*NEW* current changes on ebay from 16th June

soolin

As there are changes coming on ebay.uk I thought I would do a summary and stick it to this board for a week or so. We are bound to get some questions when people suddenly find they can't add postage for their clothing accessories or whatever:

This is the general announcement about changes including more categories with free p and p and mandatory despatch times etc. All take effect 16th June

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/200906091041112.html

Hmm, the link to the announcement in April about changes to take effect from the 16th appears to have broken, good old ebay! :rotfl:
However if you go here and scroll down you can see the details:

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/200904.shtml#2009-04-09163005

and here are details of the free p and p categories:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/sell/april2009/pandp.html

Note clothing is not including, only the sub categories.

Therefore anyone planning to sell in these categories should look to list this eveningas existing auctions will be allowed to run their course. If you delay listing until tomorrow you will have to set your start price to reflect the postage.

soolin

As a point of discussion I fully expect the free p and p to be rolled out to further categories this year. There will be sellers, probably the private ones who list at 99p to avoid listing fees who will try and get round the restriction by listing in the wrong category. Once ebay see that people will do this I am sure they will close the ability and the easiest way will be to extend the free p and p requirement.

cyril82

Rolling out this free P+P rule only makes ebay a more expensive place to buy and sell, as sellers now not only have to charge the cost of actual postage but the cost of postage plus extra for the fees ebay will charge them for adding the postage into the price.

It's funny that so much controversy is caused by sellers inflating postage to make some extra profit, now ebay are forcing us to inflate our postage so they can make some extra profit.. :rolleyes:

I wouldn't expect to see ebay's share prices rise dramatically anytime soon.

Back towards the end of 2007 ebay shares commanded a $40 price by the end of 2008 after they started messing with the site format they had hit a low of $11 and have not seen anything above $18 since, Could blame the recession but compare their share price performance with Amazon;
End of 2007 $94 a share, End of 2008 not helped by recession closed the year at $51 a share but in contrast to ebay have recovered steadily in the first six months of 2009 despite the recession worsening in the UK and USA with them currently sitting at around $83 a share.

If i was on ebay's board i'd be encouraging my colleagues to take their heads out of the sand and realise, it's not the recession, it's us that are killing the site.
No one likes these recent changes, buyer or seller and without other group assets adding value ebay wouldn't even be able to give their shares away.

How can they think they are getting it right?

cyberbob

cyril82 wrote: »

No one likes these recent changes, buyer or seller

I have no problem with these changes. I think people are making far too much of a fuss over nothing. Whats the problem with adding your postage to your start price? It shouldnt be called free P&P but inclusive P&P

my_gorgeous_ellie-belle

To be fair it is a little ridiculous to ask private sellers who put occasional bits and bobs on ebay to then absorb the p&p costs. I mean for example if someone wants a refund, we all know 99.9% of the time paypal will decide in the buyers favour and then the seller loses out on the p&p costs there, as apparently it is somehow free to post items in the uk (where they got this idea i wonder because i want to know so i can post for free). There are actually quite a few instances where the seller can end up out of pocket.

I mean when i pop to the post office and post roughly 12 items (baring in mind at a start price of 99p each so free to list and end price on average £5 per item), it'll cost me approx £20 to post the lot, now that is alot to absorb. Now if you add that £20 evenly over the 12 items start prices, one it does not look anwhere near as appealing to bid on and also you still wont be covering it due to the now additional ebay listing and FV fees. Its a no win situation for sellers really.

Could you imagine if i then popped another £2ish on the start price - i don't think they'd have the appeal so therefore i'd be lucky to get a bid and make the 99p from each item.

I would know as i used to sell alot of dvd's and have given up as once i added the p&p to my start prices the sales dropped rapidly. And i only ever charged £1.99 recorded del so it wasn't like my p&p charges where high at all. I have given up on that category now and i have heaps of dvds i still want to sell.

Even though personally i take the p&p cost into consideration when bidding on an item (and i know many others do too) i still think seeing a lump sum higher figure would be much less appealing than a 99p start price. Its a sales tactic!

