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GreedBay to raise fees again, when will the insanity end?
Summary: Participants in the discussion are expressing dissatisfaction with recent fee increases on an online selling platform. One participant argues that while promotional fees are labeled as voluntary, they feel necessary due to a drop in organic impressions without them. Concerns are also raised about fee calculation changes for ads in certain regions, indicating potential difficulties in maintaining revenue growth. Another participant discusses how these costs compound, impacting sellers' profits. The sentiment reflects a broader frustration with the platform's management and its evolving fee structure, which some believe is unsustainable.
I've been making this post every January/February for years. eBay raises fees again. Match that with unreasonable rate increases from the post office and looking back just a few years ago, between the rising costs of inventory, shipping, supplies, and fees, you have to sell twice as much to make the same amount of money while executives are rolling in the dough. Anything to appease stockholders who eBay prioritizes over their sellers. If only there was legitimate competition. When eBay first switched from PayPal to Managed Payments, fees were 11.7% & 30 cents. Now they are 12.7% & 40 cents. Just a few more years and fees will be over 20% and it will cost $12 to ship a 4 oz item through USPS. Enjoy the last of it before it is no longer profitable. Buyers won't pay more for your items before your fees are higher. And if eBay ever starts buyer fees like a certain other platform did, we are all doomed.
duffy4444
·1 year agoGosh almighty... If my attitude with a company was bad enough to call it "Greedbay", I certainly wouldn't be staying here year after year. With your listings still up, I think there is a bit of chronic malcontent syndrome in play here, which makes me think the Op's post is more of a matter of attention-getting than anything else.
If I thought that a company was greedy, I wouldn't stick around. But then that's just me.
Cheers, Duffy
chapeau-noir
·1 year agoI've purchased from TEMU and have also read interview with TEMU suppliers. There are a lot of small suppliers on there, more than a few had been struggling to stay afloat due to TEMU's depressed pricing strategies to break into the US market, but felt it to be an investment in the future. Merchandise comes from everywhere there as well as the big factories, but the commonality has been to avoid exceeding de minimis as well as taking advantage of small package rates.
When I've ordered from time to time, I've gotten little packets straight from China in a few weeks. That the buying public demands fast shipping always is, of course, a myth- if the goods are cheap enough, they'll take the slow shipping. Service was prompt, communication was good, returns were easy.
However, they've begun shipping to warehouses in the US - my last set of packages came together from a US address. If I could find the items I get from TEMU directly from US sellers, I'd do that, but I have not been able to.
Amazon is trying to get in on the game with Haul, but I haven't been following this all that closely.
So that's what I know.
gurlcat
·1 year agoI don't know why there's any talk of promotions being aimed at putting listings "at the top". That's only somewhat applicable, and only if the buyer leaves the search results in 'Best Match' view, but I suspect at this point most buyers change the sorting because promotions have caused that view's results to be the opposite of 'best match' LOL. It's ALREADY chaos, unless you change the sorting view to price, age of listing or distance.
The more useful purpose of promotion has nothing to do with the search results order; it's about getting your listings in the sponsored ad modules that show up on other sellers' listing pages.
luckythewinner
·1 year agoAnything to appease stockholders who eBay prioritizes over their sellers
Of course. Executives at a public company have a fiduciary duty to the shareholders.
GreedBay to raise fees again, when will the insanity end?
The insanity ends when enough sellers decide the fees are "insane" and refuse to list on eBay - and that gets the attention of the executives and the shareholders.
So in the end, it is up to sellers to end eBay's fee increases by not selling here, so ... you go first 🙂
inhawaii
·1 year agoCharging 10% FVF is too little and they would be losing money because they could be earning more.
Charging 25% FVF is too much and they would probably lose sellers.
There is a "sweet spot" somewhere in the middle.
I'm sure ebay figures that sweet spot is 13.25%.
vip_tickets_uk
·1 year agoThanks for the content
gurlcat
·1 year agoWelp I see jewelry didn't raise at all, but even if it had it wouldn't make anywhere near of a difference to get all wigged out about. I just can't see how anyone could be outraged over a maximum of ONE-THIRD OF ONE PERCENT raise. Come on yall. An extra 35 cents for every $100, AT MOST. Seriously?
By the way, if you have Top Rated status but don't cash in on the 10% discount because you think refusing returns is a real thing, and/or you can't get a package shipped in 24 hours, but you're whining about this ... you have some real issues with prioritization.
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoThe 10 percent discount is a real life saver on here. It saves a lot in the end with the fees.
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoYou know, I never ever understand why so many sellers put these EXTENDED handling times on here. Nor the drag your butt to get the item to the post office. You snooze you loose.
