THE EBAY OF 2025 - WHAT TO EXPECT AS A SMALL PRIVATE SELLER - SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO ?

[bittyboy101]

Just as the title says...

Apparently a few disturbing/concerning changes to eBay coming in January & February 2025... 

1) eBay Managed Shipping.

2) Payment Holds until delivery of a sold item has been confirmed.

So I'm a bit confused about number 1 - eBay's managed shipping... Not sure how this is going to work ? and whether it will be something like Packlink (only made compulsory instead of optional) ... or will it be like an "eBay Global Shipping program" type of setup where we send our sold items to eBay's 3rd party distributor and they then forward the item to the buyer by their default postal service ??... something tells me this could be Evri  (Hermes ! )  - Not happy or comfortable with this !  knowing Evri aren't always great !  😞

Moving on to number 2 - payment holds/delays until a sold items has been confirmed delivered (or 14 days have passed since buyer purchased the item and the buyer hasn't opened any cases during that time)... This can now be time consuming to get paid... Like eBay's new managed payments wasn't already slow enough !... now it's getting even slower !... not ideal if you've  got little money in the bank that week and have to 'find money upfront' to pay for posting sold items (this can get pretty expensive if 2 or 3 heavy items which cost £20 to post sell on eBay at the same time to different buyers)... Oh wait a moment... Conveniently eBay now does managed shipping and  they'll let you have an advance on your buyer's payment to cover shipping costs PROVIDING YOU BUY IT AT AN INFLATED RATE FROM EBAY ONLY !... How nice !  😞 

Now the debate of whether I should stay ? or go ?

I have always loved buying and selling on eBay for many years... Would it be worth carrying on with these new changes which are very worrying... or would it be better to do what the old saying says and QUIT WHILST YOU'RE AHEAD ???

All comments welcome - The good, the bad and the ugly - Let's know what you all think !

would a small private seller be skinned alive by the new 2025 eBay ? I wonder ! 🤔 🙄 😁   

[manyjamjar]

This thing about sellers getting money only after item is delivered.

Heres an example.......

Buyer buys something last minute before going on a two week holiday. The item gets delayed and the tracking shows up as "attempted delivery".

Does the seller wait for two weeks before he gets his payment ???

[dch2112011]

If ebay follow current policy then the seller gets paid because tracking shows attempted delivery 

[crg_music]

Its clear something massive has to change, the V site seems to be hot while ebay has fallen off a cliff so hopefully this might shake things up a bit. The only people doing well seem to be the professional resellers on Ebay with private accounts.

Sure many dont like change but its surely worth a go. You might even notice a vast increase in sales.

As a seller who sells on 3 platforms my view is that the V site payment + shipping system is the best, im just jealous that being a business seller I probably wont be taking advantage of it.

The V site is extremely pro seller and if you dont open a claim within 2 days of delivery its effectively tough luck so I dont see ebay being so quick to close a transaction but it really might streamline things along a bit especially where the seller is a private seller if they are given a very limited window. Business sellers will be tied to 14 days whatever happens.

[crg_music]

Even untracked gets proof of delivery just not all large letters, would surely not take much to get royal mail to make sure all are scanned. They often are anyway, atleast 50% but 99% of parcels are scanned tracked or not.

I suspect they are meant to scan everything anyway so they might need to make this a thing, ive had 2 successful claims for lost large letters with only proof of posting because they didnt scan it as delivered and I could prove they picked it up.

[podlingsmum2007]

My postage is free. Included in the price. Do you anticipate that changing so that free postage is not offered by private sellers?

[hippychick1960]

I am definitely ready for ditching Ebay as a selling platform due to all the glitches and changes that have occurred over the last few years, no longer viable for myself. So the few items I have listed will be taken off at the end of this week 

[bittyboy101]

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@hippychick1960 wrote:

I am definitely ready for ditching Ebay as a selling platform due to all the glitches and changes that have occurred over the last few years, no longer viable for myself. So the few items I have listed will be taken off at the end of this week 

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Hi Hippychick 🙂

I honestly don't blame you !

It's a great shame eBay had to make all these unneeded recent changes... The original unchanged eBay of 1995 - 2017 was absolutely brilliant... but then from 2018 onwards they started making all sorts of changes like the new seller hub and swapping PayPal for slow payments (eBay's notorious Managed Payments)... and messing with the searches etc... If only eBay folks would have just left everything alone... I'd be happy to carry on selling my stuff on eBay for another 20  years ! 

Sadly they couldn't just leave things be.  So now we have many UNHAPPY loyal long term eBay members now cancelling all their listings and leaving... Such a shame it's now come to this... Why can't eBay listen to it's members and take the appropriate action before it's too late to save eBay.... 

[jefftopman]

 i am coming to end of items i have collected [ hoarded ] over many years. I have tried many of the couriers, most with horrendous results. I only use Royal Mail tracked 48 now. If buyer selects postage and it is anything other than Royal Mail. I will not complete the sale since i have lost money in the past due to using very poor couriers Evri included. It's important to protect ones self since if things go wrong its the seller who pays the price. 

