R.I.P eBay (UK) ------>> 19th Feb 2025

[yorkscollectables]

The introduction of the eBay Buyer Protection fee of 75p plus 4% of the value of goods,  effective from 19th February 2025 has effectively killed off eBay (UK).

Buyers have walked away and Private Sellers are now forced to drastically reduce their prices to try to compete with 'Business Sellers', who are not subject to the eBay Buyer Protection fees.

It's a great shame, and unless eBay's management team in San Jose, California see the error of their ways, and quickly, there will be nothing left to salvage from the wreckage !!

[kath3735_wxmjn]

i have sold 40 items so far this year, nearly all low value and guess what, i am happy with that!  My items are old unwanted things from the family so anything is a bonus, it also gives me a pastime selling it all for them.   I am not here to make a profit or even close to it.   I leave that to the pseudo private buyers who are the ones getting so upset over their cushy little number being upset.

[keeshyakat]

You are lucky - once upon a time our old RM postie was very good but now all the parcels including small ones come by RM van and they really are dreadful,  if the items are not tracked (and sometime when they are) they ignore delivery instructions, leave item in full street view on the doorstep & often don't even knock whilst any complaints have had no response from them at all. 

I can only hope a new & better driver will appear one day & get my area as their round for my deliveries.  Meanwhile I will continue to only use tracking for my sales

[action_man]

OK, I was just seeking to clarify what you were saying in order to understand. When I was selling, my sales were also quite low, so I'm not trying to shame you on sales or anything like that. As your argument against the perception of declining sales was that your sales were "really good", I thought I'd have a look. Because it's important to hear from people who are saying they are bucking the trend. I thought that maybe if you really were bucking the trend that the perception of decline may not always be true. But I like to verify these things. I understand that you feel pleased with your sales but it isn't showing "really good" sales in the way your were implying. Objectively £300 over 3 months is really low. I feel that what @theelench was saying was accurate and can easily be verified from other sources. If you are going to argue against something then your point falls flat if it can be seen to be demonstratively not true.

[jckl1957]

Surely, how sellers view their own sales is relative to their circumstances.  £300 over 3 months is £100 a month, for selling your own old stuff you no longer want.

For me, that would pay the grocery bill for a month, pay the gas/electric bill for a month and a half, pay council tax for a month and a half ... all from unearned income from selling unwanted stuff.

For a genuine private seller, £100 a month could well be considered really good.

My own year to date total is £542 - I did sell some stamps I was never going to use and one necklace (actually sold for a friend) for over £70 but, with a lot of my items listed for about £5, for me, living off a pension and selling off a collection of jewellery, partly to keep myself busy and partly to make space in my home, over £500 in 3 months is really good.

[cobwebcottage]

My point has been clarified by @kath3735_wxmjn  that they are happy with their sales although it seems that you are not happy with their sales and have taken the time to calculate their takings over 3 months.

There seems to be a handful of posters on the boards who have stated that they no longer sell on Ebay but continue to spread negativity at any opportunity. Not sure what you are all getting out of it and why you still continue to tell sellers, who are selling, how bad it is.

[action_man]

I won't get involved with answering individuals who may be trying to make my point out to being something other than it was. To clarify, my point is that @theelench talked about declining sales. @kath3735_wxmjn said her sales were "really good". So, I looked and found that those sales are not showing what I (and most rational people) would consider to be "really good". £3 per day will only just cover lunch, so not paying council tax, electric and gas bills as was ludicrously suggested. Back in the real world, there's a real problem here and the handful of gatekeepers trying to pretend it isn't happening need to come up with much better answers if anyone is going to be convinced that black is white (it isn't though). If someone feels that a few pounds per day is worthwhile, then that is great for them. But unless you've got time to burn (such as retired people), the rest of us are just going to look at it as completely pointless. My only comment was to say that those sales are not "really good". That's it. Agree or disagree, but objectively £3 per day in 2025 is very little money. Plus, with 75p + 4% added to the meagre sales, it's simply not worth most people's time.

[cobwebcottage]

If you were talking about paying the bills or as a business seller then yes, £3 a day will not go far. But the comments are all talking about private sellers, many of which are happy to take £3 a day which over 3 months would pay a household bill.

Most of these sellers are happy to sell a few items per week or month to turn their trash

(unwanted items for want of a better word) in to cash.

What is pointless to you, is not pointless to everyone. So if they sell 10 items a month for £10 an item and they are happy, then it's not wasted time. If you don't want to do that, then fine but stop implying that everyone is not happy.

[game_raid]

What an arrogant post that is, it is all relative that person and that person only and if they happy with that who is it for anyone else to say it's not worth it, all they have said they are getting better sales than they usually do which is sharing their own experience since the new changes which is relative to them and them only.

What do you expect £50 a day or it's not worth getting out of bed for?

They are typical of a genuine private that is selling their unwanted items not for profit but to help items from going to landfill which eBay is a big advocate of, they are are exactly the type of seller eBay wants on a private account not these business seller chancers who do not want to pay anything and then complain and claim eBay is finished when sales dry up.

I am so sick and tired of reading sales are down buyers are leaving in their millions with no actual evidence to prove this and it's often from sellers who are no longer active so how do they know what's going on except from all the whingers who are running a business who post here.

If some private sellers were a bit more realistic on price then they would start getting sales again.

[action_man]

Just to reiterate. The first line of my previous post says "I won't get involved with answering individuals who may be trying to make my point out to being something other than it was". What that means is "I'm way too smart to succumb to gaslighting, manipulation, and other distorted nonsense".

