What else could it be?

[phillsvinyl]

I have to ask why?

Febuary is always a slow month in any sales job.

Last year my sales of records fell low - this year they fell low.

Its picking up again and i still give free postage - if you offer good service they come back to you if they see an item they want regardless if they have to pay that little extra or not.

Have faith - Ebay have shot themselves in the foot as many people have left - this gives me and you and business the oprotunity to make the best of it untill Ebay say yeap we messed up lets go back to charging fees for private sellers - same as before.

[rosestudios]

I can see this leading us in a full circle.

For those of us  "old" enough to remember the early days of Ebay when we were all described as part of "Ebay Family" they will remember when postage was left out of the fee calculations and this led to us sellers, the greatest majority of us being "private sellers",  (Ebay was of course initially set up to only cater for us),  attempting to avoid fees on sales by quoting absurd amounts for postage as opposed to minor amounts for the item being auctioned (remember  the initial idea of Ebay was an auction site so very little was buy it now).  Sadly Ebay outgrew its "Family" feel and they soon started charging a percentage rate on the postage.

As for the idea of "buy it nows and auctions" without inclusive postage costs I suspect Ebay will soon cotton on to that and close the door before the year is out. In fact it would be no surprise if they hadn't already figured it out when they brought in this new free listing system and thought "we'll feed them a little bait on a taut line before bringing it in"

As I say full circle.😎

[papso22]

---

@thesmi42 wrote:

"it doesn't work out as much of a saving as you might think"

Unsurprisingly, I was thinking it would be 4% of the postage cost. What else could it be?

---

You are, of course, quite right, but it doesn't hurt to point out the actual impact on an item with a standard postage cost (e.g small parcel).

On low value items the saving becomes greater proportionally,  and might make the difference between selling and not selling.

[downsizingxs]

Surely eBay couldn't justify adding a Buyer fee to the P&P, and very petty to try to add to the Seller. Hoping so anyway but will now continue to list the postage separately.