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoMaybe jewelry is one of those categories where successful sellers are forced to pay outrageous promotion fees. I would pass over categories where promotion is effectively mandatory.
gurlcat
·1 year agoTotally depends on the jewelry. If the piece has a highly desirable factor that is text-searchable like designer name, solid gold content, or even a popular style or era name, not only will it show up in search results without promotion; some buyers will likely have search alerts set up for it. I can sell a gold piece (priced right) in under 10 minutes with zero promotion, rare Trifari or Shreiner piece in under an hour.
But pieces that are pure 'eye candy' (beautiful but not made of precious content or having a big name mark), then search is virtually worthless and the thumbnail image is everything, so then yes promotion is necessary. But I don't apply more than half of the suggested ad rate, so usually about 6%.
12345jamesstamps
·1 year agoSo funny!
I sell jewelry from time to time for quick cash...Like the pawn shop. I got 'express payouts'.
Anything of gold or platinum...when I list the items...which for me would take maybe 20 minutes because I want to get all the specific right of the item...darn if it would get sold in a few minutes after I list it as buy it now.
It's as if these buyers are on here 24 / 7 looking for a bargain or sale.
It is a good category to have auctions on...and great photos are a must sometimes using a ruler or a coin against the piece for sale or auction.
gurlcat
·1 year agoLOL yes just recently I listed some scrap gold and then did my usual quick view of the completed listing to make sure it was good, then went back to my Listings page and the scrap gold one was missing .... sold already! My phone didn't even make the CHING sound for another 30 seconds or so. And I had the scrap priced just baaaarely under melt value too. But I don't see how the buyer could have calculated that fast!
These stackers be HONGRY!!! 🤣
nuclearomen
·1 year agouhhuh... take into perspective 3 years ago when they said fees would not increase with MP enrollment - then not more then 4 months later FVF raised, then again following year, and 2 more times since then, and take into account the extra fees like PL and additional increase installed this past year with transaction fee, then shipping fee, that $0.35 has become $2.35 -$3.25 FVF increase within 2 years. FVF when started MP was 10.5% if i remember right.
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoWhen managed Payments first came out they were able to really get a grip on profitability during that time. However, that profitability began shrinking as more and more websites began to compete and take away their business, THIS especially after the pandemic. So this is a matter of keeping this website online and functioning. I get it. Just wish they could get a grip on this ad thang they do that has got to be increasing prices on here and driving people away even more. I certainly do not know how some of these sellers can afford those very hefty ad fees.
nuclearomen
·1 year ago@vintagecraze50
The PL is the issue spotlight because while they are making money from it, I think they are failing in the PPC portion they were hoping to have much better returns on. But as I said (and many others) PPC isn't really for small sellers with one or 2 of an item, for it "pay off" need good inventory of an item and to have obtained it at a real low cost where profit is reachable no matter what. Standard PL while many decided to end that and go organic, I can tell you takes a real long time for sales to "come back" once used it and then ditch it as I know several sellers who did stop using it took them quite sometime for sales to be even worth while.
Which bring me to: @mam98031
The PL is not madatory true, partly, if want to make sales, at least enough to keep afloat, minimal PL election of 2% is needed, though really all have tried and it's not enough, depending on category of course, but for most 2% is ignored. I consider PL elections part of the entire fee, because without it can't make sales, again, I tried, many times, doesn't work, not for my category and I believe @zamo-zuan can identify with this from his sales also. The 12.7% becomes 15.7% + trans fee + shipping fee really look at minimal 16.5% on sales.
mam98031
·1 year agoEbay's FVF in most categories back before they started onboarding sellers into MP was 10.2% to Ebay and 2.9% to PayPal. Total fee 13.10%.
In August 2020 Ebay went to a simplified fee for sellers in Managed Payments. That fee was 13.25% for most categories and as sellers were onboarded to MP, this rate applied. Onboarding took until late 2021.
For what it is worth, some 4.5 years later, my FVF in the categories I sell in are still 13.25%. The only fee that changed for me in almost 5 years was the per transaction fee went up from 30 to 40 cents.
Other categories may have different experiences, this is only my experience in crafting categories.
As for fees for using various tools that Ebay offers, such as Promoted listings, those are all optional and not part of or should not be part of a conversation regarding Ebay's basic selling fees, which are NOT optional.
gurlcat
·1 year agoShow me where "they said fees would not increase" -what, EVER? Also no you don't remember right. FVF was 10.5% BEFORE MP, and 2.9% to Paypal!
And the point I was making had no intention of taking into "perspective" anything -it was about a maximum fee raise of 0.35% for this particular update, which has triggered a bunch of outraged posts as if it's 5% or something. 🤣
nuclearomen
·1 year ago@gurlcat
You may not remember but they indeed said fees would not increase! Can't show you what isn't there anymore obviously, but most anyone will remember this.
"For this particular update", actually it's several dollars on a sale for anyone not getting TRP discount, more then that if they don't have a store, not everyone has store or is TRP discounted.
gurlcat
·1 year agoNo company with rising costs like everybody else in the world would ever promise to never raise their fees, that's ridiculous.
