Why are buyers being forced to pay 79p to "protect" a 99p item from private selllers?

[action_man]

Why are buyers being forced to pay 79p to "protect" a 99p item from private selllers?

Simple question.

My answer is that it makes no sense other than it's a greedy cash grab for eBay. Also, how many items will now go to landfill rather than going to a new home? eBay talks a good talk about reducing carbon footprints and climate action. But with this new buyer's protection racket is actually making it virtually impossible to sell low value items and condemning them to landfill. A lot of people preferred their items to find a new home rather than contribute to the growing mountain of waste. Yes, you could say eBay is a business and it isn't their job, but they make a big song and dance about things like sustainability and climate action. Is it just lip service?

I have seen people say things like, "You will still get the same money as before. The buyer pays the BPF on top". But on very low value items there is a ceiling to what people are prepared to pay. Anyone who has sold low value items knows that there is a psychological threshold that buyers do not go above. If you price even a penny over that threshold, you won't sell. You can study the sales history of items to see these trends and discover the highest price possible for those items.

But the point of this post is to highlight that it is ludicrous to charge a mandatory 79p insurance on a 99p item.

Also what was pretty disgusting was to suddenly impose this with little warning, so anyone who had items listed, suddenly found their prices effectively almost doubled overnight and forcing them to give up selling. Was that the whole point?

If a huge volume seller sells a music CD for £2.99 including delivery, a private seller who wants to match that price now has to list at around £2.15 for the buyer to see £2.99 - Then out of that £2.15, the private seller has to take the postage out which is £1.90 - That leaves them with 25p!

Some people will say you should list at £2.99 and the buyer will pay the 75p + 4% on top. But that isn't the case in reality. These things are price sensitive. But let's go with that suggestion for the moment......

Business seller lists at £2.99 - The buyer sees £2.99
Private seller lists at £2.99     - The buyer sees £3.86*
(*approx. calculation)

That is pure discrimination.

Is it designed to encourage buyer's to buy from the business seller?

Prior to the changes, both items would be shown to the buyer at £2.99

I stopped all buying and selling for now. I can't support a platform which discriminates against people in this way, let alone all the other crazy shenanigans going on. eBay used to be great. I've no idea what happened, but it seems to be focused purely on those who make the most money for eBay and to hell with the rest of us..... and to hell with the impact on the planet it seems.

[iansims]

I agree with all your points. This is an extremely badly thought and potientially illegal and discriminatory change by eBay. When the Simple Delivery changes take place this will make the whole situation worse.

[crg_music]

While I do agree its a little messy and it would be easier if the seller could put the price they wish to be visible I dont think its that big a deal although could be better. Business sellers are just paying the fees on the buyers behalf so I guess they could offer private sellers the option to revert back to the old way of paying seller fees rather than calling them buyer fees and pretending its free to sell but guaranteed private sellers would then moan that seller fees came back.

Fact is ebay are charging a seller fee to all sellers its just been renamed. Biggest mistake they ever made was making it free for that 10 minutes last year as people have forgotten about seller fees pretty fast.

You just need to tweak your selling price to compete with the business seller. Rest assured business sellers are getting rinsed far harder than you would ever believe.

[goldenwolfman]

---

@iansims wrote:

I agree with all your points. This is an extremely badly thought and potientially illegal and discriminatory change by eBay. When the Simple Delivery changes take place this will make the whole situation worse.

---

Two points - firstly I think it is already illegal, the inference is that 'Obey offer the buyer protection' but they do not. They come to the seller for refunds, which they ALREADY did with previous system - so buyers are paying twice? It also ensures that despite one delivery of maybe 3 items the buyer will pay '3' lots of buyer protection.

There is also a question of how they can say that it's "Free to Sell" - when that also is a lie because if you accept an offer, YOU the Seller pays the fee! So it is NOT free to sell ! - where are trading standards these days??

I also think(?) I'm right in saying that should an item go to auction - then the minute bids (2+) are entered the seller is again responsible for the fee ! So again not free to sell!

Secondly to take moneys into an account and say that the seller cannot have those funds when they have proof of delivery is questionable. To hold it still further for what I'm hearing can be weeks is highly questionable. Now I am seeing sellers being asked for passports and ID to get their own money out of the account. This is a 'banking issue' and someone should take this up with those that regulate such issues.

[missdollydaydream]

Fact is ebay are charging a seller fee to all sellers its just been renamed.

I'm not paying any seller fees! If my buyers choose to pay eBay for the privaledge of buying from me, well, that's their choice. I'm a genuine private seller, I don't need to compete with anyone and any sales are a bonus. I wouldn't mourn the demise of eBay if or when their greed proves to be their demise. 

In short, I use eBay, I won't allow eBay to use me!

[action_man]

You don't think it's that big a deal because it doesn't affect you.

It seems you didn't quite grasp what was being said though and I'm unsure how someone could "tweak" the selling price in the examples above. I'm willing to be informed by you though. How would you tweak the price on the 99p item or the £2.99 item in the examples above exactly?

[susapric-68]

Only way this would be illegal is if eBay forced you to sell on here, if you choose to sell on here then you agree to the T&C of eBay and it's in that so it's not illegal. The passport and ID is nothing to do with eBay, it's a requirement introduced by the government and eBay has to follow it. Even the "free to sell" would be hard to get any result as the buyer knows they have to pay the free so it would be included in the offer. Even auctions start with the BPF added so the first bid would be inc of that.