Its not all ad though because i have turned to FridayAd and found i actually get good results, and guess what, its all free and i dont have the trouble of posting!

my_gorgeous_ellie-belle

It'll be good for buyers initially but give it 6 months and even the buyers will notice a difference as there will be much less variety. Anyway i hope this bring opportunity for a bit of auction site competition - that'll be good for everyone.

cyberbob

my_gorgeous_ellie-belle wrote: »

To be fair it is a little ridiculous to ask private sellers who put occasional bits and bobs on ebay to then absorb the p&p costs.

This is where I think people are missing the point. There not asking us to absorb the costs. What they are saying to your is add it to your start price. Its some of these occasional private sellers who could be blamed for this as they were some of the main culprits for profiteering out of P&P costs. So they have themselves to blame.

As I said before its not free P&P its inclusive P&P. Theres all these people on the ebay boards at present saying that they wont sell anymore. Personally I think it wont be much of a loss and they will soon come back when they realise that all the buyers are still at ebay.

As I said above I think its a big fuss over nothing. It wont really effect my selling. I'll just add the postage to the start price. I've been successfully selling a lot of stuff with free P&P recently. If it gets rid of all these 99p listings of just plain Tatt that can be only a good thing.

cyril82

cyberbob wrote: »

This is where I think people are missing the point. There not asking us to absorb the costs. What they are saying to your is add it to your start price. Its some of these occasional private sellers who could be blamed for this as they were some of the main culprits for profiteering out of P&P costs. So they have themselves to blame..

Sorry, i think you are wrong there. By forcing sellers to add the postage price into the listing the price either has to be more expensive to the buyer than it should be, because a seller has to include the postage cost plus extra for the fees ebay will charge on the additional postage included in the price, or absorb the extra fees themselves.
And with regards blaming smaller sellers for profiteering off the postage, well why do you think ebay are doing this? they never used to make anything off the postage charges, now they will, is that not profiteering of postage?

my_gorgeous_ellie-belle

Cyberbob. I doubt it - i think the dvd category speaks for itself. There arent that many buyers there any more - i know this first hand as a seller.

Not all 99p listings are tat - i sell everything with a 99p start, new or slightly used. It pulls in the buyers and gets an awful lot more interest. For example i sold an Aldo pair of shoes for £50 after just wearing them twice (blooming good for a second hand pair of shoes) whereas someone is selling an identical pair at a BIN price of £40 and it remains unsold and has been relisted a good few times. It goes to show the 99p start price works wonders and ebay are ultimately kicking it out. Unless you are absolutely confident your item is going to pick up a decent price why bother in listing it now? And that would mean the bargain i got for 99p + £2p&p the other day (a belt recently in Topshop for £15 that i wanted) would probably never have been available to me. So as a buyer i would lose out too!

As i said the 99p listings aren't always tat - some are - but alot of the bargains i pick up are from sellers who end there listings at off-peak ebaying times like first thing in the mornings, or on a friday and saturday night when most people (buying the stuff i'm after) are out clubbing. These people will feel the burn most and will stop selling and thus i won't be picking up so many bargains and will feel that Ebay is not such a bargain place after all.

Its also a pain now that if your item doesn't sell you will still be out out of pocket, more so than previously.

But i suppose only time will tell - its tough to forcast what will happen so i think we should all just let it run its course and consider other ways of shifting items just in case.

cyberbob

cyril82 wrote: »

Sorry, i think you are wrong there. By forcing sellers to add the postage price into the listing the price either has to be more expensive to the buyer than it should be, because a seller has to include the postage cost plus extra for the fees ebay will charge on the additional postage included in the price, or absorb the extra fees themselves.

I disagree there still not asking sellers to absorb the costs. Yes buyers may pay a little more. But I doubt it as peoples postage will become more realistic as they include it in the price. Any business model should include your fees anyway.

A lot of people are just using this as an excuse for there own poor business practices instead of looking at what they do

As a byline though if P&P is technically free surely the DSR for P&P costs should automatically be 5 stars

my_gorgeous_ellie-belle

And as they say someones junk is often somebody elses treasure. I hope those who are affected don't start binning items - remember Freecycle and your local charity shops!