Ebay no longer charging private sellers

[sevenfourate]

^^^^^Ebay protecting their income unsurprisingly. I’d managed to unknowingly circumnavigate paying any fees on ‘Collection only’ sales more than once. So I’m not surprised they’ve tightened up. Here and in many (?) other areas.

Me ? I’ll take my non fee-paying business elsewhere now 🤣🤣

 

[a.twiddler]

Curiously enough, when selling the Grasshopper I'd listed it at the full price, or offers, and the buyer seems to have caused the system to have a brain fart by making an offer for the full price rather than clicking "buy it now". It recognised that I'd accepted an offer but kept it listed, and wouldn't acknowledge that there'd been a payment. The seller told me that nothing had been taken from his account. In the end, we arranged that he'd come and see it, and sort it out on the day. Ebay didn't contact him, and my queries to ebay weren't answered. He made a bank transfer to my account, and ebay never contacted myself or the buyer for any fees. I had to terminate the listing myself, or it would probably still be listed today. First time I've ever had anything free from ebay, even by accident.

 

[rogerzilla]

eBay is hopeless at estimating size and weight of items, so proceed carefully to avoid selling at a loss. It thinks lots of items are under 2kg when they are over 5kg.

 

[chris-suffolk]

eBay is hopeless at estimating size and weight of items, so proceed carefully to avoid selling at a loss. It thinks lots of items are under 2kg when they are over 5kg.

It's also got the sizes of 2kg parcels wrong, thinking they are 61x46x46 cm when in fact the limit is 45x35x16

 

[Profpointy]

Another very annoying thing they've done recently is to hobble their previously excellent phone app so it no longer works on older phones. The web interface on the phone is piss-poor in comparison, and it's significantly more faff to transfer pics to a PC for someone casually selling stuff to get rid of it, or recover a bit of dosh from lower value stuff. As a buyer the web interface on the phone is awkward too.

I never minded paying their fee as a seller, but the adding on a buyer's fee just makes it all more complex.

 

[a.twiddler]

The online experience recently hasn't encouraged me to conduct ebay business via phone despite their constant adverts encouraging users to do so. Will ebay eventually become an app -only platform? I certainly hope not.

 

[DCLane]

I've previously sold a lot of non-cycling items on Amazon but it's dwindled to almost nothing. The shop I've got on there will be shut at Easter and items transferred elsewhere. eBay was going to be the preferred 'home' but their changes are making things more complex.

The pre-sizing is the biggest issue for me: I currently store items away and only pack them when sold. This means I'll have to pre-box/bag items to work out the individual size and weight for the not-so-Simple Delivery system creating a storage issue.

In the past I used Yahoo Auctions (remember them?) which were great but they closed in 2002 when the Australian site was bought by eBay.

 

[Jenkins]

I've only purchased purchased postage through Ebay using their suggested size & weight (I don't have scales at home) twice. The first I ended up having to pay the Post Office release fee for the buyer as it was over the weight limit and the second was picked up by the Post Office counter lady as being oversized for the level selected so paid the extra there.

I now don't mind paying a little extra for the certainty of going to the local Post Office and having the parcel correctly weighed & measured at the counter for the few sales I do.

 

[sevenfourate]

I’ve had no issues with eBay through their changes. In terms of fees, getting paid, choosing custom postage rates or anything else 😁

But today some tyres I sold have arrived. Buyer is happy - and has left positive feedback immediately. This normally kicks off eBay holding onto your money for maybe 48 hours (Processing is the term I believe 🙄) before they release it into your account to do as you wish with.

However now: today - mine says:

•Pending - in eBay balance 26th May.

Really eBay ? **20+ year user, largish buyer and seller, 100% rating over 5000 unique transactions.

 

[Jameshow]

Re eBay....

Has any had a eBay account which they haven't set up?

I went into eBay this morning ordered a woodworking router bit and realised after I'd paid for it that the account wasn't my usual account. New account registered in Nov 2024.

So I reported it and spoke to eBay who said wait for it to arrive and cancel the account.
All seems a bit weird?

 

[kingrollo]

Am I wrong in thinking the fees have been rebadged as buyer protection and passed onto the buyer ?

 

[gcogger]

Am I wrong in thinking the fees have been rebadged as buyer protection and passed onto the buyer ?

Yes, it's smoke and mirrors IMHO. We're in the same situation as before the selling fees were 'removed'. The buyer pays a price and the seller receives that amount minus a fee to eBay. They used to call it a final value fee, now they call it buyer protection.

 

[Chislenko]

So what are the alternatives for private sellers to eBay?

 

[wiggydiggy]

Am I wrong in thinking the fees have been rebadged as buyer protection and passed onto the buyer ?

No that's right, there was some discussion about whether psellers would reduce their prices, I dont know about others but I haven't.

 

[Emanresu]

Yes, it's smoke and mirrors IMHO. We're in the same situation as before the selling fees were 'removed'. The buyer pays a price and the seller receives that amount minus a fee to eBay. They used to call it a final value fee, now they call it buyer protection.

Didn't know what the charge was for but have found out last week.

Sold something and had inadvertently misdescribed it. Buyer wanted to return it but I had no returns on the site. Ebay contacted me with the option for me to refund or if I didn't, they would do this as this is part of the buyer protection policy. It is designed to give buyers the confidence that they won't be ripped off. Rather than get into an argument with Ebay and as I had made the mistake, I refunded to save Ebay's buyer protection fee (and a possible black mark).

Knew a high volume seller (books) who would always refund without complaint. His view was that having the 100% satisfaction status generated far more business than those who might have 99% - people being fearful that they would be the 1% dissatisfied. So the Ebay protection fee is really an Ebay reputation protection fee. (Still have my 100% status)