Reduced fee promotions since February 2023 ?

[lostloads]

I used to receive regular reduced fee promotions, whether it was 70% off, 80% off or maximum £1 etc.

Apparently, like many on here, these abruptly stopped in late February 2023.  My wife has continued to receive a promotion every 2 weeks on her eBay account without exception since that point. Not a single one for me. eBay advise that they are random, but the evidence appears to contradict that.

Anyway, there are several threads on this situation from others.

My question is for anyone in this position who also experienced these promotions suddenly ceasing in February. Has any private seller had a promotion granted to them since then, say after a couple of months without any. I'm curious if most people are in the same position as myself - when the promotions stopped, they have disappeared completely (so far). 

Or whether sellers in that position have been gradulally seeing them re-appear once again.

[gizby]

It was an agent on webchat I spoke to. There was an option for someone to call but I clicked on webchat. I've done this 3 times about the reduced seller fees and each time had different advice but they all said the same thing that its computer automated and agents can't override that.

[gizby]

I've unticked the auto-relist box on my active items revise listing page. If they don't sell I'll list them again if and when I receive the seller fee discount.

[peturning]

I rarely sell anything on eBay and to be honest I may have just disabled this to cut down on useless (to me) emails from eBay but it's worth checking your notification preferences, I just did and I had marketing/selling promotions turned off.

Not sure if this setting could ever change itself but check it: https://commspreferences.ebay.co.uk/commsprefs under "Marketing Communications"

[humphrey7436]

Morning
Here’s an update regarding the 70% variable fees. It was sitting nicely in my EBay account in bold red this Friday morning. I do hope that you received the offer too?
Regards
Anthony

Sent from my iPad

[peturning]

Ah got one as well, 80% in my case. I actually have a couple of things I should be able to get listed this weekend too!

Are these offers typically for a single weekend?

[humphrey7436]

Yes, they always appear on Friday morning and expire Monday midnight.


Sent from my iPad

[gizby]

I didn't receive mine so I won't be selling my draft items on ebay this weekend or any other time unless the offer arrives. If it isn't sent I'll do something else with the items.

[make-my-day-357]

I never got it either and tried looking on Google and that ain't working for me now.
I think I shot myself in the foot by putting that out there in these posts. 😕

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

[make-my-day-357]

Like You I never got the offer either and Will NOT be listing my Drafts or all the items in the unsold folder.

Don't for get there is a time limit on these beig kept before eBay delete them . . . . so near the time I will list for a couple of days and then remove them so they don't get deleted.

I am also now looking elsewhere to sell items . . .

[make-my-day-357]

I never got the Promo Fees Offer again - hope you have had the offer this week ?

I am really annoyed with ebay - I can not understand why Private Sellers in Germany don't pay

fees and we still have too / plus at 12% + 30p our fees are to high , probably subsidising the Germans !!

[lostloads]

Out of interest. Have any members of the February Club (sellers who saw these promotions stop in February 2023) received this promotion today?   Sadly, I haven't.   I had hoped that entering a new year may change things.

[you_quiver_we_deliver]

Hi, I also received my 80% fee offer this morning. It has been about 4 weeks since I had my last reduced fee offer. Not sure if it was random or something else triggered it. On Thursday morning I did list one high value item from my drafts. Now with the offer I can list all the others.  Thanks eBay 👍 

[peturning]

That is interesting, didn't know about that.

Maybe eBay isn't too big in Germany and they're trying to grow the brand with such a tempting offer? I know in some countries eBay isn't the #1 sales/auction site.

How are they making money without fees though? I assume on sales?

[ett1954]

eBay is the second biggest online player in Germany behind Amazon; much the same as the UK.

Private sellers in Germany are exactly that and it is strictly controlled and monitored.  Business selling is strictly controlled and business sellers have to be registered, before they start up, and this is carried out at a local level with monitoring carried out at both local and federal level.  The level at which a business has to be VAT registered is also much lower than the UK - again this is strictly enforced.

Incomes from online selling are strictly monitored and digital platforms have to inform local and federal authorities; much the same as is now happening in the UK now that HMRC have to be informed.  The only difference is the Germans have been doing it for years and the penalties for non-conformance are severe and the fines heavy.  The platform can also be found to be complicit in certain instances of any transgression, so an incentive for them to monitor sellers.

The difference between Germany and the UK - you will find no 'private' sellers selling hundreds and thousands of new items.  This means the proportions of private sales is much lower than in the UK and as you probably correctly summise eBay are probably happy to just collect the FV fees from these sales.  I suspect that this is how eBay will evolve in the UK with these new rules, so if you can hang around long enough you never know, no fees for private sellers may well come here too.

[make-my-day-357]

So people selling Hundreds of NEW items should be Registering as Business Sellers and are not ?

So this is ruining us private seller by not having lower or nil fees ?

I can not believe that eBay can't spot these High Volume, New Item Sellers pretending to be "private sellers.

I sell probably more than the average private seller, but everything I sell has been bought by me with money

I have earned and paid tax on, and paid VAT tax again when buying the item.

When I sell on an item it is most certainly at a loss, then the ******* Government want me to pay tax on it.

All us ordinary folk are just being screwed every which way and are basically just ******* Cash Cows for

the establishment!!!

ANGRY !!!

[gizby]

Thanks for this post. Very helpful.

[ett1954]

You are correct in that businesses operating as a private seller have a negative impact on both business and private sellers.

You are incorrect that the Government want to tax you on selling your own second hand property.  There is no tax on selling your own personal items.  You only need to be confident that should you receive an enquiry from HMRC on your sales figures that you can show them that these items were your own personal items and were not bought to resell, or that you haven't made, modified, or restored the items.

[make-my-day-357]

OK - But I am a film addict and have a couple of thousand films on 4k and Blu-Ray.

The ones I sell after using them I sell on to help pay for newer ones - with my collection over

the years and ones I am buying, I can at times have 40 - 50 sought after titles listed.

After a good selling week I might sell £300 worth over a year it could be say £800 - £900 Net from ebay

and Obviously I then have the Postage and Packaging Costs.

I don't trust that the HMRC won't come after me !  YET our wonderful government literally waste Billions !!

The Government are a sad joke !!

Angry, Angry, Angry.

[gizby]

The government hired Fujitsu to install and manage HMRC's IT systems. Doesn't leave us with much confidence!

[gizby]

How would you be able to prove this to HMRC? I sell personal items I bought in the 00s or 10s and don't have receipts. The only thing I think I could do would be to show them my bank statements which don't indicate bulk buying of any sort but my statements wouldn't neccesary 'prove' that even though I'm not. Say I buy a personal item from argos for my use and HMRC say I have to prove it was some item(s) I haven't since listed on any selling platform. That would mean I'd have to keep receipts for everything I buy. If this is how it's to be done it's very Big Brother.