A late ebay sale before the new regime kicked in was caught up in the new payment regime due to the buyer not paying until the 4th February. Auction value was £500 and to try and avoid any blow back I sent it yesterday special delivery by 1pm today. Unfortunately the buyer was not at home and delivery is noted as attempted only. Ebay will not release the payment as the buyer does not physically have the card in their hand and I am left without card or cash until they decide to collect it from the post office.

quote:

Originally posted by gmmk1964:
A late ebay sale before the new regime kicked in was caught up in the new payment regime due to the buyer not paying until the 4th February. Auction value was £500 and to try and avoid any blow back I sent it yesterday special delivery by 1pm today. Unfortunately the buyer was not at home and delivery is noted as attempted only. Ebay will not release the payment as the buyer does not physically have the card in their hand and I am left without card or cash until they decide to collect it from the post office.

At least you should only have to wait a day or two for the money to be available. One of my recent sales went to the States and took over four weeks to arrive going via a tracked and signed for route.

I've not read the full details of the new rules but I wonder if you fail to use a tracked route will you simply never get paid as there will be no record of any delivery ? If everything has to go via a tracked route, then low value sales are going to cease as they will no longer be viable.

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin F:
I've not read the full details of the new rules but I wonder if you fail to use a tracked route will you simply never get paid as there will be no record of any delivery ? If everything has to go via a tracked route, then low value sales are going to cease as they will no longer be viable.

I think you're supposed to get payment after 14 days if delivery hasn't been logged. Or no buyer has contested the transaction, so that's where the potential scammers can have some fun too, especially if the postie or courier has bad zapping skills to mark the item as delivered.

From several forums I've read that lots of sellers that were selling off comics and things for maybe £1-3 per item were saying the tracked postage requirement will kill off their sales. It's not worth them bothering.

Meanwhile, ebay holding onto your funds all these extra days, get a nice lot of interest accumulating on that money. How fortunate for them...

I've just sold a sketch to someone in the States and put it in the post using Royal Mail International Tracked and Signed For. Hopefully, I will have access to the resulting funds before the end of the current financial year

Update: to my surprise and amazement, the card reached the buyer on the 18th Feb ! So I can get at my money today

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kevin F, February 20, 2025 08:32 AM

One side effect of these new rules is how the prices now appear in listings. I don't know about others here in the UK but when I did a general search for something, i.e. not country specific, I could always spot overseas sellers because their prices never or rarely ended in '.99'. '.00' or '.50'. They were always some random seeming number due to the exchange rate being applied by eBay to show the price in GBPounds. Now every listing ends in this random number version/appearance due to the addition of the new buyers fees. Oh what fun

I sold a couple of things recently on Buy-It-Now and when you set up the price on the listing page, ebay showed me(in small little place above the box) what the total price would be at the price I set, so I fiddled around until my price was rounded off, to look less odd and on a whole number.
That all changes with best offer and gets a bit messy, but for a basic price-set it was helpful to hide/blend in and look less obviously 'private seller' in the listings.

I have noticed I am getting offers from the UK in amounts other than whole pounds like a card I had listed at £100 someone offered £76.23 .

Wondering if this is the bidder taking the Ebay buyers fee off or is it Ebay themselves doing it ? Offers from overseas are still in whole amounts .

quote:

Originally posted by Triple-Frog:
I have noticed I am getting offers from the UK in amounts other than whole pounds like a card I had listed at £100 someone offered £76.23 .

Wondering if this is the bidder taking the Ebay buyers fee off or is it Ebay themselves doing it ? Offers from overseas are still in whole amounts .

Yeah the UK offers are really screwy in amounts and I couldn't really work out what the person offered in the first place, even using the 4% + 75p thing. That part wasn't easy to work out and certainly not to think up a counter-offer. It takes a bit more thinking about... but the usual applies as to whether you accept an offer or not. But, yeah, it really threw me off too.
Edited to add: I still don't really know how those odd amounts are that odd, either.

Just started listing on ebay under the new rules for when sellers get funds and noticed all my auctions which were previously set to show free postage by me with Royal Mail had been changed to " simple delivery " automatically by Ebay without either asking or telling me .

I had to go in and individually change each auction back to what is now described as " custom postage " . I did this for all but two auctions where a bid had already been put in . I was curious to see what differences in payout this would cause for both me and the buyer .

For me as the seller the payout was exactly the same but for the buyer it cost him an extra £3.07 in postage that he would not have had to pay under the old system and that goes to Ebay and I would think does not cost them anything like that much to send. I assume this extra amount is priced into the starting bid amount on the auction page making the item less attractive than one where custom postage is used and the starting bid will be lower .

Also note I sold a couple of cards internationally and the buyer just paid the shipping twice so I refunded one lot and ebay took the money out of my balance not out of the pending amount so I have had to wait the 15 days for the money

Just done a couple of identical dummy listings to see how a live listing would look . The one with " custom postage " shows as free postage , the one with " simple postage " shows as £2.70 postage charge so no prizes which one a buyer will go for !

eBay really don't seem to like private sellers. According to a message I received from them a short time ago, 'Simple Delivery' will be the only delivery method available to them from 15th April here in the UK:

We’re continuing our mission to provide you with a great selling experience on eBay, which is why we made it free to sell. Now, we’re improving delivery so it’s faster, easier, and more secure for you to send your items.

