MSE News: eBay sellers beware - its fees now eat into postage costs

Rotti

EKEA wrote: »

I don't really understand why some people think this is a good thing.

I have a large computer case to sell. As with all my auctions, I would start at 99p. The postage for the item would cost £15 as it's pretty heavy.

I guarantee you can halve that cost by using myhermes and it is picked up from your door!

Yes, they can take a final value fee from me, but if it cost me £15 to post, I don't see why eBay thinks they can take some money from that. It means I would put it costs more to post to cover their fee, like in the olden days with people covering PayPal fees. Yes the rules say you can't do this -
according to the representative I spoke to yesterday it is not against the rules.
but I'd just lie and say I had to take it to the depot which is 20 miles away.

No need for anyone to be doing this with the right courier choice!

Plus with couriers it's a lot harder to find out the actual postage cost.

Unless it is going outside the standard UK postcode zone you can work it out before listing. Just add a proviso that certain areas may incur a surcharge.

Rotti

Been looking around for alternatives and have come across Poundseller - has anyone tried this at all?

olgadapolga

barmonkey wrote: »

I changed all my auctions to include postage . . . in the 2 weeks with free postage and a start price of £20 I sold 2 items, went back to my original system and back up to 10 sales a week.

go figure

Same thing happened to us, we sold more with P&P shown separately than with P&P included in the price, even though the cost to the customer was exactly the same.

landros1

campdave wrote: »

How is it different to paypal charging a fee on postage?

Paypal charge their fees on the full selling price and the full postage costs which is unfair as it makes sellers inflate postage costs just to get back the actual postage costs.

I sell many printer cartridges for 99p +2.99 postage.
The cheapest postage by royal mail is second class economy which costs £2.60. leaving me 39p for my packaging and taking it to the post office.
So now Ebay is going to take another 30p leaving me 9p!.

This is on top of increasing their fees from 8% to 10 % not very long ago.

Me thinks Ebay and Paypal are being very,very greedy.

RFW

landros1 wrote: »

Paypal charge their fees on the full selling price and the full postage costs which is unfair as it makes sellers inflate postage costs just to get back the actual postage costs.

I sell many printer cartridges for 99p +2.99 postage.
The cheapest postage by royal mail is second class economy which costs £2.60. leaving me 39p for my packaging and taking it to the post office.
So now Ebay is going to take another 30p leaving me 9p!.

This is on top of increasing their fees from 8% to 10 % not very long ago.

Me thinks Ebay and Paypal are being very,very greedy.

If you're a Top Rated Seller your discounts have increased and listing fees reduced. Assuming you shift high volumes it shouldn't be that much different overall. Your margins are always going to be tight with that business model, I'd be constantly terrified that prices would be increasing to knock me out of the market.
I've bought printer cartridges from sellers like you and have no idea how you earn any money out of selling. Get into something more profitable or set up your own website and draw traffic from elsewhere.

J45

Its really great to see people saying "Go sell elsewhere if you don't like it" but eBay has the market sewn up, its a god damn monopoly. They have every auction site either brought out or destroyed. The ones that are left you can't sell enough on to make any living.

Filthy greed at the highest level, and to top it off they don't even pay taxes to the UK. I really hope they go bust, I truly do.

RFW

J45 wrote: »

Its really great to see people saying "Go sell elsewhere if you don't like it" but eBay has the market sewn up, its a god damn monopoly. They have every auction site either brought out or destroyed. The ones that are left you can't sell enough on to make any living.

Filthy greed at the highest level, and to top it off they don't even pay taxes to the UK. I really hope they go bust, I truly do.

What a strange view point. The 'nowhere else to sell' is just a silly argument. Set up your own webstore, use a Facebook selling page, go on a market or carboot sale. To say Ebay is the only place to sell is quite ridiculous,it shows a distinct lack of imagination. Ebay don't know or care if you're making a profit using their site, they will change prices to suit themselves as any business would.

It may very well be that Ebay introduced price changes to stop them going bust, I doubt it, but it could be a possibility. I'm assuming from your post that you are wishing Ebay to go bust whilst continuing to list products there.

cactusroger

The people who previously opted to offer "free" p&p (while adding it into their listing price) CHOSE to do that and pay eBay 10% on their p&p costs. They didn't have to do it, so they should stop bleating about level playing fields now that everybody is being charged an effective 10% commission on a service that eBay don't provide.

When a small parcel under a kilogram is sent 2nd class the cost (with a box) is about £3. Anything more than 8cm deep (unless all dimensions are <8cm) costs about £5.50. So, eBay is demanding an EXTRA 30p or 55p, which buyers will need to be advised they will be paying not to the seller, but to eBay. 1st class, which many expect, means eBay will take even more. e.g an item (book?) in a medium parcel weighing just over a kilogram is £8 Royal Mail (say £8.30 with box etc)... and an extra 83p to eBay. (Don't reply about other couriers; they won't do the fast delivery at their lower prices)

Example. When an item sells for (say) £2, and is posted for £5.50, eBay takes 20p commission fee for helping sell the item (fair?) but now another 55p for NOT helping to post it, Is that sensible? (I defy anyone to prove to me that that is fair).

