Cycling UK Forum

I've not had an offer to list on eBay with discounted fees for ages. Used to get sell for £1 offers and similar. Is it just me or have they stopped doing it for everyone? Strangely I keep getting monthly statements saying I owe them 35p but they haven't bothered collecting the money from my account.

I had an 80% off fees offer last weekend.
You normally need to sell things reasonably regularly otherwise the offers stop coming. I'd had a long period off there a year ago so I listed a few small items to "reactivate" my account and waited for some special offers before I listed a more expensive item.

The 80% off fees deal is normally every other weekend.

Thanks. I'll list some small items and wait to see if it reactivates offers after a bit.

It means sellers create lots of empty "coming soon" listings to lock in the offer. Very annoying.

Strange, here in Germany I have never paid fees to eBay for selling, right from the first item about a year ago.

plancashire wrote: ↑1 Apr 2024, 7:32pm Strange, here in Germany I have never paid fees to eBay for selling, right from the first item about a year ago.

How do they make money?

I assume eBay makes money from some people who use the system. The paying people are attracted by a big marketplace. That's what I am doing: increasing the size of the marketplace. I mean, folk are rushing to buy my used lampshades, garden hammock and mah jong set.

eBay also makes some money with extra services. I could pay to "advertise" my junk. If I were not more alert, I would have paid eBay a premium to prepare the posting labels for me which I can buy for no extra cost directly from DHL and Hermes.

plancashire wrote: ↑1 Apr 2024, 7:32pm Strange, here in Germany I have never paid fees to eBay for selling, right from the first item about a year ago.

Thats madness. UK final value fees are approaching 13%

rogerzilla wrote: ↑2 Apr 2024, 7:17am

plancashire wrote: ↑1 Apr 2024, 7:32pm Strange, here in Germany I have never paid fees to eBay for selling, right from the first item about a year ago.

How do they make money?

Vinted doesn't charge sellers any fee.
(I don't have any other opinions about vinted-vs-eBay !)

I remember using eBay 20 years ago and the fees were only 3% back then. As pointed out above they are now getting close to 13%. People defending it argue that auction houses charge far more, but fail to acknowledge that there's a lot more cost in doing that, compared to hosting one web page like eBay does when you sell something. eBay is worth over £20 Billion so they sort of are making money lol

"Network effect". People use eBay because everyone uses eBay. Then they can charge what they like, as it is near-impossible for new entrants.

And they have introduced an additional compulsory fee, the regulatory operating fee! ????? Another compounded 0.35%. No wonder people are switching to FB marketplace.