For THIS fee raise to amount to "several dollars" difference, the item would have to be a couple thousand bucks. Your highest-priced item is $230. So let's say you don't have a store or TRS discount. Before the raise your FVF on that item was $30.48. Now it's $31.28.
nuclearomen
·1 year agothe mention of this went over your head several posts back, not wasting time trying to explain everything to you, you didn't understand the point to the whole thing and just decided to envelope it with this update to make some point no one cares about...we'll just end it there.
yeah I can do math, remember I explained to you how the 2.8% was figured when you argued with @mr_lincoln again, past you by the points I was making, that's OK, but again I'm not going rounds to keep explaining them.
gurlcat
·1 year agoI gave you a thumbs up because I felt like you could use one. But why are you tagging Mr. Lincoln? 🤣 I didn't "argue" with him in the slightest.
shirla2005
·1 year agoEBay raising fees will never stop. Just using common sense.
soh.maryl
·1 year agoWhat "certain other platform" has buyer fees? Guess I've not encountered them yet, but would like to steer clear.
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoMercari. I believe. Poshmark tried it and it was very very bad so they jumped ship on that one.
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@soh.maryl @vintagecraze50 and on February 4th you can add eBay UK to the list as they are set to introduce buyer fees for items sold by private sellers.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/paying-items/buyer-protection-fee?id=5594
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoYes, I guess they are kinda used to that in the UK, NOT HERE THOUGH.
rugerskick
·1 year agoIf they were making ebay a better place to sell and improving conditions for sellers, at least they could point to tangible reasons to justify it.
But they aren't.
stainlessenginecovers
·1 year agoSo $12 on $100 sale 4 years ago.
Now $13.10 on $100 sale.
1.1% ($1.10) over 4 years and this is a Big Deal??
It's a BARGAIN!!
Just try spending $10k up front to open a B/M store. Then, sell $5k worth of stuff to make the $2k monthly bills and make NO money- unless you 'exceed' that $5k.
I only wish my Medical Insurance, Auto Insurance, Grocery Bill, Electric, Gas, Water only went up 1.1% over the past 4 years (but those things are up 10% to 30%).
siamjane8
·1 year agoWe all need I was going to happen but it still stinks because we are getting far less for our fees. Where is the money going?... Certainly not being reinvested into the platform ..... Must be getting syphoned into bonuses.
No real improvements just design changes that confuse and irritate users. More woke...more broke.
They spent years undermining the sellers and the platform as a whole with promoted listings and advertising and while doing absolutely nothing to o bring in more buyers or grow the platform.
International sales have decreased by 200% since they took over from Pitney bowed!
They subsidized the specialty categories by robbing Peter to pay Paul but the rest of us saw no increase in sales or visibility...
I'm a fan of showing people what they search for.... Make it simple to list and buy, and reward the best sellers for doing a great job and bringing in more buyers.
Or... Just raise fees...lol- lazy.
Btw with commission based fees- ebay has inflation and fiscal growth baked right in( shipping and sales tax and rising prices)...so technically there should never be a "fee increase" unless they actual improve or purchase or spend money for infrastructure.
As we have all said- we see no improvements or spending that warrants fee increases
nuclearomen
·1 year ago@siamjane8
according to the notification the increases are:
"To support these and future enhancements, we’ll be adjusting final value fees in most categories starting February 14, 2025..."
they believe we are getting something for the increases, but we all know what results from their "enhancements" and "features" aside from that, the money they pay their employees are too much for the horrid job they do most of the time anyways, the change should be reduction in employee staff and salaries not increases to fees of any kind.
The result of the increased fee isn't much, but when is it enough? On sale made this morn if made it with the new increase the FVF charged would have been extra $3+ even though with TRP discount would have resulted in only $0.17 more - $0.17 is money, that's more then make on most PPC PL ads!
urban_picker
·1 year agoWith more fees we get...
A website that works less and less by the year IE "server failures" Buy It Now button missing, offers erroring out and not working for months on end. Less customer service, lowest sales ever in my 23 years of doing this, Ai search that brings up what you are not looking for so you have to go to google to find ebay items. And on and on an on...
Sad they way the site and sellers are being abused by the powers at be.
12345jamesstamps
·1 year agoAnd in return we get artificial intelligence and less customer service.
usa_vintage
·1 year agoSo out of every $100 Ebay takes $15. That is bad enough but in addition to that IF someone pays $100 in ebay collected sales tax (money you never see) you get charged $15 for that as well. Compounded with packaging & postage cost you will be lucky to put 50% of the sale in your pocket.