Another example. If a seller places four £2 items in one box, (often still under the Royal Mail £5.50 price band), the 4 x £5.50 p&p (£22) has always been reduced to (say) £6. The buyers demand it. EBay has always encouraged fair p&p charges, so told us to do it. Fair? Yes, but not now for the seller, because eBay intend to take their 4 x 55p surcharge on postage whether or not a reduction has been given to the buyer. Just work out the % of the original selling prices eBay are now taking as a result of postage being often higher than the item costs. It is eyewateringly high, and I don't think they have really thought through every scenario before imposing the new fee structure.

The backlash has already started. I remember when eBay dictated in 2009 that sellers should give free p&p on books, CDs, DVDs etc. The backlash was so great that eBay's U-turn was not long in happening. UK is not USA. They don't seem to understand that. (and apparently they have not imposed this in the EU generally.... EU laws maybe?). Ther are very many small, medium and large traders who will not accept this and go elsewhere, especially those who were honest about actual postage and separated it from the cost of the items.

Overall, I do not understand why they have risked following this course. They have spent years trying to promote fair p&p charges, get rid of the cheats who avoid fees by postage manipulation, yet now have effectively increased most p&p charges by 10%, because the sellers who hav been giving good value to customers will just pass it on. There is no valid reason why they shouldn't.

And will eBay pay their fair whack of tax on the extra profits to the UK treasury? YOU BET THEY WON'T!!! But that's another story of incompetent and inept UK government tax law making.

AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaHHH. Time for coffee I think. :money::money::money:

RFW

cactusroger wrote: »

The people who previously opted to offer "free" p&p (while adding it into their listing price) CHOSE to do that and pay eBay 10% on their p&p costs. They didn't have to do it, so they should stop bleating about level playing fields now that everybody is being charged an effective 10% commission on a service that eBay don't provide.

Not sure bleating is the right word. I used to charge postage at a sensible rate. When Ebay made the announcements of forthcoming changes earlier this year I decided to switch to inclusive postage to save me problems further down the line. Also so I wouldn't have to end up bleating about it on internet forums.

cactusroger wrote: »

Example. When an item sells for (say) £2, and is posted for £5.50, eBay takes 20p commission fee for helping sell the item (fair?) but now another 55p for NOT helping to post it, Is that sensible? (I defy anyone to prove to me that that is fair).

No one has to show it is fair, charges aren't fair. They are on a par with how they operate in the US and the charges their closest competitor (Amazon) charge.

cactusroger wrote: »

Another example. If a seller places four £2 items in one box, (often still under the Royal Mail £5.50 price band), the 4 x £5.50 p&p (£22) has always been reduced to (say) £6. The buyers demand it. EBay has always encouraged fair p&p charges, so told us to do it. Fair? Yes, but not now for the seller, because eBay intend to take their 4 x 55p surcharge on postage whether or not a reduction has been given to the buyer. Just work out the % of the original selling prices eBay are now taking as a result of postage being often higher than the item costs. It is eyewateringly high, and I don't think they have really thought through every scenario before imposing the new fee structure.

Under this scenario, if you're settings are set right and/or you send the correct invoice on checkout, the Ebay fees will be on 4 x £2 and only one postage charge, not on four.

cactusroger wrote: »

Ther are very many small, medium and large traders who will not accept this and go elsewhere, especially those who were honest about actual postage and separated it from the cost of the items.

We can but hope, a good thinning out of sellers is no bad thing. Especially the ones that undercut and undercut to be the cheapest so they have no room to move.

cactusroger wrote: »

Overall, I do not understand why they have risked following this course. They have spent years trying to promote fair p&p charges, get rid of the cheats who avoid fees by postage manipulation, yet now have effectively increased most p&p charges by 10%, because the sellers who hav been giving good value to customers will just pass it on. There is no valid reason why they shouldn't.

Those sellers should be Top Rated Sellers and should have an increased discount on final value fees. They are also getting more free listings and reduction in listing fees.

It's by no means good news but certainly not as black as some are painting it.

Also if you're selling items for £2 that cost £5.50 to post you may want to change products, I don't see how that can ever be profitable, even without commission on post.

J45

RFW wrote: »

What a strange view point. The 'nowhere else to sell' is just a silly argument. Set up your own webstore, use a Facebook selling page, go on a market or carboot sale. To say Ebay is the only place to sell is quite ridiculous,it shows a distinct lack of imagination. Ebay don't know or care if you're making a profit using their site, they will change prices to suit themselves as any business would.

It may very well be that Ebay introduced price changes to stop them going bust, I doubt it, but it could be a possibility. I'm assuming from your post that you are wishing Ebay to go bust whilst continuing to list products there.

Its not strange at all, if they ceased to exist then the market would be more competitive. At the moment I sell on other websites but their customer base is tiny compared to eBay.

I hope most eBay sellers do take your advise and create their own webstores but please keep in mind opening your own website is one thing but the SEO and promotion is a full time job in itself, and googles first page is dominated by companies like eBay.

Also your advise on selling on markets and car boots, my product is not suited to those selling avenues.