Ebay - Mandatory Free P&P to be extended

ikr2

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/sell/sellerupdate/freeshipping.html

As of 19th October Ebay are making free P&P mandatory in most media categories including books, VHS and CDs.

As a private seller, I have come back to Ebay because of their "no insertion fee if you're a private seller and you list your item in an eligible category in the auction-style format with a starting price of up to 99p."

It's just about worth my while to sell books on Ebay this way with my p&p charges covering JUST postage and jiffy bag envelopes.

If I'm forced to offer free P&P I can't see any way I can carry on, unless Ebay raise the free listing threshold.

Anyone know any thing more? Have I read this right?

mark55man

This seems crazy - especially for books which are usually at least a quid!!. So they get more money as you list at above 99p, and they get their percentage of the total!!

Mind you some sellers did take the pi$$

StaffsSW

Just increase your start price to cover the P&P and extra fees. Everyone in the category will be affected by it, so nobody is advantaged or disadvantaged.

Except the buyers - who pay more....

ikr2

stevew8975 wrote: »

Just increase your start price to cover the P&P and extra fees. Everyone in the category will be affected by it, so nobody is advantaged or disadvantaged.

Except the buyers - who pay more....

The problem with an insertion fee is the risk that it won't sell. Most of my books are best sellers so there are a lot of sellers on Ebay. I am guessing from the completed auctions that I'll need up to three or four listings to sell them. The new system means that I will only list those books in high demand that will sell on the 1st listing

I can see where Ebay are coming from with the free P&P policy. HMV, Waterstones, Play and to all intents Amazon all do this because it is simpler for buyers. Ebay claim that sellers offering free P&P sell more. OK so it's a happy coincidence that Ebay's final Value Fees wil be higher.

I wish more people bought via Ebid. I don't know why Yahoo called it a day with Uk auctions back in the day. I was with them before I was forced to Ebay.

wigglebeena

I ain't bovvered, I have accepted the facts. The earth ain't flat, things fall when you drop 'em and it won't be worth listing on Ebay after October.

mrcol1000

Unless its a rare book there doesn't seem much point selling second hand books over the internet as for the postage costs you have to pay you can buy it new from Tesco for a little bit extra.

cyberbob

ikr2 wrote: »

The problem with an insertion fee is the risk that it won't sell. .

Thats good as far as I am concerned stops so much rubbish being listed. What you need to do is a little more research and find out what will actually sell other than using the scattergun approaching and listing anything in the hope that something will sell

ikr2

I research every item I sell using the completed auctions filter. If say 25% of the copies of a particular book find buyers, is it so wrong to want to list my copy ar a competitve price? I agree that if no copies, or next to no copies of the book are selling then you are filling up Ebay with stuff that won't sell.

pursestring

Yes, eBay is making free P&P mandatory in most media categories as from October. Makes it almost impossible for private sellers to make a little money. For me it's another sign that eBay prefers business sellers.

firesidemaid

i have emailed ebay on 2 different occasions to suggest that they split new and used/second hand items, as on amazon marketplace and playtrade buyers pay for postage on these items.

ebay started off as a place to sell/trade collectable items and i still believe in that, even if ebay dont?!

i have honed my selling over the years and now stick to rare, collectable and first ed books (or current popular ones) that i think will make money.

if you want to try and sell a book for 'free' but at a higher price, list it and then if it doesn't sell re-list it as a different item that you 'know' will sell. that way the second listing is 'free'.

soolin

firesidemaid wrote: »

i

ebay started off as a place to sell/trade collectable items and i still believe in that, even if ebay dont?!

'.

Marks and Spencers started off as a Penny bazaar, but they, like ebay, have moved on to a more profitable (for them) model.