eBay's new Free P&P Policy

[Ouija]

Has anybody else been hit with the recent eBay new policy of forcing certain items to be offered with free post and packing? Just encountered this tonight

 

A complete pain. Okay, I know some sellers took the proverbial, but people with sense avoided those sellers anyway. You generally knew roughly how much an item would cost to post, especially if you'd sold things yourself, so if somebody was charging £20 to post a button you knew there was something not quite right. But forcing it to be free P&P is surely taking things too far. Wouldn't it have made more sense to limit the post and packing charges to something more realistic rather than setting them at nothing!? I noticed they'd done this with a few categories already, unless those have already switched to the free P&P as well.

 

Stuff like this just convinces me more and more that eBay don't want small/casual sellers and are only interested in businesses - and there's already loads of those online

[Squiggs]

eBay look at Amazon and get a green tinge to their view........

[Bonjon]

From a (mainly) buyers point of view this is great.

[al_partridge]

Very annoying for "smalltime" sellers such as myself. I always charged a very reasonable P&P cost for my auctions (mainly just DVDs and games) yet now find myself a quid out of pocket every time by having to pay the cost myself - not to mention the fact that sellers are forced to pay two lots of selling fees to Ebay and Paypal.

[Cynic]

Is the idea not just to included the P&P in the price? If it is a no reserve auction then as usual the ebay market will determine the final selling price. This should be higher than if P&P was included.

 

It should hopefully stop the buy it now items with 0.01 as the price and a really high P&P cost. We wanted to return something bought from one of those and they said fine but they wouldn't refund the P&P cost. So we would have only got a 1p refund!

[L00b]

Yes, but eBay charge extra on setting a reserve (last time I used a reserve price, which admittedly was a while ago).

 

Ideally, if forced to offer free P&P, a seller should be allowed to set a reserve free of charge for at least the value of the P&P (e.g. free up to a reserve of £2.50 or so on a DVD, for 1st class signed for P&P).

 

Like that's going to happen

It should hopefully stop the buy it now items with 0.01 as the price and a really high P&P cost. We wanted to return something bought from one of those and they said fine but they wouldn't refund the P&P cost. So we would have only got a 1p refund!

In fairness, you can work that out as the buyer before you bid/buy, from the auction/P&P values and the auction T&Cs.

Whereby you're free to buy it from another seller not using this pricing method instead, and avoid the problem.

(Cynic maybe, but not quite paranoid enough, I fear )

Edited June 25, 2009 by L00b

[Cynic]

Yes, but eBay charge extra on setting a reserve (last time I used a reserve price, which admittedly was a while ago).

 

Ideally, if forced to offer free P&P, a seller should be allowed to set a reserve free of charge for at least the value of the P&P (e.g. free up to a reserve of £2.50 or so on a DVD, for 1st class signed for P&P).

 

 

If in general people mainly use no reserve auctions then this does seem to work in eBay and the buyer's advantage rather than honest sellers.

[L00b]

If in general people mainly use no reserve auctions then this does seem to work in eBay and the buyer's advantage rather than honest sellers.

Of course.

 

Why do you think there has been such growing disenchantment, over the past few months particularly (reflected in specialist web/PC mag press), from those who 'made eBay' what it is today?

 

My account with eBay(.co.uk) is 10 years old this year, I have found myself using eBay (as a seller, but also as a buyer) less and less over the past 2 years. Too much hassle, too expensive and too prone to abuse by dishonest buyers and chancers, for private sellers.

 

No wonder eBay's feeling the pinch from Amazon: more often than not, stuff I'd usually get on eBay (as a buyer), I end up finding cheaper on Amazon, with better guarantees and less hassle.

Edited June 25, 2009 by L00b

[anarchist]

Of course Ebay want people to give free P&P but have a higher selling price as a result.

 

Ebay charge fees on the selling price but not P&P.

[Ouija]

From a (mainly) buyers point of view this is great.

 

On the face of it, you would think that, yes. But when you take into account that sellers will have to bump up the overall costs to compensate for the enforced free P&P I'm not so sure it is that great even for the buyers. Because now, not only is the P&P factored in, but most sellers will also add for the percentage of p&p that eBay take in the final value fee, plus what PayPal take in their percentage as well (as most buyers do use PayPal and all sellers are now forced to accept this method of payment).

Very annoying for "smalltime" sellers such as myself. I always charged a very reasonable P&P cost for my auctions (mainly just DVDs and games) yet now find myself a quid out of pocket every time by having to pay the cost myself - not to mention the fact that sellers are forced to pay two lots of selling fees to Ebay and Paypal.

 

Exactly how I felt about it. It may well be a cost that business sellers can absorb, but that's not the case for people who sell only a few items.

Is the idea not just to included the P&P in the price? If it is a no reserve auction then as usual the ebay market will determine the final selling price. This should be higher than if P&P was included.

Possibly that's one reason, but P&P for some sellers was given at cost, and not charged a final value percentage by eBay. Now a seller has to add that to the starting price otherwise they'd be paying people to buy from them. So the overall price actually raises to factor in the percentage eBay will take, which didn't used to be necessary.

It should hopefully stop the buy it now items with 0.01 as the price and a really high P&P cost. We wanted to return something bought from one of those and they said fine but they wouldn't refund the P&P cost. So we would have only got a 1p refund!

 

I can understand how that's a pain in the ****, however, I think that to deal with this issue a capped amount of P&P could have been implemented instead of forcing free postage on sellers.

 

I also was under the impression that the detailed feedback ratings that came in not so long ago where started in order to stop people taking the you know what with the postage charges.

 

I'm not saying some sellers didn't abuse the system, just that the reaction was over the top. Just as the removal of neg feedback for sellers was over the top. It's all very well creating a buyer's market, but if it puts people off selling, then there's nothing for the buyers to bid on. I've noticed myself, as both a buyer and seller (and more a buyer) that there are less things listed these days that I would consider bidding on because of the implementation of more and more restrictions on sellers.