[bittyboy101]

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@jefftopman wrote:

 i am coming to end of items i have collected [ hoarded ] over many years. I have tried many of the couriers, most with horrendous results. I only use Royal Mail tracked 48 now. If buyer selects postage and it is anything other than Royal Mail. I will not complete the sale since i have lost money in the past due to using very poor couriers Evri included. It's important to protect ones self since if things go wrong its the seller who pays the price. 

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Same here - Royal Mail have been my delivery partner since 2007 when I first started selling on eBay and they have been absolutely brilliant and got the job done well.

I also use ParcelForce for the heavier items I sometimes sell and they have also been very good too and reasonable to get a 15kg item delivered safely to a buyer within 2 working days using their 48 hour delivery service for only £14.99 when Royal Mail Special Delivery would have been £26.60 !

So my strategy Royal Mail for the light items up to 2.5kg and then ParcelForce for the heavies...

Worked very well so far  😎     

[vintique*violet]

Royal Mail and Parcelforce for me also for nearly 17yrs.

Would not use any other courier other than a man with a van for furniture etc. 

[bittyboy101]

Totally agree 100% 😎

[dch2112011]

Hopefully the changes will work against traders masquerading as private sellers leaving the majority of private sellers as genuine sellers of unwanted personal items, which will increase visability and sales for the genuine sellers.

The wait until delivered for genuine personal sellers will hopefully recycle the money within ebay in the form of purchases.

The delivery choice by buyers will make it easier for a majority of small inexperianced sellers and hopefully some choice of the carriers that the buyer can make will be allowed by the seller.

Added protection against feedback and claims may also go hand in hand with buyers choice although ebay have made it clear the seller is still responsible for the delivery.

Let's wait and see - it could be a master stroke by ebay or the start of the writing on the tombstone 

[lucy_farmer]

'The wait until delivered for genuine personal sellers will hopefully recycle the money within ebay in the form of purchases.'

Which may have something to do with the new 'coupon code' discount that can only be used with your ebay balance.

These have just started to pop up on *private* sellers' listings without warning or explanation...

Making it more attractive for sellers to buy stuff with their balance (i.e. not withdrawing their money) . Business sellers ("privateer" sellers or proper business) wouldn't be nearly so tempted to hang around and go shopping: they'd have the money out a.s.a.p.....

[vintique*violet]

Yes I think that is something to do with it... I asked myself WHY? 

Why are ebay only offering promotion discounts to sellers and not organic buyers... 

If it is to move the funds from balance back to eBay...  they are testing something ... because surely if discounts offered across the board, eBay have far more chance of sales turning into profit.

Organic buyers seeing these discounts will be frustrated once hitting the buy now and being told they can only buy using ebay funds balance.. which they do not have... I wonder how many potential buyers would contact the seller direct in frustration? And how many sellers would honour that discount anyway and take the hit? 

[vintique*violet]

Actually, I would not use funds balance to purchase anything on eBay... 

I withdraw funds straight away. 

[lucy_farmer]

Hmmm.... the more I think about this the odder it seems.

Looking at it from another angle, you could say ebay haven't just given private sellers *no fees*: you could say they have given them negative fees! (not *quite* paying private sellers to sell, but on the way there!)

i.e. giving buyers a cheaper price (as long as it's from their balance) whilst still paying the (private) seller the full price they had the item listed for.....

Why would a business like ebay do that? Unless they were fairly certain not many people were going to take them up on it?

I don't get it...yet!

[bittyboy101]

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@vintique*violet wrote:

Actually, I would not use funds balance to purchase anything on eBay... 

I withdraw funds straight away. 

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Me too ! - I count the hours now until the processing stage has completed so I can transfer my sales money over to my bank and it's there at Lloyds within seconds where it is really needed ! 😁

[dch2112011]

My only thought is the payment and token side is aimed at the surge of new members to produce a trend to buy and sell on ebay - keep it all in the family so to speak - a private seller clearing a few items and being able to instantly exchange the funds for items they want may be quite appealling and may turn into a normal way of trading for them - there's a point isn't that technically trading ?

For seasoned, time served gnarled members it probably is not so enticing.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

Let the business sellers do it then because I, as a private seller, will not be.  If simple delivery comes in then i am out.  I will be the one to select how i post not the buyer and i will be the one to decide if i buy a label from e bay or my local PO and it will be the PO every time.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

not sure how you think it will make a difference to pseudo private sellers. 

 As for recycling the money, i only buy what i want when i want it from e bay and it makes no difference whether i have anything in my 'wallet' or not, i use my bank account to pay not my e bay account. 

 I also do not see how giving the customer delivery choice makes it any easier for a new seller.   I never had a problem deciding how to post when i first started on e bay.

It will be the 'tombstone' for me when and if this is brought in.