Post by Claire on Aug 11, 2013 14:34:10 GMT 1
Hi all, I know a lot of you buy on ebay and quite a lot of you sell there too, so here is some quite important news which you may not have heard about. From September Ebay will be increasing their commission charges to include a percentage (typically 10%) of the postage cost!
What this will mean for you:
As a buyer:
Sellers will probably be increasing their prices by at least 10% to cover this extra cost so you will be paying more. (This will hit you Aussies and Americans who buy from British ebay because the postage costs are so high anyhow.)
Changes in the programming to implement these fees also means that you may be missing out on combined postage discounts. If you pay first and then ask the seller to refund some of the postage they probably will not due to the fact that ebay has already taken off the commission and will not refund it to the seller even if seller refunds the buyer. So if you are buying multiple items from a buyer please be sure to request a combined total beforehand.
(There are also a lot more changes solely for business sellers which will make the ebay community worse for buyers too but I'll not bore you with these - apart from to say that the top rated seller badge will no longer be of any use and to beware of sellers offering nothing but free postage as they will not be able to give combined postage discounts.)
As a seller
This fee hike is not just for business sellers but for everyone who sells on ebay, either auction or buy it now. Be very wary of selling for low prices especially if you have high postage costs as you could end up making a loss! Selling items for 99p or less is now practically worthless. (For example if you sell an item for 99p and charge £4.00 postage you will now be charged 50p final fee from ebay plus paypal's cut of around 30-40p, giving you a negligable profit!
A lot of business sellers are complaining about this and trying to get the idea reversed before it is implemented. I would suggest anyone who uses ebay to either email or phone ebay/or use the ebay message boards to complain about this issue, otherwise everyone will end up worse off.
What this will mean for you:
As a buyer:
Sellers will probably be increasing their prices by at least 10% to cover this extra cost so you will be paying more. (This will hit you Aussies and Americans who buy from British ebay because the postage costs are so high anyhow.)
Changes in the programming to implement these fees also means that you may be missing out on combined postage discounts. If you pay first and then ask the seller to refund some of the postage they probably will not due to the fact that ebay has already taken off the commission and will not refund it to the seller even if seller refunds the buyer. So if you are buying multiple items from a buyer please be sure to request a combined total beforehand.
(There are also a lot more changes solely for business sellers which will make the ebay community worse for buyers too but I'll not bore you with these - apart from to say that the top rated seller badge will no longer be of any use and to beware of sellers offering nothing but free postage as they will not be able to give combined postage discounts.)
As a seller
This fee hike is not just for business sellers but for everyone who sells on ebay, either auction or buy it now. Be very wary of selling for low prices especially if you have high postage costs as you could end up making a loss! Selling items for 99p or less is now practically worthless. (For example if you sell an item for 99p and charge £4.00 postage you will now be charged 50p final fee from ebay plus paypal's cut of around 30-40p, giving you a negligable profit!
A lot of business sellers are complaining about this and trying to get the idea reversed before it is implemented. I would suggest anyone who uses ebay to either email or phone ebay/or use the ebay message boards to complain about this issue, otherwise everyone will end up worse off.