eBay "Buyer Protection Fees" (New charges for buyers from private sellers) - Details just recieved

alexp78

So it was free to sell and free to buy for private sellers.

And now the BUYER has to pay a fee to buy.

What I have long held as the best place to buy has suddenly become a place that makes me feel sick in the stomach. I shall boycot...

se2020

How will this work with auctions?

If I start an auction at £100 then I guess the buyers will see the opening bid as £104.75

Once the first bid is placed will it then go up in £2 increments?

Or will it be £2 +4%, so the 2nd bidder will need to bid £106.83?

noitsnotme

se2020 said:

How will this work with auctions?

If I start an auction at £100 then I guess the buyers will see the opening bid as £104.75

Once the first bid is placed will it then go up in £2 increments?

Or will it be £2 +4%, so the 2nd bidder will need to bid £106.83?

“How is this fee calculated for Auctions when the final selling price isn't known yet?

When you enter a starting bid, we add the Buyer Protection fee so you can see what the buyer's minimum bid amount will be. As the Buyer Protection fee is variable, the fee amount that the buyer actually pays is calculated as part of the final auction selling price.

By including the fee in the buyer's bid price, we're making it simple and transparent so buyers always know what they'll pay and sellers know how much they'll receive.”

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/paying-items/buyer-protection-fee?id=5594

soolin

alexp78 said:

So it was free to sell and free to buy for private sellers.

And now the BUYER has to pay a fee to buy.

What I have long held as the best place to buy has suddenly become a place that makes me feel sick in the stomach. I shall boycot...

It’s only been free to sell for private sellers for 3 months, before that there was a charge by way of FVFs. 

Buyers only have to pay a fee going forward if they buy from a private seller, there will be no fee to,pay if buying from a business. 

vacheron

Halo572 said:

The confusion and consternation is likely based in eBay's disingenuous and underhanded communication strategy.

Insidious PR using supposed benevolence to completely obscure greed, which is ironically just selling fees they got rid of put on the buyer.

Can't see this having any positive deliverable to eBay's reputation, certainly can't believe what they say or don't choose to say loud enough.

I think this hit the nail on the head for me. 

eBay has always been a place for buyers looking for bargains. Many with a price in mind for their item.

So lets assume that a buyer wants an item, but will not pay more than £20.

• In the "olden days", a private seller could sell their item to this person for £20, and expect to receive about £17.75 after eBay seller fees. 
• In the last 3 months, this seller could sell for £20 and expect £20.... woohooo!
• However, after the buyer protection is introduced, the private seller will now have to sell at £18.45 so that once eBay have added their "buyer protection fees", their item is still no more than £20, or their buyer will not buy!

Now, don't get me wrong, private sellers will still get more money than they did during the selling fees era. The issue is that eBay are still insisting that private sellers are "unaffected" and that selling is still "free". 

They would have been far better switching directly from selling fees to buying fees from a PR perspective. The way they have done this is like giving someone a gift, and then taking half of it away again. If you had just given half the amount at the beginning, the sellers would probably have been grateful.

The only reason NOT to do this seems to be so that they can try too continue to pitch their recent "you as a seller still pay nothing" line, but this now appears both disingenuous and condescending.


Also, I bet the buyer who would wins a 1p item with free shipping is pleased that eBay are charging them a 7500% surcharge to "protect" their 1p purchase for them! 

Spoonie_Turtle

I can only laugh at the wording of "launching buyer protection" - we already have buyer protection!  The only difference I can see is them holding the money, which I think is more eBay protection than buyer (preventing a scammer from doing a run with the money).

As a buyer I don't mind at all, really, I'm used to the idea from Vinted where the buyer protection is not much cop - it's only worth it for INR or more expensive SNAD items where after returning it at your own expense you'd still get most of your money back.  For low value items it's worthless when returning it costs about the same as you paid in the first place, so sellers get away with palming off their stained and broken items at the buyer's expense.  Hence I rarely use Vinted as eBay eclipses them in terms of actually protecting the buyer.

Kim_13

So there’s no additional protection for buyers (fair enough, far too much goes in favour of the buyer anyway) so it’s a blanket the buyer now pays the fees that eBay aren’t getting from sellers. When it’s so easy to find yourself dealing with scam buyers or timewasters that eBay side with, I can see why they’re trying it, as they make nothing if sellers had been put off by a combination of fees and the risk of a bad buyer wiping out anything they make from the occasional sale.

They should have introduced a some kind of protection for the buyers of misdelivered items (location unknown or someone at the property refuses to give the item to the buyer) along the lines of if the buyer reports such and the seller refuses to engage with the carrier to assist (since the carrier will not deal with a buyer who has no contract with them) the funds aren’t released and the buyer is refunded.

Whether the prices increase beyond where they’ve been before will depend on whether sellers passed the saving on when the fees were axed, in which case it might not be that bad.

As a buyer only having been put off selling previously (and changes since don’t encourage me back) it doesn’t sit very well but if I cannot get what I need elsewhere I will just have to pay it. Still not as bad as Vinted for buyers, I suppose.

froudeg

Halo572 said:

Froudeg, you sound very angry and seem to have made a new account to vent.

Bad experience?

Not a new account - very old account that i have never used

Not angry really as the private seller fee changes don't affect me at all, at least for now.....but ebay does often annoy me as a long time business seller, primary annoyance is they are constantly changing things.

Fee structure changes are just another thing on the pile of changes which usually cause problems and inevitably require me to devote more time to eBay, especially since I have my own order management software. They are constantly messing around with the API software side of things on top of the usual multitude of hoops they keep adding for sellers and buyers to jump through.

Spoonie_Turtle

Kim_13 said:

They should have introduced a some kind of protection for the buyers of misdelivered items (location unknown or someone at the property refuses to give the item to the buyer) along the lines of if the buyer reports such and the seller refuses to engage with the carrier to assist (since the carrier will not deal with a buyer who has no contract with them) the funds aren’t released and the buyer is refunded.

The two days between tracking showing delivery and releasing the funds would seem to be to allow time for the buyer to open a case.

Kim_13

Stupots said:

I've never understood why eBay don't implement a process where leaving positive feedback automatically confirms an item as delivered. It would certainly help with this new policy and the random nature of even tracked items never being marked as delivered.

It would increase the feedback left if buyers leaving feedback received a partial refund on their fees. Quality feedback makes for a better experience, after all.

It would also take a bit of a sting out of the changes, as I cannot see an advantage for buyers out of them. Whether the money had been released to the seller or not is immaterial as if the item does not arrive and the seller does nothing, eBay will refund almost instantly once the required time has passed.

Delaying payment is frustrating good sellers to ensure that eBay don’t end up with debts owed to them by bad ones. You now need a float to start selling, as you have to pay expenses before receiving any money. It’s no longer useful to people who need to sell things because they have a cash flow issue.