New Ebay Uk Rules., FREE post and packing,

[Will Cambell]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone has any views on our favourite internet auction site, now that they are insisting that Post and Packing (P n P) is to be FREE in the UK !.

The way I see it:

a. in some cases it would mean the seller paying the buyer to buy the record !,

b. Ebay's solution is for me to add the cost of the postage to the starting price of the record !, this would be Ebays gain as Ebay would get MORE in their final valuation fees ! (%) (this is what this is all about if the truth be told !)

c. the above would penalise international buyers, also UK buyers buying more than one record would be penalised !, as combined postage would be eradicated !.

I therefore wish to avoid this ‘FREE P n P’ reference appearing on my auction sites, but what ever I do, I cannot completely remove this ‘FREE P n P’ appearing on the auction page !… anyone got any ideas if its possible to completely remove this reference to ‘FREE P n P’ ?, as its very misleading.

WC.

[Nowhere Man]

Hi Will,

This is, in my opinion, a complete con on e-bay's part. This has nothing very much to do with adding value to the Buyer's experience and therefore boosting trade. It has everything to do with boosting e-bay's take, IMHO! Apart from increasing the final value, and therefore e-bays cut, as you point, out there is another implication.

Assuming that I don't wish to pay someone to buy my item I now have to include the cost of the cheapest posting option in my start price. So let's say my start price is now £3.75. Previously I could sell an item with a start price of 99p and, if it didn't sell, I would incur no fees as the insertion fee was free. Now the insertion fee is 15p regardless. So, as a Seller, I can't take a punt on an item without incuring some cost. Overall I can see this causing less items to be offered for sale. Very frustrating!

[servi]

Previously I used to list my items via ebay.com which had an "ebay.co.uk visibility" option. Unfortunately, I just saw that this option has now been removed :angry:
Seems ebay does everything to catch as much money as possible but in the end it will lead to frustrated sellers and less money for ebay.

[Will Cambell]

Hi Guys,

Great to hear your views, yepp another good point ‘Nowhere man’.

I only hope the buyers can see what ebay are doing and not penalise the seller, ie those who still wish to charge Post and Package (P n P).

My problem is, my auctions STILL say FREE P n P even though I do not offer this, I can see a buyer disputing my auction, by saying “hold on, your auction said FREE P n P, but now you are saying there is an additional charge for P n P”. I have my conditions of sale on my auction page together with the P n P costs, but its very misleading, im not happy with it at all !

If a seller wishes to offer free P nP, fair enough, as it i used to be, but NOT make it mandatory !.

Interesting, I’ve been gathering sellers views on their auction pages, most are saying “ Postage IS NOT free, even though ebay has made me say that it is etc” !!, Ebay haven’t thought this through at all, its all about maximising their ££ and the poor seller on Ebay just continues to get abused !

WC.

[muffmasterh]

I thought I had circumvented this as I put " courier " on my listings then put p and p details in the body of the listing as I thought ebay had instructed me to.

Sadly for me I just had a listing removed for an " ebay breech " probably for being too honest. I reilsted as courier but instead of p and p costs I put signed for delivery/courier costs in. Lets see if that makes a difference!

My view on this is that although I do not agree with it I kind of undstand ebay's logic. However the logic only really applies to traders in NEW items . Anybody like us selling anything second hand items should be exempt!!!

If you add to this ebays/paypals effectively forcing sellers to send via the most expensive signed for options or else be leasy prey to false claimbacks for unrecieved items and that really sums up the " unfairness " of free pandp to all sellers of 2nd hand items!

[BEATLES-64]

Hi to All,

Sadly there is no way that you can avoid this free P&P, under the new rules all sellers now have to offer at least one postage service which is free of charge.

