Does eBay still do zero commission offers?

[steve_sordy]

I am doing a bike build for my grandson and I will have a load of stuff to sell afterwards. eBay used to send me offers on a regular basis that were not only no selling fees (now standard), but also zero commission! In other words, I got to keep all of the selling price! The money I will make goes to reduce the total cost to my grandson, it's not for me!

I have not seen of these offers since they went to the "no selling fees" basis as standard. But I don't use eBay much. Has anyone seen any such offers recently?

 

[cozzy]

No. Plus fees have come back under another name.

 

[GDAS]

there are no fees for private sellers on ebay - neither listing fees nor final value fees.
But, a private seller can't list a bike under the category for ebikes. However, people are circumventing that by listing ebikes under the category for bikes.

 

[steve_sordy]

there are no fees for private sellers on ebay - neither listing fees nor final value fees.
But, a private seller can't list a bike under the category for ebikes. However, people are circumventing that by listing ebikes under the category for bikes.

Thank you @GDAS , that is very clear, I think!
If I was to sell a fork for £200 + £20 p&p, total £220, eBay would charge me nothing and I would get the full £220 from the buyer?

Just out of interest, how do eBay make money from private sellers?

I understand your point about eBikes.

 

[GDAS]

Thank you @GDAS , that is very clear, I think!
If I was to sell a fork for £200 + £20 p&p, total £220, eBay would charge me nothing and I would get the full £220 from the buyer?

Just out of interest, how do eBay make money from private sellers?

I understand your point about eBikes.

Correct, ebay would charge you nothing. However, ebay would leave the money in your account, in the hope that you will then spend it on ebay (and perhaps buy items from business sellers, who incur fees). Even if you choose to withdraw the money from your ebay account to your linked current account, ebay won't let you do that until a certain number of days have passed (I've forgotten the specifics but I'm sure you can find it in their T&Cs).

My instant reaction is that they seem to have given up rather a lot - in your example, if you weren't using a promotional offer, I think you would have previously paid £22 final value fees. Which is a lot more than they're now going to earn by keeping your money in their bank, presumably earning interest, for a few days.

But, I'm sure they have some sound reasoning.

 

[Tooks]

Basically, the buyer now pays the fees in private sales.

So, to keep using the £200 forks example, you would list them for £200, and if sold you would get £200, but the buyer would have seen (and paid) a slightly higher price that included fees to eBay.

So, your £200 pair of forks would actually be listed for sale at £208.55 (+3.9% +0.75p) the increase being called a ‘buyers protection fee’. You might have noticed lots of odd priced things on eBay now.

Postage is separate I think.

As a seller, you also only get paid 2 days after the item is delivered to the buyer.

That’s my take on it anyway, but haven’t sold on eBay for a while.

 

[TommyC]

Rules have just changed again.

The above is true. The ‘seller fee’ went last year. Now it’s a ‘buyers fee’ which is 75p +4% for items up to £300, 2% over that. You now only get paid 2 days after buyer receives it if it’s tracked delivery. If untracked its 14 days!

Business sellers are still on the old rules. Average 12% sellers fee, no buyers fee added and paid out daily.

 

[RustyIron]

The money I will make goes to reduce the total cost to my grandson, it's not for me!

I know this isn't what you asked, but I can never pass up the opportunity to badmouth eBay, PayPal, and their shifty practices.

There's a lot of geography between you and me, so maybe my own experiences won't apply. But around here, Facebook Marketplace is pretty reliable. So are apps for your phone. There are a few, but I've used OfferUp. Lastly, Pinkbike has a pretty good classified ad section.

If I've managed to steer you away from eBay, then my work is complete.

 

[steve_sordy]

I know this isn't what you asked, but I can never pass up the opportunity to badmouth eBay, PayPal, and their shifty practices.

There's a lot of geography between you and me, so maybe my own experiences won't apply. But around here, Facebook Marketplace is pretty reliable. So are apps for your phone. There are a few, but I've used OfferUp. Lastly, Pinkbike has a pretty good classified ad section.

If I've managed to steer you away from eBay, then my work is complete.

I never liked eBay's high fees, not one bit. But they used to be the only game in town. I also didn't like the way that if the buyer complains, the money comes straight off the seller and the seller has to justify himself to get his money back.
On a foreign sale (UK to Italy), using eBay's transit warehouse, the buyer reported that the package had not arrived and the payment was returned to him and taken from me. I had to prove that the package went into the eBay warehouse and that they or their carrier had lost it. Only then did I get my money back. That took weeks.

Now that eBay are effectively charging the buyer instead of the seller, will their focus shift even more heavily towards favouring the buyer?

