IMPORTANT- managed payments

soolin

LM2020 said:

Also had the email yesterday - was quite shocked by the tone of the message - sounded quite threatening.

Just been working out how much extra I'll be paying in fees. As pointed out in one of the posts on ebay community - important to remember eBay fees are exc. VAT unlike PayPal so for example the 30p transaction fee will actually be 36p. Going to be quite a bit more expensive for sole traders or small businesses on micropayments.

I've read a few comments from people saying they will stop selling on ebay and just sell elsewhere - does anyone use other platforms for business sales? Are there any good alternatives?

The loss of paypal micro will really hurt me and the only suggestion I have had so far is to make small lots of items rather than selling individual things. However, a lot of my market is small portable vintage collectables , so if someone wants the remaining widget for a collection they aren't going to pay more to have something else added to the lot that they don't want. 

I am currently doing very well on facebook, joined a couple of specialist forums that deal in the stuff I am selling and on some days sell as much as 2 or 3 items on facebook for every item on eBay. However, my newer stuff needs to be on eBay but if I price the sub £10 items to include the increase in fees then I will price myself out of the market.

LM2020

soolin said:

LM2020 said:

Also had the email yesterday - was quite shocked by the tone of the message - sounded quite threatening.

Just been working out how much extra I'll be paying in fees. As pointed out in one of the posts on ebay community - important to remember eBay fees are exc. VAT unlike PayPal so for example the 30p transaction fee will actually be 36p. Going to be quite a bit more expensive for sole traders or small businesses on micropayments.

I've read a few comments from people saying they will stop selling on ebay and just sell elsewhere - does anyone use other platforms for business sales? Are there any good alternatives?

The loss of paypal micro will really hurt me and the only suggestion I have had so far is to make small lots of items rather than selling individual things. However, a lot of my market is small portable vintage collectables , so if someone wants the remaining widget for a collection they aren't going to pay more to have something else added to the lot that they don't want. 

I am currently doing very well on facebook, joined a couple of specialist forums that deal in the stuff I am selling and on some days sell as much as 2 or 3 items on facebook for every item on eBay. However, my newer stuff needs to be on eBay but if I price the sub £10 items to include the increase in fees then I will price myself out of the market.

Thank you. I thought I might have to try selling more groups rather than individual items. It's a shame though as I know I'll be excluding a lot of buyers that are specifically looking for an individual item at a reasonable price. If I increase prices enough to absorb the new fees I'll be out competed especially by businesses using 'private' accounts that don't have the insertion fees etc. I've been looking at Facebook - do you have to write a privacy policy and terms of use for customers?

soolin

LM2020 said:

soolin said:

LM2020 said:

Also had the email yesterday - was quite shocked by the tone of the message - sounded quite threatening.

Just been working out how much extra I'll be paying in fees. As pointed out in one of the posts on ebay community - important to remember eBay fees are exc. VAT unlike PayPal so for example the 30p transaction fee will actually be 36p. Going to be quite a bit more expensive for sole traders or small businesses on micropayments.

I've read a few comments from people saying they will stop selling on ebay and just sell elsewhere - does anyone use other platforms for business sales? Are there any good alternatives?

The loss of paypal micro will really hurt me and the only suggestion I have had so far is to make small lots of items rather than selling individual things. However, a lot of my market is small portable vintage collectables , so if someone wants the remaining widget for a collection they aren't going to pay more to have something else added to the lot that they don't want. 

I am currently doing very well on facebook, joined a couple of specialist forums that deal in the stuff I am selling and on some days sell as much as 2 or 3 items on facebook for every item on eBay. However, my newer stuff needs to be on eBay but if I price the sub £10 items to include the increase in fees then I will price myself out of the market.

Thank you. I thought I might have to try selling more groups rather than individual items. It's a shame though as I know I'll be excluding a lot of buyers that are specifically looking for an individual item at a reasonable price. If I increase prices enough to absorb the new fees I'll be out competed especially by businesses using 'private' accounts that don't have the insertion fees etc. I've been looking at Facebook - do you have to write a privacy policy and terms of use for customers?

Just one thing to remember - 'private' sellers won't be forced onto managed payments within the forseeable future , so the playing field is not as much as not level- it is positively cliff like!

