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.

[maujohwai]

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@goodibags wrote:

Technically, the starting price is 23p for a buyer to see 99p, but as you've spotted that's auctions only.

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I still haven't discovered for sure where the Buyer Protection Fee will appear. If it's silently included in the auction price from the start, as you say, and gets deducted before the seller gets anything, that's very much like a selling fee.

So will FIxed Price listings show the price set by the seller, but add the Fee in the buyer's basket?

[goodibags]

I expect that auctions will show 'gross of fees' to the buyer. So an item set by a seller to start at 99p will appear to start at £1.78.

On buy it nows the price should be inclusive of fees too. A buyer might see £13.75 for an item priced at £12.50 and also know that £1.25 fees were added. So in theory there are no surprises?

On offers they should be inclusive too but as we saw in cases shared here last week anything can happen.

[myriad*seller]

Fixed price listings show the buyer the full price which is seller price+buyer fee from the moment they first see the listing

The buyer doesn't see a fee breakdown until checkout on my computer

The buyer can't even see that fees have been added until the last page on my computer as it does not even show anything stating "Buyer protection fee included" although it seems other people can see this on the listing page. 

The buyer only sees that the price they saw *includes* a buyer fee when they get to the last page before checkout

But the full price including fees is all the buyer can see throughout, until the last page before they click Buy

No fees are added at any point, they are all included from the start

[a45heaven]

i wonder what the 'Financial Regulator' would think of this less than transparent fiasco?

[ett1954]

"i wonder what the 'Financial Regulator' would think of this less than transparent fiasco?" - Nothing, providing the buyer always saw clearly the total figure for the transaction before making a payment.

If not it would more likely be a Trading Standards issue.

[a45heaven]

Im not sure - this scheme  less than smooth -  way too many issues and complications - who ever thought ebay could create a process to handle this, especially where the sensitive aspects of funds is concerned.

Im still waiting to be told what to tell the Buyers when they ask about why they will be getting charged extra ( remember ebay have not communicated this to the Buyers)- thats if ebay can sort it of course. 

[papso22]

Tell your buyers to click on the ? where it says buyer protection fee on the checkout page.

[sp.industries]

I agree, i purchase items on ebay for my business, some from business and some from private sellers, but now i need to pay an additional fee if the private seller is not a business. Meaning i will not buy from private sellers now.

[tpogodin]

It is ironic eBay are trying to streamline the private seller side of eBay and are introducing policies such as "Simple" (lol) delivery and yet the change to buyer fees is the most complicated, messiest, unpalitable policy they've ever made (until the new delivery scheme becomes manditory that is). 

[a45heaven]

Tell your buyers to click on the ? where it says buyer protection fee on the checkout page.

Now thats an ebay generic response -

I expected better from a Mentor.

i value and treat my buyers as individuals who merit a honest clearly defined response, not just telling them to go read some ebay generated blurb.

Ill design a response for the buyers who ask and the buying groups im involved with.

The US buyers and sellers seem quite interested in this recent fiasco.

[moldosgifts]

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@sp.industries wrote:

I agree, i purchase items on ebay for my business, some from business and some from private sellers, but now i need to pay an additional fee if the private seller is not a business. Meaning i will not buy from private sellers now.

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With lack of sellers fee for private sellers i would expect to pay roughly the same, as surely they already reduced the price as they are not in it for the profit.!

[a45heaven]

Meaning i will not buy from private sellers now.

Once you enter your search criteria , and are presented with a column of items - scrolling down,  how can you see which items are from Private Sellers and which are from Business' apart from wasting time clicking into each listing ? 

Will this absence of differences make buyers assume all purchases are 'fair game' for returns and Buyer protection aggression , which charging Buyers the fee can only antagonise, assuming they even both to buy now.

[tpogodin]

I swear yesterday I was seeing "private" or "business" tags on every listing but I can't remember if it was on the home page or search results. Today I can't see it anywhere, strange.

Edit: It shows in the "Explore" and "Similar" results within a listing but not in the listed search results itself nor listings featured on the home page. Weird, im not sure if that was always the case or the tags are since the buyer fee. 

[a45heaven]

honest i havent moved em 🙂

What ive just seen now after reading your comment , is the same as ive seen since this ebay fiasco was announced, no idea before.

You can only see the type of seller on their home page. So buyer protections should be targetted at all sellers.

[johnwash1]

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@a45heaven wrote:

honest i havent moved em 🙂

What ive just seen now after reading your comment , is the same as ive seen since this ebay fiasco was announced, no idea before.

You can only see the type of seller on their home page. So buyer protections should be targetted at all sellers.

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That's not true.  It's on every listing.

[a45heaven]

yes thats the page that you see when you click on the individual sellers home page you see on the scroll down from a search, which i take as the main way folks browse -

@johnwash1 

[johnwash1]

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@a45heaven wrote:

yes thats the page that you see when you click on the individual sellers home page you see on the scroll down from a search, which i take as the main way folks browse -

@johnwash1 

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No.  Go to ebay front page.  Search for Vernon Harrell.  Click on your listing of that record.  Your listing is the one I screenshotted the relevant part of.  I haven't even visited your home page.

It may be worth mentioning that the business/private indication is in much too grey a font, it doesn't grab you by the whatevers, but web design isn't one of ebay's strengths.

[johnwash1]

@a45heaven 

If you're not seeing the same as I am, perhaps we're victims of ebay trying out A/B testing of new designs.  I hope this doesn't indicate that they may  be withdrawing that status indication.  I find it a useful indicator and it influences my buying.  Though not as much as studying classic feedback.

[insidethe93]

a45heaven wrote: "...which i take as the main way folks browse"

No doubt it's one way, but people browse in various ways and it may not be the main way. I rely on individual listings, which I make sure to read all of (and hate the way eBay scatter ads throughout). If I've bought from that seller before I don't hesitate to buy, especially if they're one of my regular sellers. If it's a seller new to me I'll look at 'received feedback as seller' (not homepage). But when I joined eBay, early on I looked at everything including homepage.

How buyers browse could be very useful info for sellers, if data could be garnered (anonymously).

[goodibags]

OR it's exactly the same page but they're calling it by 2 different names 😉

@a45heaven 

@johnwash1