eBay France gives private sellers free auction listings

No primary category set

27 Aug 2009

that from 9th September, private sellers will no longer pay insertion fees for auctions starting at €1 or less. At the same time, FVFs will be raised* to 7% of the final sale price, up to a maximum of €21.

Some categories – basically, all the vehicles’ categories – are excluded, so do check before you list.

eBay France has been on a mission recently to attract more private sellers. The newest redesign of their home page has lost the colourful burst of shopping that most other eBay sites have, in favour of a dull and cheap-looking push of their free classified ads. eBay has always struggled a little in France compared to the UK or Germany, perhaps because the country already has a very well-established network of “depots ventes” – second-hand warehouses where people can sell unwanted items for a commission. I’m not convinced that trying to look like a classified ads newspaper is really going to bring the buyers flooding in, though I’d love to be proved wrong.

* For completeness’ sake, I’ll record that FVFs were
6.5% of the sale price up to €50
4.5% of the sale price between €50 and €500
2.5% of the sale price over €500