Yet another buyer protection fee thread

[johnjaybikebits]

I'm sure I'm not alone in having not quite got my head around this yet. I have an item for sale at the moment... It's up for £275, which with the buyer protection fee comes to £286.72. Someone has made me an offer on it: my seller dashboard tells me the offer is £270 including buyer protection fee; in other words, the offer is £258.92. Does that mean that the buyer has offered that very precise amount, or that I'm paying the buyer protection fee on a £270 offer? I can't quite wrap my head around those figures. All advice gratefully received.

[jonatjonatjonat]

In plain English the offer they make includes the BPF. They are still ‘paying it’ rather than it being you paying it after the sale as pre BPF.

Ive not actually seen what communication eBay provide as a result of a buyer sending an offer though.

i agree, it is confusing though that the two routes (seller offer and buyer offer) function differently.

[papso22]

The buyer does pay the fee.  They pay ebay and then ebay takes their fee out and sends the rest to the seller for the item.

The seller receives money, the buyer pays it, and the only person paying anything is the buyer.  

Sellers just need to get their heads around offers and how they work on ebay, forget other sites.

[61stephenuk]

You are not paying the buyer protection fee.

It's been explained numerous times, the buyer makes an offer which is the maximum they are willing to pay, eBay then take the buyer protection fee from this buyers payment and pass the rest on to the seller.So Why do you think you are paying the fee?

In your case the buyer is willing to pay £830, eBay take the buyer protection fee from this leaving you £817

For once eBay are clear when they show in your offer message how much the buyer offer is and how much the seller will receive.

[meode]

“Forget other sites”? 
It’s because of other sites that this situation exists. This is down to eBay’s emulation of the ‘other sites’. Ironically, the other sites have got their of Buyer Protection Fees better organised than eBay.

[papso22]

How relevant is how other sites do it when this is ebay and what matters is how ebay does it?

Comparisons are pointless.

[meode]

EBay only introduced the Buyer Protection Fee because they are copying Vinted, Depop etc. Surely that’s not hard to grasp is it? 

[papso22]

I know that, but in what way is why they did it relevant to how they are doing it?

Surely it's the latter that matters going forward.

[steffi-jets]

So looks like I will have to add a percentage to the offer and counter-offer the higher amount, to avoid losing out.

If the buyer makes an offer it should be plus the buyers fee as it is on any bin.

[jonatjonatjonat]

What do you actually receive from ebay when you get a buyer offer? What do the comms actually look like?

[meode]

What I’m saying is why copy someone else’s concept but only do it half-arsed. There’s a valid reason to voice our opinions about where we think eBay has got it wrong, or could do better. We leave feedback for sales and purchases so why not the infrastructure? When eBay dropped most of its seller fees it sounded great but I think we all knew it wasn’t sustainable. They could have saved themselves a lot of grief by just lowering the seller fees. Who wouldn’t have been happy with that? I genuinely believe that eBay took a serious knock with this debacle and it has never got back to the same level. Now with the Buyer Protection Fee and the emphasis on promoting listings, eBay is theoretically taking from both Buyer and Seller but the Seller seems to be getting the brunt of the charges especially when it comes to offers.

[papso22]

We will have to agree to disagree.

[str11p]

This is from the latest one I received (email).

[1-2sell2u]

I have the same question, it seems that sell for free is not true as the protection fee is deducted from the seller. False advertising?

[jckl1957]

You have a business account so your listings are not subject to the BPF.

For private sellers, the fee is added on to the cost the seller sets.

So, I have an item listed for £75.

The price the buyer sees is £78.70.

If they buy the item, they will pay £78.70.

I will get £75.  So, it is free to sell.  The fee is not deducted from me, it never goes through my account and the buyer pays it directly to Ebay.

It's a buying fee; not a selling fee.

[meode]

If somebody offers you £75 what do you come out with and who absorbs the BPF?

[jckl1957]

If a buyer makes an offer of £75, they are not offering me £75.

Their offer is £75 including BPF.

As explained in Post 72, I would see the offer and would be aware of how much I would receive.  I believe I would receive £71.44.

As always with an offer, I could accept or decline.  I would know exactly how much I was getting and would not feel that I was paying a fee.

[meode]

Exactly! When somebody makes an offer on eBay, that is their all-in price (excluding postage but including BPF). Most of us prefer to deal in round figures and if we’re giving a discount, it’s not too much to ask for the buyer to pay the BPF. After all, it’s supposedly for the buyer’s protection. The bone of contention is that other popular platforms always add the BPF to the offer price. I don’t think platforms like Depop and Vinted are as good, or as well regulated as eBay but when it comes to the BPF, they’ve got it right. Let’s face it, eBay seems to be emulating these lesser platforms. It would have been better if eBay had lowered the selling fees to 5-6%. Most of us would have been happy with that.

[sml192]

On eBay the buyer is making an offer against the total Buy it Now price including the BPF.  On other sites the buyer is making an offer against the price excluding the BPF (the amount the seller wants).  It really makes no difference. 

On the other sites if you list an item for £75 + BPF then any offer the buyer makes will obviously be less than £75 before the BPF is added, so no difference to an offer of £75 including BPF on eBay.  A buyer will never offer more than the total amount they are prepared to pay.

[meode]

We all know how it works, you don’t have to explain it. That’s not the point I’m making. It’s that many of us feel as though the so called ‘Buyer Protection Fee’ is being pushed onto sellers.
For example, I have an item listed for £60 but I wouldn’t take less than £50 for it. Someone offers me £50 but it includes the BPF so I’ll come out with £47 or so. I’m already knocking £10 off but it will be £13 because I’m absorbing the BPF. Negotiating on eBay is like the modern version of Knockdoor Run. There’s no point submitting a counter offer because you’ll never hear from them again. Like it or not, Vinted and Depop have got it right to add the BPF on top of any offer. I think we all knew that eBay not charging selling fees was never going to be sustainable so they could have lowered the selling fees and everybody would have seen it as a bonus. 

[kazlgw]

Ok, I see what you’re saying about your paying the bpf but that’s not quite right.  So you have listed the item for £275 & with the BPF the buyer is seeing a price of £286.72.  They can’t see what your listing price is but their offer is £16.72 below the price they can see, & a round figure of £270. So it’s whether you’re happy to knock off £16.72 from your price or not.  If that’s too much of a discount, then you can counter back but to be honest, I’m not sure the system would let you counter back much higher as offers to sellers minimum is 5% , which is not much different to that offer anyway.