eBay uses unfriendly politics against Sellers (high fees..) but does not improve itself. Agree?

[langac]

Hello community,

eBay uses unfriendly politics against Sellers - charging high fees, rules and conditions are extremely complicated and non-transparent, you never know what final fee you will be paying at the end.  Web is so user-unfriendly for sellers that it cant be worse. Plus, eBay does not improve itself - the customer care is just terrible for a long time and they do nothing about it. They do nothing about crazy complexity of different options on their website instead of making it simple and easy. They do nothing about to unite fees for every seller (same transparent easy calculated fees for every seller) but they care about taking their high fees asap. What is your opinion? Do you agree or am I wrong? I am very upset on eBay and would switch to a different platform asap if there would be an alternative. Do you know any alternative website with a decent user base? Thank you.

[doc-holmes]

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@langac wrote:

We have 3 marketplaces (worth mentioning) with 0% fees in the Czech Republic. They charge you only for adds - listings on the top etc. but you do not have to pay it. Unfortunatelly, eBay went so high with fees that even I am able to sell it for more on eBay, I get less or same like when I sell it in a small czech market (10 million people). I see future in Vinted. It could be a platform without the issues and non sense fees that eBay has.

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If there is a marketplace offering the the exact same thing as ebay with 0 fees, it would be silly not to use them instead. 

[lacemaker3]

More to the story from OP's other thread (involving listing as a private seller on eBay Germany, with zero selling fees, but then had to pay international fees):

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/eBay-charged-me-crazy-international-fee-even-it-should-be-zero...

[langac]

You are right, I am in the process of finding the best platform for my needs. I hoped it will be eBay but I came to a conclusion that eBay just exploit its dominant position on the market but the overall quality is hell low. High fees and low service. What the hell..

[youn2240]

I find eBay easy to use as a seller. I take a few pictures then I decide what I want to charge for the item then when it sells I put a piece of bubble wrap around it and put that in a box then I tape the box closed slap on a label and get it to the post office. not too complicated unless I want to make it that way.  no I won't go to another site I have never heard of lol. I'll give the new site a few years to see if they are going to overtake eBay (hasn't happened yet!)

[stuff4divas]

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@youn2240 wrote:

I find eBay easy to use as a seller. I take a few pictures then I decide what I want to charge for the item then when it sells I put a piece of bubble wrap around it and put that in a box then I tape the box closed slap on a label and get it to the post office. not too complicated unless I want to make it that way.  no I won't go to another site I have never heard of lol. I'll give the new site a few years to see if they are going to overtake eBay (hasn't happened yet!)

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@youn2240  and don't forget about the free shipping LOL 😂🤣

[youn2240]

free shipping is always the key! 

[mtgraves7984]

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@langac wrote:

I am sorry but it is not a truth there are comments from the eBay CS, I am sure about it. There are accounts of eBay CS that solves the customer issues but they are hidden behind some user profile. When you check some of the profiles above you can see, they are so active that they would do nothing than solving someones problems on eBay forum for free ... which is non-sense.

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@langac 

It's called selflessness. I quit selling here during Spring of 2024, but I've still got experience to share. Glad you found us.

[langac]

It is one of the reason why eBay Customer Service is a team of decadent poets. They're drowning in alcohol and you guys keep these lost souls above the water. You are heroes of community forum! 

[pastimpressions]

My friend,

You just made a solid case for Ebay right here although I am quite certain it was unintended.

Surely, if it was so easy to do at all (let alone much better), it would have already been done long ago & you would already have been there (and maybe some long-time ebayers as well?)

Just a thought for the windmill of our minds.

[mam98031]

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@langac wrote:

Hello community,

eBay uses unfriendly politics against Sellers - charging high fees, rules and conditions are extremely complicated and non-transparent, you never know what final fee you will be paying at the end.  Web is so user-unfriendly for sellers that it cant be worse. Plus, eBay does not improve itself - the customer care is just terrible for a long time and they do nothing about it. They do nothing about crazy complexity of different options on their website instead of making it simple and easy. They do nothing about to unite fees for every seller (same transparent easy calculated fees for every seller) but they care about taking their high fees asap. What is your opinion? Do you agree or am I wrong? I am very upset on eBay and would switch to a different platform asap if there would be an alternative. Do you know any alternative website with a decent user base? Thank you.

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The only thing that fluctuates the FVF is sales tax.  Except if you run auctions.  But if you run auctions this has been an issue for you since day 1 since you don't know what the auction might sell for.

There are complaints on these threads on a daily basis about some change Ebay has made they don't like or one they need to learn more about since Ebay doesn't announce all the changes that they make.  

Ebay is a complex site for seller.  That is for certain.  Over the years it has gotten more and more complicated because they have to have more and more policies due to how the site has grown and how things change in the world around us.  