Starting from 15 April, Simple Delivery will be the only delivery method available for private sellers when listing most items. There’ll be a few exceptions, such as low-priced, bulky items, and local pick-up, which aren’t eligible for Simple Delivery.

I am an International buyer and regardless of were or what or how much E Bay always wins with their GSP system. Buy a $1 card and pay $20-30 shipping seller dosent care as they only have to pay local shipping to E Bay local depot then the shipping expotentially rises to werever it is being shipped too I sometimes buy from a UK seller who charges 6 pound international shipping same package through E Bay GSP US $20 I thank them for not using this system.
With this in mind there should be no difference in local shipping they will still be on the winning side or if not find a way to extract more money for shipping.
I think I have said it before use their PWE with $20.00 and tracking system on smaller value items.
And any other system with $20 value but i have a fear that nowdays sellers have a FOMO even on a 10 cent base card.
While E Bay control things there will always be moans about how they do things
Remember no matter what they say or do like any other buisness and E Bay is a buisness only and always will have their own interests at heart and that is making money.

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin F:
eBay really don't seem to like private sellers. According to a message I received from them a short time ago, 'Simple Delivery' will be the only delivery method available to them from 15th April here in the UK:

We’re continuing our mission to provide you with a great selling experience on eBay, which is why we made it free to sell. Now, we’re improving delivery so it’s faster, easier, and more secure for you to send your items.

Starting from 15 April, Simple Delivery will be the only delivery method available for private sellers when listing most items. There’ll be a few exceptions, such as low-priced, bulky items, and local pick-up, which aren’t eligible for Simple Delivery.

You can still choose which carrier you prefer in the Posting Preferences, which is the only saving grace as I'll use no one but Royal Mail, plus they collect from my house for free, as I can't physically get to the PO any more. I also wouldn't trust Evri with any parcel, no matter the value! But, it looks like there may not be control over which form of that postage used, which is problematic, as some things are only safe using Special Delivery or Tracked24. If a buyer can just pick any old cheapest option, which I don't blame them with the cost and ebay taking a cut, then it puts the payment time in jeopardy, if at all. I usually use Tracked24, and I get my payment in 3 days, if they're going to pick an inferior service, then it will be the full 14 days before payment.
Ebay is almost a waste of time for private sellers now. I've only listed the occasional obscure collectable that I know will be searched out and usually sells, but anything else, is just not worth the hassle. Especially as they've also downgraded visibility for private sellers' listings and want you to buy one of their promotion packs just to get seen on the search pages. Get lost ebay!

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin F:
eBay really don't seem to like private sellers. According to a message I received from them a short time ago, 'Simple Delivery' will be the only delivery method available to them from 15th April here in the UK:

We’re continuing our mission to provide you with a great selling experience on eBay, which is why we made it free to sell. Now, we’re improving delivery so it’s faster, easier, and more secure for you to send your items.

Starting from 15 April, Simple Delivery will be the only delivery method available for private sellers when listing most items. There’ll be a few exceptions, such as low-priced, bulky items, and local pick-up, which aren’t eligible for Simple Delivery.

MY guess is this is a quick response to all the sellers like me who as I said above went into each auction and changed back to custom postage . Basically Ebay are forcing you to use the service that brings them the most profit .

In reality it means an end to free postage for buyers on items valued under £20 as sellers like me cannot afford to eat the extra cost of Ebays prices over what it costs me to do it myself down the post office .

I've had an purchase from ebay saying it's out for delivery last Friday and still not here and that's with the seller paying for "signed 48 hours" another purchase sent recorded delivery "lost".

Ok I have given my rant earlier on but what is Simple Delivery?

quote:

Originally posted by piko:
Ok I have given my rant earlier on but what is Simple Delivery?

From 15th April it will be the only option for private sellers sending items within the UK , international postage is not affected . Essentially the seller has to use one of two companies ( Evri or Royal Mail ) at prices set by Ebay with the option to cover the costs yourself as the seller or pass them on to the buyer .

There is one exemption I just found out about which I will be making full use of and that is items under £10 weighing less than 100g .

quote:

Originally posted by Triple-Frog:
From 15th April it will be the only option for private sellers sending items within the UK , international postage is not affected . Essentially the seller has to use one of two companies ( Evri or Royal Mail ) at prices set by Ebay with the option to cover the costs yourself as the seller or pass them on to the buyer .

There is one exemption I just found out about which I will be making full use of and that is items under £10 weighing less than 100g .

Useful to know about that low value item exemption. Thanks for posting it.

One thing I have noticed about international sales for private sellers. It isn't entirely free. eBay tack on a 2.5% fee. From my most recent US sale:

International Fee

Charged because the delivery address is in United States.

So basically just a rip off charge

Edit: that should be 2.5% + 20% VAT which just makes it an even bigger rip off

there you are .
E Bay doing what they do best
Money Grabbing