ebay: Totally immoral abuse of power

EdBrown

For those not already aware of recent changes to ebay listings and fees policy, these show that having gained almost complete dominance of the online auction/sellers market they are now abusing that position to massively increase their profits and in my view in the case of one particular issue are doing so in a totally immoral way. These are examples of their latest profit grabbing changes:
1. Although listing fees have seen some reduction, fees based on the final selling value for private sellers is now a whopping 10%, a huge commission rate for a selling service which mostly fully computerised.
2. If selling an item you must now accept PayPal (with it's similar addditional high commission rates) as a method of payment.
3. On several selling categories ebay will no longer allow the seller to charge for postage, obviously there are postage costs involved in sending the item to the buyer; an item I am currently selling will cost me over £2 to post yet I cannot list this postage (which would be exempt of final selling value commission) any longer on ebay. Sellers must therefore incorporate this cost into the asking price which means ebay are now charging commission on postage costs! If that's not immoral I don't know what is.
ebay are obviously exploiting their market dominance which would be difficult to dislodge, failing a challenge to that dominance by some other technology giant perhaps it is time to regulate the bully boy approach of this monopoly holding organization.

molerat

There is nothing new in your post. This is all old news. Go read the eBay forum.

whitegoods_engineer

I have found that because of the saturation of items on Ebay, It is often better to advertise in the old-fashioned way such as cards in supermarkets or shops, or even classified online websites.

Ebay is indeed completely overpriced for sellers and has completely wiped out alternative auction sites. It is a complete monopoly.

EdBrown

molerat wrote: »

There is nothing new in your post. This is all old news. Go read the eBay forum.

The new thing in my post is that there was nothing I could find on this subject on the Money Saving Site!
Perhaps our Money Saving Expert could use his acquired influence to tackle this giant!

williham

There are lots of things that sell for more than the going rate on ebay, even when you factor in the 10% fees.

If you start the auction at 99p then there's no listing fees so it's just a straight 10%. Ebay fees have always been about 10% overall including paypal, now they're about 12% including paypal so I don't think it's too much of a difference.

Like most things it might be better to sell some things on different platforms such as amazon or playtrade but there's lots of things where ebay is better.

brightonman123

why waste money on ebay / paypal fees-

set a realistic price, and sell on gumtree, friday add etc. local papers with a website often do free listings, too.

remember to state that the 'buyer collects', so there's no postage costs!
:beer:

soolin

Immoral seems a strange use of words !

As has been said this has been discusssed endlessly on the ebay board (See my sig) and the reason that there isn't much on the first page at the moment is that these changes are old. We finished discussing them weeks ago. There is however a sticky thread about upcoming changes that have mention of particularly the inclusive postage on books.

As for MSE I would rather Martin campaigned about real problems that affect people that they can't do anything about, not waste his time on ebay which we use by choice.

ses6jwg

ebay are a business and they dont owe anyone a living except themselves and their shareholders.

if you dont like it then try alternative methods

barvid

EdBrown wrote: »

The new thing in my post is that there was nothing I could find on this subject on the Money Saving Site!
Perhaps our Money Saving Expert could use his acquired influence to tackle this giant!

Even on the specific eBay discussion board on MSE?!

peter_the_piper

Go to a local auction house and the fees are from 15% to 20%, makes ebay a better bet what with the greater coverage. Paypal is a separate issue even though you are supposed to offer it for everything.

Arnie_Mac

How's this for customer service. I sent goods to Israel costing me £66 postage. I told the buyer that via royal mail surface it could take up to 12 weeks, as per website. After only 5 weeks he started moaning and filed a dispute with paypal. I sent them the proof of posting and receipt but they immediately took the £184 out of my account leaving it £145 in the red. The result of this is they hold you to ransom. Unless I pay in enough money to put me back in the black all my current sale items default and the buyers have to send me cheques, having been frustrated by trying to pay paypal a number times. Even better as they cannot pay into my account thanks to the idiots in paypal, I cannot resolve the negative balance. If they had allowed payments in I could have resolved this weeks ago. As it is if I transfer funds from my bank account it will take 7 - 9 days to clear. I disputed the buyers claim several times with no effect. Paypal simply quote policy about how you need tracking information. All good and well but the buyer came back last week and acknowledged he did receive the goods. Hurrah you think, justice, he can pay the money back and resolve the negaitve balance. Oh no, paypal don't bother to contact him and he cannot pay it into my account for the aforementioned reasons. I have emailed them countless times telling them to contact the buyer, but just get a rubbish automated response quoting their policies. The good news is I now have my money, no thanks whatsoever to paypal, who are absolutely useless. I have been using them for over 6 years and they treated me like a common criminal. I have had no apology and my account remains unusable. I'm not paying in money from my bank account, when they could have resolved this weeks ago. I know this is a bit long and rambly but if you know any other companies I can use in stead then I would be grateful., as receiving cheques in the post is not the best way forward. Arnie