Fees haven't changed since they a few months before they started onboarding sellers to Managed Payments in 2020.  At least not in most categories.  The most recent change was for the per transaction fee to be 30 cents for sales under $10 and 40 cents for those over $10.

What happens is that there are some seller that use Promoted listings and they choose how much more they are willing to pay for getting a sale.  That isn't Ebay raising your fees.  That is the seller selecting a percentage they are willing to pay on top of their regular fees if they get a sale.

Ebay isn't the cheapest site to sell on nor is it the most expensive either.  If you are considering going elsewhere, make sure you do your homework on those other sites.  You can absolutely find other sites that have less fees, but likely you will have less sales too.  Then there are other sites that will cost more, but if you can increase your sales, that could be a good thing too.  Just do your homework so you know what you are getting into.  Fees are not the most important thing about another site.

[albertabrightalberta]

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@langac wrote:

It is one of the reason why eBay Customer Service is a team of decadent poets. They're drowning in alcohol and you guys keep these lost souls above the water. You are heroes of community forum! 

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That's your best post yet, @langac !

[fbusoni]

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@langac wrote:

You are right, I am in the process of finding the best platform for my needs. I hoped it will be eBay but I came to a conclusion that eBay just exploit its dominant position on the market but the overall quality is hell low. High fees and low service. What the hell..

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@langac 

Of course eBay exploits its dominant position...  there would be something wrong if eBay did not do so.   Did you know that the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989?  

eBay has many serious problems; we have written about these for a long time and if you spend some time reading the posts (including dozens that I have written), you will understand that many people here in the forums who do well on this platform are simply adults who understand that nothing in life is free. 

I do not know what sort of world you expect to live in, but you are not special, and you will not find anyone on eBay to hold your hand and spoon feed you.  For these reasons, I seriously doubt that you will find a platform that is suitable for your "needs."

If you experience "low service," then that is your fault;  eBay does not have time for the sort of individual coddling that you seem to desire.

And no, no one here works for eBay.   I suspect that the reason you think so is that you are simply inexperienced  and cannot imagine how others manage to succeed in such an environment.

I've been selling on eBay for 25 years, I am retired, and enjoy helping others on the forums.   My favorite thing to do here is to help correct misperceptions of reality.   😅

[mam98031]

@langac 

What are you comparing Ebay to in order to determine that the fees here are too high?  Too high compared to what?

[lacemaker3]

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@mam98031 wrote:

@langac 

What are you comparing Ebay to in order to determine that the fees here are too high?  Too high compared to what?

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@mam98031,

OP posted an item for sale on eBay Germany as a private seller, to take advantage of the free selling (no insertion or final value fees). However, "free selling" only applies for transactions that stay on eBay Germany; if the item is shipped to another country (in this case, Italy) then eBay Germany charges 5% for the International Fee. (The link is in the thread linked to below.)

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@lacemaker3 wrote here:

More to the story from OP's other thread (involving listing as a private seller on eBay Germany, with zero selling fees, but then had to pay international fees):

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/eBay-charged-me-crazy-international-fee-even-it-should-be-zero...

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OP also promoted their listing, so they also had to pay 4.00% for advertising fees:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/eBay-charged-me-crazy-international-fee-even-it-should-be-zero...

Actually, OP was [only] charged 4.2% international fees, instead of 5.0%, and on that thread, they were complaining that they couldn't find out why they were charged 4.2%.

There were lots of other screenshots posted, showing other amounts for international fees, but they were for Export sellers or other situations, while OP had clearly posted on eBay Germany as a Private Seller, so they should have been charged 5.0%.

Nobody has been able to explain why they were charged less than that (4.2%).

[stuff4divas]

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@fbusoni wrote:

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@langac wrote:

You are right, I am in the process of finding the best platform for my needs. I hoped it will be eBay but I came to a conclusion that eBay just exploit its dominant position on the market but the overall quality is hell low. High fees and low service. What the hell..

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@langac 

Of course eBay exploits its dominant position...  there would be something wrong if eBay did not do so.   Did you know that the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989?  

eBay has many serious problems; we have written about these for a long time and if you spend some time reading the posts (including dozens that I have written), you will understand that many people here in the forums who do well on this platform are simply adults who understand that nothing in life is free. 

I do not know what sort of world you expect to live in, but you are not special, and you will not find anyone on eBay to hold your hand and spoon feed you.  For these reasons, I seriously doubt that you will find a platform that is suitable for your "needs."

If you experience "low service," then that is your fault;  eBay does not have time for the sort of individual coddling that you seem to desire.

And no, no one here works for eBay.   I suspect that the reason you think so is that you are simply inexperienced  and cannot imagine how others manage to succeed in such an environment.

I've been selling on eBay for 25 years, I am retired, and enjoy helping others on the forums.   My favorite thing to do here is to help correct misperceptions of reality.   😅

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@fbusoni   Well said!! 😌