This is going to mean the end for many small private sellers. "Buyer Protection Fee"

[vinylscot]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/paying-items/buyer-protection?id=5594

75p plus 4% buyers fee, so something which was priced at £5 will be £5.95 in February.

[incredible_how]

except a lot of private sellers sell for charity, I haven't searched through all the information to find out what happens when a private seller sells an item for a charity. Maybe if 100% there won't be a charge...

[maujohwai]

It is typically disingenuous of eBay to abolish selling fees and then claim that the new buyer protection fee is not tantamount to a selling fee. With either arrangement, eBay takes a cut of what the buyer pays and gives me the rest. Can’t see the difference.

And whatever it’s called, the new arrangement will simply be obstructive: to take their example, there will be a fee of £1.49 included in a selling price of £20. This means that if I want to sell at £20 to be competitive, I have to work out that I need to set a base price of £18.51. And presumably revise all my existing listings, one by one. A complete pain.

[sicro-80]

I'm still trying to get over how they put a % onto postage, when we have already paid vat on the postage ourselves. and it just keeps getting worse, I wonder if Rachel Reeves works for them?

Anyway after 7 years I am closing my account and will not purchase or buy from/with them again because of the new buyer protection that puts items worth £2 not even worth it, it's all just pure capitalism.

[incredible_how]

where is the information on this?
recently I have been using ebay postage system as it takes the money from the sale and was the same as online Royal Mail prices.

[tsdragon63]

Personally, I send out within 2 working days as people are only too quick to send feedback with complaints about delivery time,.
I'm more worried about buyers saying items haven't been delivered, if I have to send 99p items tracked I'll be pricing myself out of the market.

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

[monkeys_brother]

That's fine - ebay can do that; they can whistle for my custom though. There's no way, after 15 years and thousands of pounds spent, I'm about to start paying ebay to buy things. It's goodnight from me.

[technthread]

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@maujohwai wrote:

It is typically disingenuous of eBay to abolish selling fees and then claim that the new buyer protection fee is not tantamount to a selling fee. With either arrangement, eBay takes a cut of what the buyer pays and gives me the rest. Can’t see the difference.

And whatever it’s called, the new arrangement will simply be obstructive: to take their example, there will be a fee of £1.49 included in a selling price of £20. This means that if I want to sell at £20 to be competitive, I have to work out that I need to set a base price of £18.51. And presumably revise all my existing listings, one by one. A complete pain.

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A lot of private sellers are just going to leave their prices as they are and wait for buyers to come to terms with it.

Don’t forget that a top rated business seller (I’ll take books as an example) will receive £17.42 on a £20 sale. Plus they pay a shop fee or insertion fee. The private seller still has plenty of leeway to be more competitive on price. 

[papso22]

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@myriad*seller wrote:

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@vinylscot wrote:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/paying-items/buyer-protection?id=5594

75p plus 4% buyers fee, so something which was priced at £5 will be £5.95 in February.

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I wonder how this sits with consumer protection legislation?

As we already have the protection of our legal consumer rights, can we be made to pay extra for consumer protection? Is it actually legal to charge for something we already have by law? 

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Except people buying from private sellers don't have legal protection from consumer law.  So yes, it can be charged for.

What is interesting is the idea posted earlier that buyers will be paying an unnecessary fee when buying from businesses trading illegally on private accounts.  That could have legal ramifications. 

[jazz_monkey]

After thinking this through, it's the 75p charge that has annoyed me the most. I don't have a problem with ebay collecting a fee, switching from charging sellers to charging buyers is just marketing woowoo. The overhead on the transaction all works out the same in the end, whatever the slick powerpoints may say.

But having been a (small) business seller in the past and a private seller, I'm glad I did most of my de-cluttering over the last 2-3 years. The games, books, music and other low value niknaks that have always been part of ebay are obviously something they don't want to deal with any more except from business sellers that will warehouse them in volume.

But I also have little interest in selling higher value items as I was constantly burned by the experience as a business seller. Not deleting my account, I just don't expect to be using it much after this is introduced.

[myriad*seller]

@papso22 

It will be more obvious on auctions,  but yes, if a business seller is selling and eBay imposes a buyer fee on a transaction that is clearly NOT made by a private seller then surely there is a case for legal remedy, especially on higher priced items such as antiques where auctions might be used 

Although CS will no doubt tell buyers it is FINE for businesses to use private accounts, as they actively encourage business sellers just to open a private account if they don't like the fees!

So good luck anyone who tries to get CS to understand the issue.... 

Dublin will be getting a lot of calls..

[wilth3505_gtnhsdglsn]

Why is it a problem when they were happy to pay selling fees? We didn't ask Ebay to drop seller's fees!

[papso22]

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@pitstop.pippa wrote:

What I'm wondering is how this buyer's protection fee is going to impact income tax liability? Will it be clear when ebay submits information for tax purposes that the price an item sells has an added fee over and above the price stated by the seller? For example, if I was lucky enough to sell 1000 of my £1 items with the buyer protection fee of 79p added to each would it show up as £1000 or £1790 as taxable income????

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A seller correctly using a private ebay account has no income tax liability.

[twebb_666]

Also unless a buyer can be bothered to confirm they've had recipt (unless you use the inbuilt ebay shipping?) ebay can sit on your money and the buyer gets nothing.

Not a good time to be a private seller. Probably a good time to look at alternatives though - I know I will.

Cheers

Tony 

[monkeys_brother]

I couldn't agree more.

I can remember a time when businesses were content to make a healthy profit rather than an absolute killing. I also remember a time when business understood that transactions are a two-way street and didn't behave as if they somehow have their customers over a barrel. Since the Microsoft and mobile phone era, many have started behaving as if their customers have no choice other than accept any outrageous terms they want to enforce... but they do. They can simply disengage.

[twebb_666]

oops, I mean the seller gets nothing, not the buyer!

[tsdragon63]

Hi, this tells you more about managed delivery
https://www.valueaddedresource.net/ebay-simple-delivery-managed-shipping/

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

[6565chrisd]

For me as a buyer this is just a backdoor surcharge/money grab by ebay, its sneaky and underhanded. For that reason alone I won't pay it, this means I'll no longer be buying from private sellers.

[myriad*seller]

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@twebb_666 wrote:

Also unless a buyer can be bothered to confirm they've had recipt (unless you use the inbuilt ebay shipping?) ebay can sit on your money and the buyer gets nothing.

Not a good time to be a private seller. Probably a good time to look at alternatives though - I know I will.

Cheers

Tony 

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The sellers money is released 14 days after the sale if tracking does not show delivery or if the item is sent untracked, and the buyer has not opened a case.  

[darthalba]

Yes it will but eBay have been trying to stay relevant and just digging a deeper hole.  They were losing sellers to other sites and apps so reduced what had fees then completely removes seller fees... now they are not making enough and don't want to hit the business sellers so hitting the buyers but telling them they are protected more. 

This only hurts the private sellers and more items will mysteriously not arrive to the buyer as they wont get pain until it does hence easier for buyer to make a claim.

Cheap items will no longer be cheap and lots of items will now be pointless buying from the likes of eBay.  So the seller will lose out on this one too. 

Its all comes down to eBay do not know how to remain relevant in this game and the harder they try the more damage they do.  

I will no longer be selling anything on eBay come February 

[monkeys_brother]

That's lovely. I won't be buying anything again though.