Insertion fees when selling for charity

[mcrawfie]

I sell a large number of items, often around 200 at any one time, with 100% of the proceeds going to support a local charity. I have been selling these items by auction, usually 7 day auctions, and often having to renew them several times before sale. I have now been advised that sales for charity, like all other eBay sales, only attract 300 free listings a month, and the excess will be charged at 35p per listing. Is my understanding of the insertion fee charging correct?

[roger_roger_over_and_nowt]

I can't see this on any of your listings :-

" Charity listings on eBay are marked with a blue and yellow charity ribbon and the eBay Giving Bar, which displays the charity's logo, mission statement, and the amount that will benefit it."

[myriad*seller]

They show as proper charity listings if you click on them though, not sure why the ribbon is missing from the item search results though 

[mcrawfie]

Thanks for your reply.
What this has brought to light is that although my default setting for the last 5 years has been 100% for charity, inexplicably a fortnight ago this was removed, not by me, for new listings. I will now be going through to correct.
Coming back to my original query do you have any thoughts whether my sales, 100% for charity, are subject to the 300 items per month limit for free insertions? If they are I will have to set up my eBay sales in a different way.
Thanks again for your help.

[mcrawfie]

Thanks for your reply.
What this has brought to light is that although my default setting for the last 5 years has been 100% for charity, inexplicably a fortnight ago this was removed, not by me, for new listings. I will now be going through to correct.
The remaining items do show the coloured ribbon when you click through to the individual listing.
Coming back to my original query do you have any thoughts whether my sales, 100% for charity, are subject to the 300 items per month limit for free insertions? If they are I will have to set up my eBay sales in a different way.
Thanks again for your help.

[tressygirl]

I will try and find out if there is some exemption for charity sellers.

However,  I noticed that your items could easily be sold as Buy it Now items,  as they all do have a ceiling level, none seemingly may end with a surprising high bid.

Listing them all as Buy it Now items,  with that fixed price you wish to receive,  then if they don't sell they will automatically relist and do not count towards your next month's allocation of 300 free listings.

Auction items if you select them to auto relist 8 times,  these too do not count in next month's tally when relisting,  but will do,  once you need to manually relist the items.

@mcrawfie 

[mcrawfie]

Thanks for your clarification on this.
I will wait and see whether any charity exemption exists on the insertion limit, otherwise I may do as you suggest and move most items over to Buy it now.

[tressygirl]

I don't think I'll get a reply late this Sunday , as it'safternoon,  but hopefully tomorrow will bring confirmation either way.

I'm making a note of your post,  to find it tomorrow or will send you a Private Message.  Or,  do come back and ask again an eBay community manager will be on duty tomorrow,  and hopefully can answer this for you.

@mcrawfie 

[mcrawfie]

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Thank you so much for looking into this for me.

Although the eBay changes seem to benefit most private sellers it has had a negative impact on me as I am now incurring insertion fees, which were not being charged previously. I have now found I have been charged 170+ x 35p in the last fortnight. Depending on your response from eBay I will certainly have to change my method of listing. It would also be nice if eBay could waive the October insertion fees as the financial impacts  of recent changes were not made clear.

On a separate matter it was my understanding that eBay would now automatically withdraw charity funds as soon as the customer paid. However they continue to add these to my balance. Having spoken to eBay they advise that I now need to make the charity payments manually from the balance, but this is the opposite of what they said they would be doing. What is correct?

I  am sorry I have had to write at such length  and appreciate any help that can be offered to resolve this.

[tressygirl]

I have no knowledge how this works now for Charities which eBay acknowledge,  and have passed on the % in the past to those Charities.

However,  as eBay do not send any money now  to members through this new system ,  ' eBay Balance', unless it's left then they will send it to you  on a 3 month basis. I would think that this too may affect the sending of monies to charities,  and you do indeed now,  as we all have to,  withdraw the money ourseleves, when we wish to receive our payouts from sales.

@mcrawfie 

[kat@ebay]

Hi @mcrawfie ,

It's most likely if you are selling from your own account as a private seller and donating to charity the new monthly allowance will be 300. However I will follow up to get some clarification on this.  In the meantime I would suggest to reach out to customer support regarding previous insertion fees as we would not have any access to individual accounts here or can make any decisions on refunds.

Ebay is making the change to take the payments for charity automatically but the functionality is not yet available on all accounts. As you may have already been advised by customer suppot you would need to continue with paying the older way through the invoice donation payments. Once I have an update on the 300 allowance I will come back and let you know.

Thank you,

Kat

[mcrawfie]

Thank you very much for your reply and your advice.
I await clarification as to whether the 300 insertion limit applies to me as a charity seller. If it does I may just change most, or all, of my listings to Buy it Now, with a period exceeding 1 month so that I can avoid the insertion fees problem.
I will contact Customer Support about the insertion fees inadvertently incurred this month.
Thanks again.

[kat@ebay]

Hi @mcrawfie ,

Having followed up on the new limit the 300 a month will also apply to your account as a charity seller. This new monthly limit applies to all private accounts. 

As with previous advice given by tressygirl changing listings to Buy it Nows can help to make the most of the new allowance.

Thank you,

Kat

[mcrawfie]

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I understand and have already converted most of my listings to Buy it Now.

Thank you.

Malcolm