The only real solution is when listing an item is make your 1st postage option say 2nd class standard which is free but then just below that select "OFFER ADDITIONAL SERVICES" and select 1st class recorded and enter your charge, then in your listing description clearly state that any record which sells for in excess of say £10.00 (or whatever figure you are happy with) will be sent 1st class recorded and that this will be subject to a postage charge and just add that if the potential bidders do not agree with this then DO NOT BID!

By doing this your are abiding by Ebays rules that you have to offer a free service but you are also protecting yourseves from the inevitable....having to absorb postage costs and an increase in "ITEM NOT RECEIVED" claims.

I do agree that these new rules are harsh on sellers and it is impossible to build in a postage cost into the price of an auction item, it can be done with "BUY IT NOW" items but not auction items. Ebay advised me to add the postage cost to my start price, so ok if i follow their "valuable" advise , i would usually start an item at say £25.00, so now i would start it at £28.00 (£3.00 postage) BUT the item will not sell for any more money than it would if i started it at £25.00!...the final sale price will still be the same...if it sells for £55.00 then it was only ever going to sell for £55.00 regardless of what i start the auction at!....When i pointed that out to Ebay their reply was to just list everything as "BUY IT NOW"....How do you put a price on a second hand but potentially rare item?....You cant...You will either price it way to low and end up "giving it away" or price it too high and it just wont sell, so in reality that option is just ludicrous!

However that all said it has been suggested on more than one occasion that Ebays long term plan is to see an end to the auction format and that they want Ebay to become the largest "Shopping Mall" in the world with just sellers who offer brand new items, all on Buy It Now and who sell in vast volume....ie, large, proffesional business sellers who are fast and very efficient (evidence of this is already there with this new top rated seller and those rediculous DSR'S). Now they are implementing this free P&P rule which is only realistic for Buy it Now items, also apparently in the New Year an new "PROFFESIONALISM" rule is heading our way, in which all listings have to have a proffesional appearance and the listing cannot include anything which would be perceived as UNPROFFESIONAL, i.e crticising other sellers, or Ebay, or this or that e.t.c.

Whether the above is Ebays long term vision for the site or not does remain to be seen but either way i do believe that there is already an agenda to make it more and more difficult, impratical and quite frankly no longer cost worthworthy to sell seconhand, used items on the site.....The days of the 99p start price listings have long gone!

I fully agree that this new P&P rule will help to line Ebays pockets even more but iam also of the belief that there is more to this than just making "THE BUYER EXPERIENCE MORE POSTITIVE".

I guess only time will tell!!!

REG

[muffmasterh]

Bang on Reg, and of course the initial listing catagory is only " free " for items of 0.99p but now you can't really list anything for 0.99 because ebay expect you to asorb the postage - heads they win, tails we lose !

We need a new ebay, there is a gap in the market now anybody got time on their hands lol !!

Thanks for the advice about the postage though Reg I'm going to have a look at that one!

I was at spitalfieds today and I heard a lot of stall holders grumbling about ebay in general

PS a nice guy in the States ( Ken ) was very complimentary about you Reg!

[BEATLES-64]

Hi "H"

I know Ken, he's a great guy.

I agree about another "Ebay" type auction site needs to be launched, i had even thought an auction site dedicated purely to the Beatles would be worth consideration, we know there is a market and demand for The Fab Four but trying to set one up would be exxtremley hard work, time consuming and i suppose it would take a while to persuade regular Ebay sellers to defect!....Still i do beleive an alternative will eventually have be found.

Until that happens then we will just have to suffer the Ebay "elders" dictating how we run our own business and also await, with some anxiety, whatever new changes they have in store for us next year!

I do often wonder how many of the Ebay chiefs have ever actually sold anything on their own site.

REG

[muffmasterh]

Yes I suspect that would be just too much work, plus ebay have the advantage of paypal.

Nonetheless if ebay want to go down the amazon rout maybe they could be persuaded to set up a subsiduary 2nd hand site, as if they care what we think though ;-(

I have done as you suggested on the post Reg and tonight I will make my first listings in that format, lets ee if they kick them off!!