At the moment facebook marketplace don't differentiate between business and private sellers but I treat buyers exactly the same as I would anywhere, I take paypal and would offer refunds. As for the groups they are all different, some won't allow business sales at all so I have to be careful to avoid them, others are happy but warn buyers that any 'business' or private seller that wants bank transfers or paypal F and F should be treated with caution- but I don't have an issue with that. I do find a get a fair few f and F payments and bank transfers when people actually ask to pay that way.

Just sitting here now at my PC and uploading to a collectable group- and I've made 2 sales in the past 20 minutes - both paid for by paypal.

charlies_mum

I have a Paypal micro account as most of my sales are below £3.     I did a quick calculation and it looks like it’s going to cost an extra 20p ish per transaction.     This plus the increase in postage In March means that all my prices will be going up.  

soolin

charlies_mum said:

I have a Paypal micro account as most of my sales are below £3.     I did a quick calculation and it looks like it’s going to cost an extra 20p ish per transaction.     This plus the increase in postage In March means that all my prices will be going up.  

yep, the loss of Micro payments is going to hurt me. 20p seems to be the suggested increase which is better than my own back of an envelope calculation that suggested it around 30p - but I've never been good with adding VAT to the right bits! 

Incidentally and this is  tin hat time, but since the threatening email was sent out has anyone who hasn't registered noticed a downturn in sales? 

charlies_mum

soolin said:

charlies_mum said:

I have a Paypal micro account as most of my sales are below £3.     I did a quick calculation and it looks like it’s going to cost an extra 20p ish per transaction.     This plus the increase in postage In March means that all my prices will be going up.  

yep, the loss of Micro payments is going to hurt me. 20p seems to be the suggested increase which is better than my own back of an envelope calculation that suggested it around 30p - but I've never been good with adding VAT to the right bits! 

Incidentally and this is  tin hat time, but since the threatening email was sent out has anyone who hasn't registered noticed a downturn in sales? 

Yes, I’ve noticed, but thought that might be more to do with shops reopening.

I suppose I’ll have to give and register as eBay have us over a barrel. 

soolin

charlies_mum said:

soolin said:

charlies_mum said:

I have a Paypal micro account as most of my sales are below £3.     I did a quick calculation and it looks like it’s going to cost an extra 20p ish per transaction.     This plus the increase in postage In March means that all my prices will be going up.  

yep, the loss of Micro payments is going to hurt me. 20p seems to be the suggested increase which is better than my own back of an envelope calculation that suggested it around 30p - but I've never been good with adding VAT to the right bits! 

Incidentally and this is  tin hat time, but since the threatening email was sent out has anyone who hasn't registered noticed a downturn in sales? 

Yes, I’ve noticed, but thought that might be more to do with shops reopening.

I suppose I’ll have to give and register as eBay have us over a barrel. 

I did wonder whether it might be linked to shops opening except that my Facebook sales are continuing to be very strong this weekend. 

LM2020

soolin said:

charlies_mum said:

soolin said:

charlies_mum said:

I have a Paypal micro account as most of my sales are below £3.     I did a quick calculation and it looks like it’s going to cost an extra 20p ish per transaction.     This plus the increase in postage In March means that all my prices will be going up.  

yep, the loss of Micro payments is going to hurt me. 20p seems to be the suggested increase which is better than my own back of an envelope calculation that suggested it around 30p - but I've never been good with adding VAT to the right bits! 

Incidentally and this is  tin hat time, but since the threatening email was sent out has anyone who hasn't registered noticed a downturn in sales? 

Yes, I’ve noticed, but thought that might be more to do with shops reopening.

I suppose I’ll have to give and register as eBay have us over a barrel. 

I did wonder whether it might be linked to shops opening except that my Facebook sales are continuing to be very strong this weekend. 

If you use listings with variations there's a glitch at the moment stopping the main photo showing in the search results - it just picks a variation photo at random instead. A lot on ebay community are noticing a big drop in views and sales from this.

steviebabes

HaHa just had an email -
Register for managed payments between 29 Jun - 5 July to qualify for a £1 Final value fees cap on listings created between 13 - 19 July.

soolin

steviebabes said:

HaHa just had an email -
Register for managed payments between 29 Jun - 5 July to qualify for a £1 Final value fees cap on listings created between 13 - 19 July.

I go that too, obviously registration is not going as well as they hoped! I shalllet the current £1 FVF run for a while and then sign up on the final day for this offer.