Sorry @RustyIron you have failed. I have a load of stuff to get rid of and now I know it's free, as in zero charge, I will be selling as fast as I can establish what the hell it is that I've got.

 

[RustyIron]

the money comes straight off the seller and the seller has to justify himself to get his money back.

you have failed. I have a load of stuff to get rid of and now I know it's free, as in zero charge, I will be selling as fast as I can

Well at least I warned you. If they steal your money, my conscious will be clear. My experience was similar to yours. The deal was also with some clown in another country. The difference was that I never got my money back. The funny thing is, I expressly stated that I wouldn't ship outside the U.S. But the *0çşuč&ẽr begged me to send it. I'm still bitter about the whole thing.

 

[steve_sordy]

Well at least I warned you. If they steal your money, my conscious will be clear. My experience was similar to yours. The deal was also with some clown in another country. The difference was that I never got my money back. The funny thing is, I expressly stated that I wouldn't ship outside the U.S. But the *0çşuč&ẽr begged me to send it. I'm still bitter about the whole thing.

Bummer! A riding buddy who was obsessive about keeping his fork in tip-top condition sold it on eBay. The buyer complained to eBay that it was faulty. So eBay refunded the buyer and the buyer returned the fork at my mate's expense. When he got it back it, as reported, didn't work. But that was because the fork internals were from a different fork! Some of his mates said that you know where he lives, go sort him out. Trouble was, my mate had a very high security job where any infringement of the law would have lost him his job. He was very bitter about it all.

I was selling a bike and I got an offer from a guy in Aberystwyth, which is about as far away from where I live as possible without being in Northern Scotland. He claimed to be a student who could not come and pick it up in term time, but that he would pay me £300 to hold the bike for two months until he could come for it and pay the rest. Then before he paid me £300, he said "I don't know who you are I need some proof". He wanted my bank account, sort code, ISBN number, passport number and more! I told him to naff off. It' can be a dog-eat dog world out there. But mostly everyone is fine. The guy I bought the Orange Five frame from (reported earlier "squashed headtube") was a decent guy, did everything I could want.

 

[RustyIron]

He wanted my bank account, sort code, ISBN number, passport number and more! I told him to naff off. It' can be a dog-eat dog world out there. But mostly everyone is fine.

At the risk of getting banned for another rambling off-topic post, let me tell you about the time I sold one of my old desktop computers. I put it up for $400, which was a fair deal. A young gentleman called me up and wanted to buy it. He said he'd come by at 6:00 p.m. Great!

Six o'clock came and went. Around 6:30, the kid called up and said his GPS indicated an 8:00 ETA. He apologized, saying he didn't realize how far it was between his home in Northridge and my house in La Habra. I thought, "WTF? You're driving from Northridge on a Friday evening at quitting time???" But I told him no problem.

At 8:00, two kids came rolling up. I forget their names, but we'll call them Bill and Ted. Bill was really very excited to be able to get the computer. He was telling me about how he's training to be a fireman and his volunteer work. Rookie firemen here often start off at volunteer fire departments. Then he went into how his little sister sat on his laptop and ruined it, and how he needs a computer to do his work. It was the sort of story you'd expect from a young guy. But as annoying as young guys can be, I kind of liked this pair. They seemed ok and were amusing.

So we agreed on the $400 price tag, and all was good. Then Bill said... "Can I give you a check?" Clearly, these kids hadn't yet learned how men do business. I told him that I'd prefer cash, and the two of them went into some song and dance about how they could go home, get some money from the bank, and come back tomorrow. By this time I wanted to pour myself a whiskey and watch tv, so I acquiesced. "Just give me the check, but you have to promise me it's good!" They assured me it was good. "Ok, give me the check."

So Bill handed me the check. It was made out to "CASH" and was from some guy named Jerry Thompson!
"Who is Jerry Thompson?!"
"Oh, that's Ted's dad."
"And you have a check from his account made out to CASH?"
"Yeah"
"Hold on. I'm calling your dad."

So I called the dad, and asked if he knew Bill and Ted. In a cautious tone, he admitted, "Yeah..." I explained what they were up to. In an exasperated tone, he said he paid Bill $400 for something, and he indeed wrote out the check. He sounded like an adult father of a teenager, so I sympathized with him.

By then I found the whole situation pretty funny. I didn't doubt the kid really did need the computer. Either these guys were unbelievably naive to think that a grown-up would do business in this manner, or had giant balls thinking they could scam someone with such an absurd ruse.

Regardless, I decided to take the check. It's not like $400 bucks is the most I've ever gambled and lost. At the end of the day, the check cashed, I got my money, and the kid got his computer. Everyone won.