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 ! 🤔 🙄 😁   

[dch2112011]

A great point - With the massive increase in volume that Simple Delivery will bring to RM and Evri - How are they going to cope ?  ebay has to onboard more carriers to split the load surely ?

[1956glyn]

To add to that there have also been posts on these boards where sellers have used Ebays recommendations for postage eg size and weight.   BUT the buyers have been charged extra due to the thickness etc of the parcel which takes it into another postage bracket.   Personally i take zero recommendations by Ebay into account when listing.

[incredible_how]

yes I'm thinking bundles is the way forward.

For buyers and sellers there will be loss of sales of small, low price items unless from business sellers.

I suspect my buying as well as my selling will reduce

[incredible_how]

not sure the first bit is a good idea! but I do agree with your second paragraph.

[*maetrix*]

If all our payments are going to be relying on tracking information then I think we're all in for an "interesting" few weeks/months ahead.

ebay are creating an unnecessary nightmare for themselves,buyers and sellers.

As soon as I get any grief from buyers / lack of payment / being forced to use different postal methods etc etc i'll be 100% putting all my sales AND purchases on hold until this nonsense is sorted out.

"if it ain't broke......."

[incredible_how]

it also means those BUYING low value items will be affected

[incredible_how]

Evri do collection, of course it costs more, but it's the only way I send larger but lighter items, drop off is about 8 miles from me

[valueaddedresource]

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@ringses wrote:

As a 20 year eBay veteran these changes seem so stupid. Why take away the seller fee just to implement a buyer fee?!?!?

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@ringses  - the simple answer to that question is that eBay believes it will benefit them financially.

4% seems like a lot less than the average ~12-13% seller fees...until you remember that a lot of private sellers used to get frequent 70-80% off FVF promotions and used to wait to list until they got those promotions, so many were not actually paying the full FVF back then.

Just to keep the math simple - if you had a sale at £100 total in a category with 10% FVF = £10 in fees, 80% off of that would be £2 or 2% of the original sale plus 30p per transaction.

eBay stopped giving out those promos a couple weeks before announcing fee free selling.

Sellers using the promos would presumably set the pricing with that discounted FVF fee in mind and of course now that it's fee free, they don't have to price anything in for fees - but now eBay will basically be doing that for them with the buyer fee at 4% plus 75p per item in February, which on many items will likely end up being more than they would have collected with the seller setting pricing accounting for the lower discounted fee.

Add to that the interest earned on delayed private seller payouts and revenue from Simple Delivery and eBay stands to make out pretty well on the deal honestly - assuming of course that sellers keep selling and buyers keep buying.

[incredible_how]

Sorry to hear that. Yes if collection postage options are not available it will adversly affect those who cannot leave their homes for whatever reason.

Waiting to see what will happen with Simple Delivery and hoping there will be collection options available. 

[moldosgifts]

The one example i can give as i keep comparing all these changes to like vinted.

Is a sale on vinted I've just packed

Pair of jeans for £2.50 posted whilst posting my other sales got a label I've not paid for put in box, once its delivered I'll get paid in a few days (providing there's not a problem the exact same problems you get on here)

I'll get £2.50.

So eBay is anywhere close to that cheap item will sell.

[lilwat_91]

This sounds horrible and after twenty years (on my other account) I feel like throwing in the towel.  RM do a great job, I dont want Evri.  Thankfully I have been winding down selling to free up some money invested in stock.

[incredible_how]

on "normal" ebay postage labels (for some reason my postcode not in simple delivery - I do sell clothes) you can organise a collection, but the pick up date is one day longer than using Royal Mail's collection system. So I have been buying postage via ebay as it comes out of the money from buyer and arranging a collection seperately, but if all arranged via royal mail you can also get postie to add the label, which doesn't seem possible via ebay.

Evri has to be collection for me, as about 8 miles to drop off, and no I can't see a way of adding the extra for collection via evri site (seller would have to pay that in addition...)

[irt303]

Blimey, I've got about a hundred emails now that I've posted here!

Still, I'm looking forward to catching up with comments since last night (I've followed this thread from the very start).

I wonder if eBay's ears are burning...

[tressygirl]

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@irt303 wrote:

Blimey, I've got about a hundred emails now that I've posted here!

Still, I'm looking forward to catching up with comments since last night (I've followed this thread from the very start).

I wonder if eBay's ears are burning...

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Wish their eyes were,  and they would come here and read these threads,  unfortunately they don't. 😐

[vintique*violet]

eBay will expect you to keep funds in your " payments" from items sold so you can pay for the " postage" of their choice... That is my thinking, and sorry but it is a big No from me. Part of my experience is visiting the Post Office and chatting with the locals AND choosing the correct service for the item sold. For me, that is RM, and I would not use another service ( and never have)particularly for fragile Items. 

To add to this... it appears that your funds " pending" can be accessed but only to pay for postage labels through eBay and to make refunds! 

We are being " managed" ... I feel that eBay are showing not only a distrust , I would even go as far to say " contempt " towards small Private Sellers but also show discriminatory behaviour? Why would buyers need to know personal monetary transactions between a marketplace platform and their  sellers? and term it as a " reassurance" for buyers to be " protected".... against who or what?  As it certainly is not a "protection" for their actual purchases! 

[incredible_how]

Do you have a choice of how to post? What was the delivery system that managed to do £2.50 tracked postage for a pair of jeans? Evri drop off?
I use Royal Mail collection or Evri collection for items larger than small parcel but under 1kg. I could extend my dispatch times (eBay would love everyone to be within a day I think, according to the messages I recieve to make dispaatch time of 2 days less) and take to post office once possibly twice a week

thanks

[irt303]

No offence, but I think you misread my reply to you - I was completely agreeing with you that eBay, like the other corporate giants you mention, are only in it for the dosh! In fact, the very first line of my reply to you read: "I agree, trying to appeal to some kind of sense of morality or ethics on the part of a corporate entity like eBay is utterly futile..." So, no need to tell me to "get real"!

Perhaps you meant to reply (again) to pwyl4943, who was the one who suggested that eBay looks at "the ethical picture". In a thread this size, some confusion is inevitable!

Anyway, on with the thread...

[irt303]

Thanks for the reply. Sorry you've had the same issue, but I'm kind of glad that I'm not the only one. When things like this happen, I can't help thinking "Is it just me? Am I somehow cursed?"!

That was obviously a disappointing (but not surprising) response on Weekly Chat. I'm now wondering whether it would be a waste of time for me to bring the issue up. Very bizarre that eBay couldn't (wouldn't?) re-send the email to you, or that the community manager couldn't (wouldn't?) copy & paste the content for you, especially considering how adept they are at the old C&P! Yet another example of how increasingly pointless and frustrating the Weekly Chat is becoming.

[johnwash1]

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@irt303 wrote:

Thanks for the reply. Sorry you've had the same issue, but I'm kind of glad that I'm not the only one. When things like this happen, I can't help thinking "Is it just me? Am I somehow cursed?"!

That was obviously a disappointing (but not surprising) response on Weekly Chat. I'm now wondering whether it would be a waste of time for me to bring the issue up. Very bizarre that eBay couldn't (wouldn't?) re-send the email to you, or that the community manager couldn't (wouldn't?) copy & paste the content for you, especially considering how adept they are at the old C&P! Yet another example of how increasingly pointless and frustrating the Weekly Chat is becoming.

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One or two water drops are easily brushed off.  Create a drizzle.  Though I'd rather see Simple Delivery from the seller's address to be the focus.

[da-vids]

"suspect my buying as well as my selling will reduce"

For long time now I don't buy from 'sponsored' listing or 'best match' listings.