OP is right with it’s greed but it’s not just eBays greed. Private sellers could have lowered their prices when they had no listing or FVF but they wanted to undercut business sellers by a tiny amount and now this has been introduced its come as a shock. No reason at all why a private and business seller both have the same item listed for £2.99, Private seller should have been much lower before and should still be now

[action_man]

Folks, please remember the main point here is:

Why are buyers being forced to pay 79p to "protect" a 99p item from private selllers?

I'm keen to keep this thread on topic as I notice so many threads get derailed and lose the point of the thread.

This thread is not a place to go off at a tangent regarding simple delivery, money being held for 14 days or any other distractions. It is specifically about the buyer protection fee and how it affects private sellers. There are plenty of other threads for that other stuff, or you can start your own. Thanks.

[action_man]

@susapric-68 You said "No reason at all why a private and business seller both have the same item listed for £2.99, Private seller should have been much lower before and should still be now".

I even gave that example in my initial post and you can see the figures. The £2.99 now leaves the private seller with 25p as you can see. So, how much lower are you suggesting exactly?

[suelel1968]

Actionman, 

We all hate it and i agree with your title point, however you are making false comparisons to back up your anger and that helps no one. 

Business seller lists at £2.99 - The buyer sees £2.99

Private seller lists at £2.99 - The buyer sees £3.86*

(*approx. calculation)

That is pure discrimination.

Business sellers pay lots of fees. The business seller will be paying shop fees or relisting fees and listing fees. If a private seller wants to sell at the same price as the business seller they have to adjust their listing price. 

If you want parity of search position with business sellers you have to work at it. The effort you put into slating ebay on here could have been channeled into updating listings and prices. It's the same for everyone, there is no winners and losers, just those that evolve and those that don't. 

[action_man]

@suelel1968  You said, if a private seller wants to sell at the same price as the business seller they have to adjust their listing price.

I've shown that in the example above. It's perfectly clear if you go and have another look. By adjusting the price to around £2.15 it brings the buyer's price to £2.99, the same as the business seller. But that leaves the private seller with around 25p.

So, the rest of what you said about it being the same for everyone isn't actually true.

[crg_music]

Well thats the best way, I dont get why everyone is out to undercut everyone else anyway especially selling used items. 

I wont name it but there is another site with the exact same fee model and prices are just proportionally lower than here so yes I agree with that ceiling. Its in nobody's interest to make items worthless by undercutting so I guess we agree with this. I use discogs a lot for example and there are single items with 200 copies for sales starting from a penny, that is not helping anyone, there should be a minimum value imposed.

You are absolutely free to sell it for what you wish to sell for and I give you credit for that but also item values do fluctuate vastly and many items have limited demand so if you hold out too long the demand might have dropped right off.

I just think people are naive in calling ebay a scam, they are an American owned company with shareholders, they are here to make profit for those shareholders not behave ethically. I would love to see a single model for all sellers with transparent fees and get rid of the pay to win element but its seemingly here to stay.

[susapric-68]

How much do you think a business seller makes on £2.99? be lucky to make 20p on the sale. 25p is a lot if you're clearing out your CD collection and more than a shop would give you for each. Lump a few together would make avoiding the 75p on everyone

[crg_music]

Well listing an item for 99p isn't viable on ebay and hasn't been for a while unless you are scamming on postage.

£2.99 you would have to reduce to £2.10 or whatever it is and it would show at £2.99. This is where the seller oops buyer fee is hidden.

[crg_music]

Yep.

Honestly music magpie might even pay more on a bulk lot, they will only be selling them on here for £2.99 anyway just saves you a job.

[action_man]

@susapric-68Ok, but you haven't answered the question. You said: "No reason at all why a private and business seller both have the same item listed for £2.99, Private seller should have been much lower before and should still be now".

I asked how much lower, considering at that price they are only left with 25p.

[action_man]

Plenty of people are selling things at 99p. You can verify that by checking sales histories for yourself. I don't think they are scammers.

[susapric-68]

as crg_music said. £2.10 you make 20p same as a business would or as said sell as a job lot and you might get more than 20p each and let who ever buys them worry about selling them. If you're buying to sell then register as a business and as it's low value get on the 15%+5p FVF to lower your FVF

[jonat_broad]

In answer to your question as to why, because eBay say so.

looking at it cynically, eBay still have to cover a card or PayPal processing fee in every order, but eBay can’t call it that.  EBay feel Vinted a approach will also work for them.

or maybe they don’t want these low value orders. Maybe they don’t want the hassle of image uploads, data management, card processing etc that comes with these low value orders, so if they can fee you out enough then it might be what they want. They are happier to see business sellers at that point because those business sellers will be paying an insertion fee or a shop fee

all just suggestions!

[crg_music]

Oh yeah im sure, ive done it myself all be it starting auctions at 99p and getting 1 bid and never again. 

But with postage as it is you could send maybe 25-30 cds for £3 therefore it would often make more sense to put 25 together, sell for £15 + postage than it would to sit and sell 25 for 99p + £2 postage each.

In fairness cds are very easy to send, same with cassettes hence they are pretty much the only items I have no bottom limit on but there is still a point where its not worth the effort of listing, packing, sending etc.