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoAll those costs need to calculated into your price if you are not doing that you are doing it wrong.
newton-industries
·1 year agoNo, if you sell something for $100, and it has $100 sales tax, and it has $100 shipping cost, that is $300 dollars total, so you pay $45 in fees ($15 x 3). That is a 45% fee on the price of the item. That is just wrong. eBay needs to fix this, it is not right.
zamo-zuan
·1 year agoThis is where the problem lies. Not sure if this is common knowledge, but most wholesalers of items that have MAP pricing, typically can purchase items for -40% off of sales price.
But what happens when 15% of that sale price goes to FVF, another 10-15% to advertising, and then charging shipping?
lakefor94
·1 year agoI reckon those items need to have a substantial value to them and/or can sell a lot of them consistently.
Could not imagine having to pay eBay another 15% in advertising though I suppose with certain products, the beast has to be fed.
Sounds like it could be brutal.
Not buying from distributors like I used to from 2017 thru 2022. If I buy anything now, I like to see the markup at 100% for starters and only doing 2% PL's.
Then again, I am not much of a player in online sales. Just having some fun, staying busy.
lucas92911
·Jul 15, 2026 at 7:22 AMI refuse to do promoted listings as I have found that non-promoted often sell better than promoted. Promoted hasnt provided a difference that was noticeable and they took even more $$. I had a message not too long ago that someone can do a search and my item fits all the criteria, but it may never be seen. What the H*** is that? So wrong.
nuclearomen
·1 year agothey say the increases are to support their changes, well no one I know asked for those changes, that's all on them as far as I'm concerned, like majority of their "updates" - usually resulting in less sales, glitches, and messing up 10 other things in the process and yet somehow they feel we need pay them more $$ on FVF for all that + PL fees (sellers promoting at high percentages should rethink those elections now!)
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoMore seller protection was one of them. I really want to see that kick in real good with this scammer that is claiming the ole empty box on me with this almost 200 buck jewelry item as I speak.
iamalwaysright
·1 year agoDidn't you read the Seller Update? They aren't raising fees, they are adjusting them. 🤣
And here so many sellers were so happy about ebay paying buyers out of ebay's pocket to "go away" even if the buyer clearly lost the claim or shouldn't have received a refund. Where do you think that extra money comes from? You surely didn't think ebay was actually going to reach into their own pockets did you?
zamo-zuan
·1 year agoThis has been expected ever since they went the absolute wrong direction.
I'd been saying for years, the focus on pushing ads for more and more revenue was just creating a bubble that will pop eventually. It brings the eBay prices up higher than the competition, while offering NOTHING for the buyer except a search engine that performs even worse.
Now that's stalling and they can't push it further, so they're going back to regular fee increases. But that has the SAME problem, only difference is they don't need to act shady and come up with fake statistics to make it look like the fees are going anywhere, as they have to do with the ads.
But this is all at the detriment of marketplace health. eBay as a marketplace is falling behind more and more. THAT is the way they should be increasing revenue, by actually bringing in MORE BUYERS.
They wonder why they aren't bringing them in while spending millions in advertising? Advertising might bring eyes, but when they're pushing ad fees in the double digits combining with FVF's that make the prices higher than the competition, that advertising spending is a WASTE!
Not to mention the fact that they've also been advertising broken features (like the motors vehicle search tool), but that's a whole different story.
The excuse of "prices are going up everywhere" doesn't really cut it, when that means the prices of products go up on eBay as well, and eBay gets a percentage to begin with, so eBay's profits would already be increasing even without doing anything.
But they are so far off track they don't even know what direction is right anymore. They don't need more ad fees, or more final value fees, to generate income. That's short term income. They need long term income, which comes with offering customers a reason to actually shop and buy here. When their prices are higher, the shipping is worse, the search is worse, returns system is worse, what reason do customers have to come to eBay? Who in their right mind would pay MORE for inferior service?
eBay's niche was always the prices, but they squandered that advantage, and now made themselves reliant on predatory fees, they've backed themselves in to a corner. There's GOING to be a significant drop now. The question is when. That bubble will pop. Question is will they do it now and refocus on creating a healthy marketplace? Or will they push until the bubble is even bigger, and makes a bigger mess in the end when it does pop?
my-cottage-books-and-antiques
·1 year ago@zamo-zuan @valueaddedresource
As I've discussed at length on other threads, the recent change in fee calculation for General Ads in Germany is a pretty clear indicator (especially as it follows so many other ad changes) that ebay is very worried that ad revenue growth is going to become harder and harder to attain. (And, sadly, I continue to predict that before year's end, ads will have invaded ebay stores directly).
The FVF fee increase, while not surprising, is just further confirmation that even ebay management has finally begun to realize that the might be reaching the upper limits of ad revenue growth. And the lack of real GMV growth since the beginning of Jamie's "Focus Category" strategy is also a pretty clear indicator that the Focus Category strategy is simply not an actual growth strategy....
