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

daddyelf

It will be the small private sellers and ones selling lower cost items that could suffer more, in the half a dozen examples below as a buyer you would surely have to ask 'am I prepared to have added to this sellers item a premium of nearly 20% for their £5 item?

Item sale cost £5 - Ebay bolt ons £5.95 in total 19% premium
Cost £10 with bolt ons £1.15 Total £11.15 11.5% premium
Item cost £20 with bolt ons £1.55 total premium 7%
Item cost £30 with bolt ons 31.95 total premium 6.5%
Item cost £50 with bolt ons £52.75 Premium 5.5%
Item cost £100 with bolt ons £104.75 - Premium 4.75%

I can only think that the hefty 75p which is the crippling bit is or could be an accumulation of the '30p' transaction fee for processing and a claw back on the ROF (Regulatory Operating Fee)

soolin

Kim_13 said:

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.

I think feedback is completely immaterial and makes absolutely no difference to me as a buyer or a seller , if I'm selling as a private seller it is to get rid of my unwanted items, if I sell as a business it is to make money, I don't care at all about feedback and it is completely not relevant for a buyer. 

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.

Seller refunds not ebay, so it is a lot easier if the funds are sitting there waiting to be returned to the buyer rather than sitting in the seller's bank account where it may be difficult to force a bad seller to pay it back.

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.

I have responded to some comments in the quote. 

What expenses does a private seller have to start selling?  If a seller can't afford postage (and even RM48 on a small parcel is only £3.39 if bought online) then they can opt in to simple postage when it is rolled out. I also believe, although I need to re read the t and Cs of the hold, that buying postage through ebay allows you to use the pending balance anyway. There's no other cashflow needed as there is no other costs at all. If you mean packaging costs, for the first few sales use recycled boxes or ask on the local facebook group if anyone has a spare envelope or box they are giving away. It's only for the first sale or two as other than that money can be retained from earlier sales if a seller wants to splash out on all new packaging supplies. 

soolin

CrispyPancake said:

As an actual private seller, as in I'm selling off am personal collection bit by bit, and have been doing for a few years, it obviously turns me off from using the platform. When they removed private sellers fees I lowered my prices to be more competitive against business seller accounts. Now my prices become less competitive again, but to further reduce my prices to make up for the extra charge makes a larger percentage of my items not really worth the time to sell after P&P is factored in. Especially since this drives me to use a more expensive signed for option on on lower price items I would typically send 2nd class.

I can live with fronting the postage costs for the time they are being held, that's not a big deal to me, but may be for someone selling things out of necessity. Ultimately, with the supposed eventual change to only being able to do postage payments through eBay, it's probably the final straw.

As Spoonie_Turtle says why would you use signed for?

There is a lot of misunderstanding around postage and if you haven't checked the various RM options for a while then it is worth refreshing your memory. Signed for is a very poor service nowadays, for a start compensation remains at standard package levels (£20) . Look at RM48 for parcels, it is very competitively priced. Standard parcels have delivery confirmation as well if you want to save 15p. As for LLs if you buy postage via ebay then around 80% of LLs have delivery confirmation as well all for the cost of  £1.55 for a LL up to 100G.

soolin

danny69 said:

This is quite simply delicious. The way it has come full circle. 

Private sellers were not complaining when they had FVF’s removed completely, whilst Business sellers continue to pay full fees. For years business sellers have paid much more in fees. No 80% promotions etc. Now business sellers are given a slight edge (on low value items especially) and private sellers are up in arms 😂

It is worth remembering that Private Sellers are not generally as sensitive to cash flow, so prompt payments are not as important to eBay on that front. Private sellers are also expected to have far less sales and are not buying to sell on for profit. Business sellers are FINALLY given a chance to compete, without Private Sellers relentlessly undercutting us on price for what can often be brand new items bought specifically to sell on!!  If fingers are to be pointed, it should be at businesses masquerading as Private Sellers. They are now simply reaping what they sowed. 

I agree and I suspect this is a large part of the reason for these changes.

Ebay make most of their money from business sellers so continually giving private sellers benefits, free listings, cheap events and no hoops to jump through meant business sellers were considering taking their business elsewhere. Yes it inconveniences a few truly private sellers , those that sell bits and pieces from around the house to make a bit extra, or to de clutter (like myself) . However seeing the large amount of businesses running full businesses out of a private account was merely rubbing properly registered businesses noses into the dirt. 

I posted just this week about a seller on a private account with 4000+ brand new items and many of those 4000 listings were MVLs as well so probably double or triple that number of items in total. I can go now to sellers in a particular niche market my OH buys a lot from with store fronts ,I don't want to say the name of the niche market but lets say I see sellers with names like 'John's widgets' who shows a shop front in their listings 'John's emporium of widgets' and send their items in branded boxes from their shop with a business card so you can shop direct from them, we've even visited some of the shops to buy items if we happen to come across them in our travels. You see people selling handmade bracelets with the comment that they can be made with any name or pop star beads on them, or hand made candles etc.

I have a fairly healthy private account so this change will affect me quite a bit , i don't run just a small business on a business account, but even though it affects my de cluttering attempts I can still see why it is happening. 

prowla

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.

I bought an item last week, collected in person and paid cash.

The seller contacted me and said eBay wouldn't accept the item as completed, even though they marked it as paid.

eBay no longer do the collection code so you can confirm collection.