It seems to be a tactic of certain people on here to be annoyed at you for something you never even said. Then the person tries to justify themselves. I don't fall for that. Sorry.

Life is too short for these silly games. If I think £3 per day is pointless, then obviously I'm going to see this childish forum spats as pointless too.

The bottom line is that eBay is a mess. Anyone can see that who isn't in some way invested in it. Everything they are doing is for self-serving short term gains. So, for now, the shareholders will be happy for another quarter. But how long will that last? So many arrogant big name companies sailed on in this way for years before suddenly crashing and disappearing almost overnight. The big names you never would have believed would go. I always saw them as a mess and when they went bust, I was never surprised. But plenty of people were. If eBay turn things around super fast then they might just about come out of it alright. But I don't think that will happen and as time goes on, they will lose the opportunity to win people back.

[jckl1957]

So, I am a pensioner and 'time rich'.  I am not naive.  If I paid myself minimum wage for listing items on Ebay, plus the time for wrapping items and taking them to the Post Office, I would make a loss on every sale. 

However, for context, my pension is going up £7 a week in April and my private pension will actually go down;  I will pay more tax on that due to the freezing of personal allowance.

So, for myself (and a lot of other pensioners I would guess) £3 a day is a sum worth having.

I said that the £300 earned over 3 months would pay the council tax for a month and a half - my council tax is about £200, so my maths are sound.  £300 could pay my gas/electric bill for more than a month and leave a bit over for purchasing items for myself.

Since 'the change' in February, I have sold 18 items.  That is not a large amount, but for a seller like me, with about 50 items listed at a time, that is a high percentage.

It is all about context, I think.

I don't like the changes.  I don't like waiting for payment. I didn't much like paying selling fees either.

However, I can choose to sell on Ebay or not.  I choose to stay and sell.

[action_man]

But as you said in your post before, £300 over 3 months is £100 per month. So that would cover 2 weeks of your council tax, not a month and a half. So your maths isn't as sound as you think. Also, I did make the point that it might still be worthwhile for a pensioner who has time to kill. So, I already acknowledged that.

Anyway, at the best of times we can all make errors or miss things, so no hard feelings.

[thesmi42]

"cut you some slack as you're a pensioner"

Good grief, I'm sure all of the pensioners on here will be glad to hear that! 🤣

[action_man]

Yes, that was awful and I apologise to anyone who read that before I edited it. I read it back to myself and realised that I'd made it sound like all pensioners are doddery old people and it sounded patronising, which wasn't my intention. I was actually trying to be nice. But when I read it back after it was posted, I was horrified myself.

Hopefully everyone can see that I edited at 5:22 which was only 8 minutes after I posted and before the 5:26 post from @thesmi42 thesmi42.

If @jckl1957 saw the original version, I apologise.

[papso22]

I am cutting action man some slack too, but I can't say why.

[action_man]

Fair enough. That is hilarious*.

I'm honestly so sorry. I wish there was some sort of delay with posts appearing. So when you make some awful faux pas like that, you can correct it before anyone sees it.

Edit: *Oh, you edited it. It was hilarious though. I don't think you would have got slapped by the mods and it was genuinely funny. I burst out laughing. It was brilliant.

[jere-nott]

What do you think that we Pensioners do all day?

Sitting on the sofa watching daytime TV and sucking a Werther's original.

Get real.

I am 74 decided to sell my stamp collection of over 60 years, however I still buy stamps some of which I sell on eBay therefore I am trading. I am registered as a Business Seller and I am registered with HMRC as a Sole Trader. Not a problem for me, I have nothing to hide and I am quite happy paying a listing fee and a FVF.

I do feel for genuine Private Sellers with the introduction of the Buyers Fees

[kath3735_wxmjn]

I clearly stated that MINE were really good which they are compared to what they have been like, if you choose to misinterpret that in any other way that is your problem.  You may not think that £300 over the past three months (and actually i have not checked it so it may be right or may be wrong) is very much but as those items would have gone to a charity shop etc i rather think it is a nice bit of change.  Most of it is actually one of my family and as they are going on holiday shortly they will be very happy when i hand it over!  Yes, i am retired as as many others on here and so it is also a hobby/pastime for me.  Also the reason i have so much time to waste on here, whats your excuse?  At least i am selling rather than sitting around doing nothing but moaning!  

[jere-nott]

On behalf of all the feeble Pensioners on here, we forgive you.

[action_man]

I've already made it perfectly clear in earlier posts, but I'll go over it one more time for you in as simple terms as I can. You disagreed with @theelench that sales are on the decline. You said your sales were "really good". I checked and found £300 over 3 months and I thought, "That's not really good".

It took me about one minute to quickly do some mental totting up of your sales, so it wasn't like I spent ages. I was actually hoping that I would see "really good" sales which would go against what other people were saying. But, alas that wasn't the case.

Whether you think the sales are really good for you is irrelevant to the above point. Because for me they are not and I supect that for most people they are not. Try going out in the public and say "Excuse me. I sell on eBay and I make £3 per day". See if people say "Wow! That is really good". Then if they do, let me know. I'm quite happy to be proved wrong.

[jckl1957]

FGS (not what I wanted to type but ...)

£300 is £300

Council tax is £200 so, 200 x 1.5 = 300.

So, if over 3 months, I sold items to the value of £300, I would be able to pay my council tax for a whole month and a further 2 weeks.