We long ago passed the point where ebay should have realized that it NEEDS to focus on overall sales growth, instead of finding new ways to extract more and more from its seller/buyer base (with roughly the same dollar volume of sales).
ebay has been rapidly losing ground to its competitors. If ecommerce growth had been stagnant overall for the last 4 years, that would be one thing. But ebay's GMV growth has been stagnant, while ecommerce GMV itself just keeps growing.
ebay doesn't report Q4 until the end of February. This Q4 was yet another year in which Jamie refused to run a true Holiday Marketing Campaign for the site. It will certainly be interesting to see how ebay did. This is supposed to be the year of ebay's Big 30th Anniversary bash....I do wonder what that will end up looking like.
nuclearomen
·1 year ago@my-cottage-books-and-antiques
and while they decide to raise FVF's to "make up" for the difference of their "growth" in ads, PL elections will decrease among good percentage of ad users so they can "make up" for the difference in FVF charged - it's a catch 22 for ebay and it happens everytime they install fee increases, it's no win for them. As for ad rates in stores...let them try, see how many sellers end subscriptions - I remember many many sellers whom decreased their store tiers or just closed their stores with last increases, just watch what would happen if they try ad fees in stores!
gurlcat
·1 year agoIt sounds like you misunderstood what My-cottage was talking about. They didn't mean that stores would start being charged ad fees, but that people's ads would begin appearing on store pages. Currently your store is where only YOUR items are shown, your personal space, but the concern is that it could become crowded with competing sellers' thumbnails because of promotions they are running, just like your individual listings are already crowded.
I could be naively underestimating eBay's desperation, but I kinda doubt this will happen. Store pages aren't as popular for buyer viewing as anyone hoped when they first came out because they're rather poorly designed. But I'm sure a lot of sellers are proud of them anyway, so the invasion of other sellers' ads might just outrage some enough to downgrade or end their subscriptions like you're talking about, while probably not generating much additional ad revenue for eBay. In short, I think it would backfire and hopefully they know that.
nuclearomen
·1 year ago@gurlcat
ok yeah, I overlooked that a tad, but, even ads appearing on stores, listings isn't enough? take up 80% of a listing 95% on mobile devices. Store Subscribers deserve something for that, we pay for that "space" after all.
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoOK good. So where do they extract more sales growth. Anybody here an expert on that with some better ideas than them. LOL!!!!
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoThe lack of prior customers on here and more new customers and the economy in the past few years has probably been a factor. But the competition is probably the most significant factor.
zamo-zuan
·1 year ago100% agree.
2020 wasn't the worst year for growth, for the first 2/3 at least. They had changed focus away from the old focus on ads they were doing in 2018, as it simply didn't work. They had a ton of traffic from the covid influx. It was a great opportunity for them as sales and traffic truly did increase.
But in order to keep the stocks from dropping after that influx, that's when the desperation kicked in. It was 9/14/2020 when I reported on here that promoted traffic suddenly dropped, and eBay confirmed it was a "test". But after experimenting to see what happened, basically we had to spend 2% in order to get the same amount of traffic that 1% used to give - this was COMPLETELY unannounced.
A year later, this became the norm for everyone, when they raised the minimum ad investment to 2%. But this was the beginning of desperate moves for sustaining revenue growth, and quite frankly, dishonest business. It's completely unfair to do changes like that to only certain sellers - while other competing sellers did NOT yet have to increase investment to sustain traffic. We had to sustain extra losses to advertising, while other eBay sellers did not, in order to receive the SAME amount of traffic as before. It's not like paying was worth the increase... They just made it an obligation in order to get the traffic. 2% to "turn the switch on" instead of 1%, and we didn't actually have any better performance for paying that extra percentage. It wouldn't have been so bad if you actually got something in return for what you had to pay for on here...
And that has been the trend since then. I have no idea how they haven't realized it wasn't a sustainable strategy, since from the very beginning, most of us on here were able to see it, as would anyone with actual experience or understanding of how eBay works. Or even just common sense.
I actually question eBay's GMV numbers as a whole, at least in our category. We have had a record low year in 2024, our December was less than 40% of the amount of sales of every past year we've ever had. The drop from Nov to Dec was around -27%. Yet eBay's statistics had said that our sales ranking in all of Parts & Accessories (not just our direct category, but all of P&A which has well over 100 categories) had IMPROVED by > 300 from Nov to Dec....?
If those numbers are even real, that paints a VERY BAD picture of how things are doing for eBay, if our worst year ever with under half of our usual sales had IMPROVED our rankings. What kind of suffering must everyone else be going through...?
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoYes and yes. The strategy in the future should be how to create CUSTOMER LOYALTY when there are so many choices for people. They need to rethink what to do to make that happen.