I contacted eBay and they advised me to (i) message the seller confirming collection and (ii) leave feedback, which I did.

They said that they couldn't manage returns issues for cash items, so they've removed cash as a payment option.

On another tack, I've reported counterfeit items and received a reply "We looked into your report and didn’t find the listing to be in violation of our policy.  This determination was made by a customer service agent."; they seem to do that regularly now.

I've contacted them via chat and pointed out the issue and they've escalated it.

The person I chatted with thanked me for pointing out the errors with their automated system, so I'm wondering if their "This determination was made by a customer service agent." is an AI function.

The problem with AI is that if it is mistrained and there is no feedback loop to update it on errors then it will be self-fulfilling and carry on making mistakes.

As for their AI descriptions in for-sale items, they are a load of words strung together into a sentence which tells you absolutely nothing.

I have the following exclusion clause in my saved searches:

"-(sure to impress,seasoned professional,both beginners and professionals alike,sure to enhance)"

eBay seem to be intent on breaking their product.

soolin

@prowla cash on collection was withdrawn as an option in October 2024, that's why no collection code was issued.

No more cash on collection allowed from 1st October - Page 2 — MoneySavingExpert Forum

I think we all agree about the useless AI suggestions, I tried it for a laugh on one of my pre loved items, and it made the item sound so good I was tempted to buy it myself! Obviously I don't use it and manually add my own description as I have the item in front of me, the AI bot does not. 

CrispyPancake

soolin said:

CrispyPancake said:

As an actual private seller, as in I'm selling off am personal collection bit by bit, and have been doing for a few years, it obviously turns me off from using the platform. When they removed private sellers fees I lowered my prices to be more competitive against business seller accounts. Now my prices become less competitive again, but to further reduce my prices to make up for the extra charge makes a larger percentage of my items not really worth the time to sell after P&P is factored in. Especially since this drives me to use a more expensive signed for option on on lower price items I would typically send 2nd class.

I can live with fronting the postage costs for the time they are being held, that's not a big deal to me, but may be for someone selling things out of necessity. Ultimately, with the supposed eventual change to only being able to do postage payments through eBay, it's probably the final straw.

As Spoonie_Turtle says why would you use signed for?

There is a lot of misunderstanding around postage and if you haven't checked the various RM options for a while then it is worth refreshing your memory. Signed for is a very poor service nowadays, for a start compensation remains at standard package levels (£20) . Look at RM48 for parcels, it is very competitively priced. Standard parcels have delivery confirmation as well if you want to save 15p. As for LLs if you buy postage via ebay then around 80% of LLs have delivery confirmation as well all for the cost of  £1.55 for a LL up to 100G.

Signed for was being used as a catch all for a service that has some form of delivery confirmation which still costs most than standard second class. I do use RM Tracked 48. Given that I would probably need to drop prices again to retain interest in my items, and there'll be an increase in postage cost it means that any actual money coming to me is getting smaller.  I'm not a business so I'm not dependent on the money, but there is a value consideration in whether I'm prepared to sell a something for a smaller amount given the time and energy involved.

Maybe I was stupid to generally drop prices on items I was listing following the FVF removal to try and pass that along.

Ultimately its no loss to eBay if I stop selling, it's no big deal, all I've been doing is trying to generate some extra savings/overpay my mortgage/free up some space in the house. It will mean less exercise, as I won't be walking to the post office as much, but the flip side is one less app on my phone so making it highly unlikely I spend money on eBay, so I guess it is a positive overall.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

CrispyPancake said:

Signed for was being used as a catch all for a service that has some form of delivery confirmation which still costs most than standard second class. I do use RM Tracked 48. Given that I would probably need to drop prices again to retain interest in my items, and there'll be an increase in postage cost it means that any actual money coming to me is getting smaller.  I'm not a business so I'm not dependent on the money, but there is a value consideration in whether I'm prepared to sell a something for a smaller amount given the time and energy involved.

Maybe I was stupid to generally drop prices on items I was listing following the FVF removal to try and pass that along.

Ultimately its no loss to eBay if I stop selling, it's no big deal, all I've been doing is trying to generate some extra savings/overpay my mortgage/free up some space in the house. It will mean less exercise, as I won't be walking to the post office as much, but the flip side is one less app on my phone so making it highly unlikely I spend money on eBay, so I guess it is a positive overall.

Out of interest, FVF fees were originally 12.9%, now they are 4% it's not worth selling?

Tracked 48 is 15p more than 2nd class on a small parcel with £150 cover, granted it's a bit extra on large letters, once you move in to medium parcels postage with RM is expensive in general, I don't think the extra for Tracked 48 breaks the bank IMHO.

GadgetGuru

How will buyers see this fee - is it just added to the cost of the item, so that the item is now listed at a higher price with the fee rolled in - or is the item still at its normal price and the buyer fee shown as a separate addition beside it?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

GadgetGuru said:

How will buyers see this fee - is it just added to the cost of the item, so that the item is now listed at a higher price with the fee rolled in - or is the item still at its normal price and the buyer fee shown as a separate addition beside it?

Same as VAT for overseas I'd imagine, rolled into the BUY price, under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 I don't believe eBay would be allowed to show the BIN price without it included. 

Similar to the VAT there will probably be a note somewhere on the listing stating the buyer fee is included.