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoSo people flock to Amazon because of their fast fast shipping, warehouse situation and perks like the credit you get back from using their PRIME CARD. Ebay does have credit back on their chargecard so that’s a perk. What other perks might they try to induce more loyalty? You got any ideas?
nuclearomen
·1 year agolet's not call them "perks" - the cost of Prime membership has risen several times over the past couple of years and not getting any "better" service for it. Majority of merchandise in Amazon warehouses are damaged because they can't stow (store) them properly + the time limits they enact on their Stow employees make it near impossible to find slots to place stuff without jamming them in the spaces to begin with. If by chance it's not damaged when stowed, it most certainly will be when it's shipped because they throw everything into a box 10x to large for whatever they send and their "protection" is a few air bags. Top all that off, Prime isn't as "fast" as use to be either, can take Amazon up to 3 days to process and send orders now, even with Prime. These are the kind of downfalls you get when company decides to store/process/and ship most things under their roof, there is no care to products and employees don't much give a hoot (I worked for them, I know!). Buyer do have an enormous advantage on ebay where at least the quality is up the seller, and I believe most sellers care about quality.
esg-enterprises
·1 year ago@zamo-zuan Zamo, I , like most, have no problem paying more for a superior product, the kicker is ebay search is the worst in existence. Keyword spamming has decimated motors and ebay does nothing to improve.
Yet, they wanna squeeze more out of a platform that continues to decline rather than putting the work in, much of which should be common sense, and could be implemented immediately.
newton-industries
·1 year agoYeah, eBay needs to stop the fee increases, the fee is already almost double because they charge a fee on the shipping cost....which is not revenue, so the actual fee ebay charges is at least 18%, to almost 30% if it is an expensive item to ship. If eBay wants more revenue, they should LOWER fees, stop the robbery "promoted ads", and just bring in more customers...more sales = more fees. Higher prices = less sales and less sellers. Just stop, don't get greedy, be happy with what you had. 10-15% TOTAL fee (including the shipping cost) is reasonable. Just stop ebay. Please, don't ruin a good thing.
inhawaii
·1 year agoI agree!
And sellers (not just on ebay) need to stop raising their prices!
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoI will start easing my prices when the product I sell GOLD starts inching down and not going up. So far it’s continuing to skyrocket and trump fear is increasing it. I cannot replace inventory as the cost of product keeps going up up up, and that may be an issue with many other products as well for other sellers. Fees go up along with this, then price has to up a little as well. None of us are in this to continue to make less money.
gloryglorygifts
·1 year agoI have the same issue with Sterling Silver. Up, up and away.
gloryglorygifts
·1 year agoIf they lower the fees on sales, they WILL increase the prices of the stores. They do have to make their money somehow. It cost money to bring in more sales. Ads in the real world of t.v. and media are not cheap.
lucas92911
·Jul 15, 2026 at 7:27 AMYes!
maidensvintage
·1 year agoThank you for this excellent post. If I had the wherewithal to start up a competing company I would do so in a heartbeat. What I cannot understand with all of these major corporations nowadays is where all the money all goes, other than in executive's pockets. How is it possible to be eBay Needs MORE money, while already collecting an incredibly large sum of money from their overpriced commissions, cost per click promotions, internal promotions and random fees? Every single time I run a cost per click promotion, it continues to run for up to 24 hours AFTER I canceled it. If I have a budget of $20, I somehow end up with $40 in clicks, doubling my actually non-existent budget. I have tried everything to get more views, and all I am doing is spending money I do not have while getting no return. Last month I ran a cost per click promotion for a few days that cost me over $100. My sales? $249 BEFORE free shipping and ebay fees. The most disheartening part of all of this is knowing long-term sellers like myself bring our A-game to eBay and put countless amounts of time and effort into our listings. Our customer service is top-notch. Our packaging is stellar. Our products are sought after. Our prices are way below market and most of us aren't making any money. If anything we are losing money or breaking even, just to generate cash flow. A layman might say "then do something else," which is not the right answer, or a fair one. Longevity should mean something to eBay. Top rated sellers should mean something to eBay. But these things don't matter to eBay. They have become like every other huge corporation. They want top notch employees, which is more or less what we are to them, but they don't want to pay us a reasonable salary for our work. The world has become so ugly and greedy, and I am an ultra-positive minded person. The fact that I am starting to spew tells me everything about the state of things. I cannot remain silent anymore, fearing retribution of some sort. Companies used to listen to the people who drove their businesses. Now we are silenced via shadow bans. as you said, the cost of shipping is off the charts, along with the price of packaging supplies and even gas needed to get to and from the post office, FedEx and UPS. The big companies are the only ones making money off of our efforts, and it is incredibly frustrating and discouraging. I tend to sell high-end items, but I am also doing so far below market value in most cases and still can't turn a dime. Like all sellers who have been here for over 20 years, I miss the way eBay used to be, when we would simply get seen by interested buyers without having to spend 40 to 50% of our selling price to do so. And even then, it seems we can't give things away here anymore because few buyers see them. I will forever believe eBay would make far more money if they stopped with all of the needing to pay to promote and all that other garbage and went to a flat 10% commission, opening up the platform and giving all sellers visibility. I can't imagine how much more it costs them to manage all of these cost per click and percentage based promotions. The way it is currently structured is also incredibly unfair to buyers who have no idea how it all works. If I have an item priced at $50 but am not promoting it, and someone else has that identical item for $150 and is promoting it, unsuspecting buyers have no idea that they can get that same item from me for the $50 because it's shadowed. It's just greed and robbery everywhere. In the last three months on eBay I've taken in just under $20,000. My net was roughly $4000. The rest went to promotion fees (those netted out to 30-40% average, per promotion, learning CPC was the worst, costliest way to go), shipping, insurance, boxes, tape, fragile labels, printer ink, printer labels, and gas/wear and tear on my vehicle to get to and from the post office, UPS and FedEx. And why/how do we pay commissions on shipping and sales tax? How is that even ethical? It isn't. We never make our time back, which is also lost to eBay. I've got two huge storage units full of stuff and unfortunately keep looking for other avenues to sell it because eBay has gotten worse beyond anything I could've ever imagined happening here. eBay was like a happy home for years and now I feel like I'm in a foreign country, don't speak their language and have no idea how to navigate the territory without going broke. Does eBay care? No, and that's the worst part. Top rated, long-term sellers with flawless feedback should be given top visibility for all of our years of service to the company. It's disgraceful that we get nothing in return for our hard work here. Instead, the harder we work the more they take, but isn't that the corporate way nowadays?
monroe67
·1 year ago"The rest went to promotion fees (those netted out to 30-40% average, per promotion, learning CPC was the worst, costliest way to go), shipping, insurance, boxes, tape, fragile labels, printer ink, printer labels, and gas/wear and tear on my vehicle to get to and from the post office, UPS and FedEx."
Well -- it is very difficult to read the block of text that you posted. Extremely, extreeeeemely difficult.
But I've copied one sentence that I think -- just possibly -- might be a summary of your concerns. Because I don't really have the time today to spend a lot of time trying to decipher all those words strung together like that.
If you are paying 35% (the average of 30% and 40%) on average to eBay for promoting your listings, that is purely a self-inflicted fee.
Are your categories all that competitive? Do other sellers in those categories pay advertising fees in similar percentages? If you consider eBay's promoted listing fee to be an example of the "greed and robbery" that is "everywhere", why do you go there?
My selling ID tried to promote a couple listings several years ago. The listings did not sell. I do not use eBay's listing-promotion program anymore.
eBay's fees, Final Value Fees (FVFs) and promoted listings fees, and all the rest of those things you mentioned in the sentence I quoted above -- they're all deductible on your federal tax return.
Of course I have no idea of your entire financial situation, but you might benefit from consultation with an experienced federal income tax advisor and/or preparer.
inhawaii
·1 year agoGreedbay.
I get it. Greedy + ebay = Greedbay.
Very cleaver.
FYI people have been predicting the "doom" of ebay for the last 10+ years.
mr_lincoln
·1 year ago@inhawaii
LOL! Love it, there really isn't much that gets past you ...
krazzykats
·1 year agoHigher prices slow demand. An Economic strategy.
jscar59
·1 year agoStill a lot better than having a garage sale, or how about a brick and mortar store.
youn2240
·1 year agoOne day it will cost like thousand dollar to list an item here and then post office going to charge like thousand dollar to ship. It's going to cost 2000 dollar just in fees. then ebay is going to charge fees on that at 250%. Ebay been planning this all along. one day we are all going to get like twenty thousand dollar bill just for logging on. selling on ebay will be really hard if you don't use free shipping.
dbfolks166mt
·1 year agoI've been making this post every January/February for years. eBay raises fees again. Match that with unreasonable rate increases from the post office and looking back just a few years ago, between the rising costs of inventory, shipping, supplies, and fees, you have to sell twice as much to make the same amount of money while executives are rolling in the dough. Anything to appease stockholders who eBay prioritizes over their sellers. If only there was legitimate competition. When eBay first switched from PayPal to Managed Payments, fees were 11.7% & 30 cents. Now they are 12.7% & 40 cents. Just a few more years and fees will be over 20% and it will cost $12 to ship a 4 oz item through USPS. Enjoy the last of it before it is no longer profitable. Buyers won't pay more for your items before your fees are higher. And if eBay ever starts buyer fees like a certain other platform did, we are all doomed.
Of course eBay puts shareholders first. Their only goal is to maximize their value to their shareholders. Failure to do so and they won't last long. There are alternatives out there and eBay now only accounts for about 20% of my sales by volume. Buyers are also seeking alternatives which include a LOT of local forums and venues. A lot have returned to B&M stores as well.
The increases in shipping cost have probably had a greater impact on my sales on all venues where I ship items than any increases in fees. I don't see selling costs getting any cheaper no matter which ones you are looking at or talking about.
oldwestgold
·1 year agoThat's a pretty big exaggeration of a 4oz package going to $12 through the USPS. It's not even 50% of that currently. As I always say, you have free will and can mail through other delivery services, but be prepared to pay $15-$20+. No one is holding a gun to your head to mail solely through the USPS.
mr_lincoln
·1 year agoHi @secondlifetreasures-llc
I remember when a gallon of gas cost less than 50 cents ... of course my parents were paying for it back then.
You wrote: "I've been making this post every January/February for years. eBay raises fees again. ..."
Prices going up should not be any surprise but your annual rant is certainly noted. The fee increase represents about 2.8% increase (for my categories) ... well under the national inflation rate. eBay's income comes from fees and advertising ... anyone not interested in selling under the eBay fee structure has the option to stop selling or raising their prices to offset the increase in fees.
gurlcat
·1 year agoI thought the increase was only going to be a maximum of 0.35% (even less for some categories, and as little as zero increase, for a whatever the remainder of "most" means). Anyway that's what people were saying last night in this thread.
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Seller-Update-January-2025/m-p/34909885#M2518896
@valueaddedresource
valueaddedresource
·1 year ago@gurlcat keep in mind I scored wayyyy higher on the writing section of the SAT than math 😂 , but I think this may come down to the difference between percent and percentage point - I believe eBay uses the terms/symbols incorrectly, which can be cause for confusion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentage_point
gurlcat
·1 year agoWell @mr_lincoln where did you get that 2.8 figure???
mr_lincoln
·1 year ago@gurlcat
Correct my math if I am wrong:
0.35% / 12.35% = 0.0283 x 100 = 2.83% ( I rounded to 2.8%)
Should I go take a remedial math class?
nuclearomen
·1 year agoExplain how to calculate a percentage increase.
To calculate a percentage increase, subtract the original value from the new value, divide the result by the original value, and then multiply by 100
that is why I don't like the actual math if done, because it's deceiving, people take it as a whole (in this case) 2.8% , if that was case FVF would become 15.15%, instead of knowing it's 2.8% of one percent, serves better to just say a 0.35% increase.
mr_lincoln
·1 year ago@nuclearomen
Yes, a lot depends on how one looks at the numbers and their relationship ...
bashort
·1 year agoHow much do you think that the total ebay fee increase over 1 year ago would be if you factored in the automatic increase for inflation that a % based fee generates on top of the additional 2.8%?
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoIf you are not getting value for the fees you pay, many are not, find a place where you do get value and sell there. If there is no alternative, consider another way to earn money.
Victimhood is unbecoming, and no longer brings the sympathy it once did.
maidensvintage
·1 year agoThere is a vast difference between victimhood and sharing information. If we all stay silent and just take the hits, nothing will ever change in this world. I'm not thinking my voice will change anything on eBay, but I'm also not going to sit silent while they financially abuse their sellers.
bashort
·1 year agoI have experimented on a small level with promoted listings but this last % increase has made my decision, I absolutely will not pay for "promoted" listings. Going right now to end the ones that I have running. If I can not sell it without paying extra I will just trash it.
ebay can and will do as they want but so can everyone else, remember that on % based fees the inflation increases are automatic.
maidensvintage
·1 year agoPromoted listings have basically bankrupted me, because my net cost versus sales ended up being between 30 and 40% when mistakenly (and desperately) trying CPC and promoted listings . It's gut wrenching, but I don't know how else to turn cash on eBay anymore. I feel myself giving up on the platform, but it's hard to do when I've invested so much. I suppose I'm caught up a bit in the sunk cost theory and need to figure out another way to survive out here in the Wild West.
bgt_masters_of_tiki_d
·1 year agoThat is something that is not talked about enough. When you charge a percentage based fee structure you technically shouldn't have to keep raising the rates you charge because percentages should be keeping up with the inflation of the goods being sold.
It would really only make the most sense if the gross total sales has gone down and instead of trimming fat they have to keep the lights on doing something else and they chose to do so by taking more from sellers. This site isn't for everyone and finding other places to sell doesn't work for everyone but if people do have that option it only makes sense to cross list items and utilize multiples sites.
mam98031
·1 year ago@bgt_masters_of_tiki_d
That is something that is not talked about enough. When you charge a percentage based fee structure you technically shouldn't have to keep raising the rates you charge because percentages should be keeping up with the inflation of the goods being sold.
That sounds good in theory, but in reality simply doesn't happen as often as you seem to think it does. I have many listings that I have priced the same today as I did a few years back. Then others the price did go up but mostly not because of Ebay fees but because my vendor had a price increase. This is usually a combination of things that cause prices to go up.